Two inevitable subjects seemed to pop up during Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s visit to the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce General Membership Luncheon last Wednesday. One, the rumors of his vice presidential potential: That question, Pawlenty quietly deflected, noting that he hadn’t been asked, didn’t expect to be asked and was happy with his current position. This being a meeting with a packed ballroom of mostly business professionals, a question related Minnesota’s high tax status also came up. For that response, Pawlenty turned the discussion back to his main focus of the day, education: “If you’re not going to be the biggest place, and you’re not going to be the cheapest place, then you got to be the smartest place,” he said, adding that’s why education is so important.He added, we don’t have to be the cheapest place, but Minnesota also can’t price itself so far out of range on the competitive spectrum.“You can’t price yourself out of the market.”The main focus of Pawlenty’s address to the chamber was neither on taxes nor national politics but rather the changes on the horizon for education.

“I believe that the disruptive effects of technology are about to be visited into education to a degree and in a manner that is going to mimic the way that technology has invaded and destroyed and recreated entire sectors of our economy already,” he said.

In conversations he’s had with one university president, he’s heard predictions that, 10 years into the future, more students will receive their degree over the Internet than through a traditional on-campus setting.

What Minnesota needs is to begin to strategically reposition its institutions “to be designed for the future, not to be designed for the past,” he said.

These institutions were designed a long time ago, designed for a “bygone economy,” he noted.

“We have a great opportunity to lead the change.”

Pawlenty noted, in the debate on how to improve education, it usually boils down to how much money you’ll put in.

Along with addressing increased costs, people also have to ask these institutions to reform and streamline “and be more accountable.”

He noted Eden Prairie “does extremely well.

“You have an extraordinary school system.”

Eden Prairie is also part of the Governor’s Quality Compensation system, a form of teacher pay based on performance.

Pawlenty said they must make sure that “we also push further the transition of how we pay people [in] education from a seniority-based system to a performance system.”

Along with performance pay, he advocated for differential pay, paying more for science and math teachers to address the shortage in that area.

Additionally, he touted the need to allow professionals to enter teaching at any point in their lives, a system of leaving room for alternative pathways into teaching.

The reasons for this reform? “We are not attracting the kinds of people that we need into teaching,” he said.

Additionally, Pawlenty said we have to embed technology more deeply and broadly into education systems. The 1950s, one-size-fits-all assembly line method is not how students absorb information and communicate, he said.

“They learn and absorb and communicate in a digital world.”

Pawlenty’s address also gave a quick note to energy reform.

He said we cannot confront the challenges of time with the country’s current energy portfolio.

“We have to diversify our energy sources, and grow them and Americanize them.”