Monday Morning (You Look so Fine).  Thought I'd kick off the week with a relatively obscure Fleetwood Mac lyric.  Monday is a pretty quiet day in the education world, with only one committee meeting to go along with the House and Senate floor sessions where bills are introduced.  Today's meeting in the Senate E-12 Finance Committee featured presentations from a variety of Career and Technical Education programs from around the state.  The testimony from each of the groups was similar, with a special point made by the business owners who presented that they are having trouble finding workers.  One of the on-going problems that seems to be related to this whole issue (and it was mentioned today) is that some segments of the business community seem to constantly push for more and more testing while others point out that they need workers.  While there is some congruence between the two viewpoints, I have yet to be convinced that forcing high school juniors to take (and re-take and re-take) a mathematics examination that tests skills that they will never use.  It was pointed out by one of the groups testifying that one of the barriers preventing more students from being able to enroll in career and technical programs is that they have to devote more time to clearing up problems on the academic side of their school ledgers.  Hopefully, some of these things can be ironed out because there are a lot of very good jobs waiting for students who could take care of a good portion of their post-secondary career training while still in high school.

BILL INTRODUCTIONS

House

HF 602-S. Anderson-Makes Pre-Kindergarten Expenses Eligible for the Minnesota Education Tax Credit

HF 625-Youakim-Increases Community Education Basic Formula

HF 627-Peterson-Increases Referendum Equalization

HF 640-Davnie-Establishes Professional Educators Standards Board

HF 646-Bennett-Appropriates Money for Minnesota Reading Corps

HF 652-Kresha-Allows School District to Renew a Food Services Agreement Three Additional Times

HF 654-Drazkowski-Limits Election Days for Some Voter-Approved Levies

HF 668-Daniels-Creates Position of Dyslexia Specialist in the Minnesota Department of Education

Senate

SF 442-P. Anderson-Appropriates Money for Minnesota Math Corps

SF 443-Nelson-Appropriates Money for Minnesota Reading Corps

SF 453-Chamberlain-Creates Position of Dyslexia Specialist in the Minnesota Department of Education

SF 468-Utke-Requires Personal Learning Plan for Students Not Reading at Grade Level by Third Grade

SF 489-Nelson-Makes Compensatory Pilot Project Permanent

SF 494-Lang-qualifyies Specific On-site Education Programs Located at a Care and Treatment Facility as Learning Year Programs