Thursday, March 19, 2015

Not a Ton to Report.  All three education-related committees met and none of them met into the night, which was somewhat unexpected.  The House Education Policy Committee finished its work on the House omnibus education policy bill within its morning meeting time frame.  Rather than offer a raft of amendments one at a time, the Democrats offered an alternative version of the bill that contained a number of measures in the committee bill, but departed from what the majority has put together on a number of items, particularly in the area of teacher tenure.  The House Education Innovation Policy Committee has now finished most of its work, but will hear a few bills that met deadline in the Senate and will be traveling through the process outside the omnibus bill framework.

Things were a mite slower in the Senate, as they couldn't finish their work on their version of the omnibus education policy bill in the allotted time and will now meet tomorrow.  The bill will have to be approved by 11:59 tomorrow evening and I will be curious to see how long the committee will go.  The meeting will begin at 8:00 AM and run until 10:30 AM.  If the bill is not finished by 10:30 AM, the committee will return at 3:00 PM and work until they are done.  Discussion appears to be going more deliberately and the minority caucus can always find something to try to amend (that's the nature of the business).  There was a bit of a surprise today when an amendment offered by Senator Gary Dahms that would expand the scope of the use of community experts in agricultural education.  It's rare that an amendment offered by a member of the minority caucus makes it into the bill, but a couple of DFLers joined the Republicans in supporting the amendment.

That's about it for today.

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