Governor's Bill Presented, Supported, and Questioned.  The House Education Funding Committee heard HF 1065 (Davnie) this morning and the bill was presented in its entirety by Minnesota Department of Education Deputy Commissioner Heather Mueller, Director of School Finance Terri Yetter, and Director of Government Affairs Adosh Unni.  They did a comprehensive job explaining the bill and they did it in rapid fire fashion, which allowed for a considerable amount of public testimony supporting the bill.  In addition to support for the more basic elements of the bill  (basic formula increase, special education cross-subsidy hold harmless aid, increase in the English Language formula, and a healthy increase in property tax equalization combined with simplification of the levy framework), witnesses voiced support for proposals like the student support personnel aid program and student mental health supports.  There is a lot in the bill, which elicited questioning from Republicans on the committee who believe the bill is too large and contains too many programs that don't address basic student and school district needs and instead goes in other directions.  There are new programs that can be framed as mandates in the bill (and also in the Governor's policy bill) and it will be interesting to see what survives the process this session.  There are clearly different visions of Minnesota's education future between the caucuses both in the House and Senate and between the branches of government, so it's going to make for an interesting ride.

I want to thank St. Michael-Albertville Superintendent Ann-Marie Foucault for testifying on behalf of SEE, MREA, AMSD, MSBA, and MASA in favor of the equalization sections of the Governor's bill.  As superintendent of a low property wealth district with a high debt service load, Superintendent Foucault knows firsthand the funding challenges that districts with that profile face and how taxpayer fairness is needed to help level the playing field both in terms of funding and taxpayer burden,

Big day tomorrow with the announcement of the February budget forecast, which will provide a picture of the fiscal confines that will dictate legislative action from here until May (or June . . . or July).

Wondrous Wednesday.  Wednesday is always the busiest day in the education universe at the State Capitol, with House and Senate K-12 committees all meeting at their appointed times.  The House Education Finance Committee took up two bills that had been passed up to them after gaining approval of the House Education Policy Committee last week.  Representative Cheryl Youakim's HF 378 would provide funding for paid training for paraprofessionals working in Minnesota schools and Representative Fue Lee's HF 786 would fund after-school community academic programs.  The bills were laid over for possible inclusion in the omnibus education funding bill and no funding amounts are contained in the bill at this time.  The bills appear to have fairly strong support in the majority caucus, so it won't be surprising if these proposals have some presence in the House's omnibus bill.  The question will be over how much money may be dedicated to these efforts and we aren't clear on what level of revenue will be available moving forward.  Things will likely be clearer after the February budget forecast is released on Friday.

The House Education Policy tackled the Governor's Policy Bill--HF 950 (Richardson)--and spent the entire committee time discussing the bill.  The bill is approximately 80 pages, which isn't overly large for a policy bill, but it does contain some fairly sweeping recommendations that proponents view as necessary upgrades to Minnesota's education system while others view them as onerous mandates.  The bill features the changes in student suspension policies that have been hotly-debated the last few sessions.  The primary goal of this provision is to combat the disproportional suspension rates for students of color and special education students.  Another section of the bill calls for the implementation of multi-tiered systems of support; a framework that has been picking up steam nationally.  The bill was laid over for possible inclusion in the committee's omnibus recommendations that will be constructed over the next two weeks.  Much of this bill will likely be contained in that later package, but the committee may not accept all of it.

The last committee of the day was the Senate Education Finance and Policy Committee and the committee concentrated on a variety of initiatives related to teachers with most of the concentration on increasing the number of teachers of color in Minnesota.  SF 446 (Abeler) The Increase Teachers of Color Act and SF 526 (Koran) The Black Men Teach Twin Cities Program zero in on the goal of getting more people of color into Minnesota's teaching ranks and keeping them there.  Senator Julia Coleman's SF 781 is not as direct in promoting increasing the number of teachers of color, but it does propose a set of bargaining and hiring changes that may prevent teachers of color from being laid off due to lack of seniority.  This bill eliminates the practice of last-in/first-out, which made it the most controversial bill of the day (if anything in the initial stages of legislative discussion truly be described as controversial).  Senator Roger Chamberlain's SF 784 requires all school districts to establish a teacher mentoring program and use district staff development dollars to implement and maintain it.  The companion to this bill--HF 561 (Urdahl)--has been heard in the House.  SF 819 (Dornink), a bill that would create a pilot program for short-call substitute teachers was also heard.  The Human Resources Director for the Austin School District (Go SEE members!) testified in favor and made a compelling case as to why policy surrounding short-call substitute teachers need to be revised due to the extreme shortage in substitute teachers.

Two-Bill Tuesday.  The House Education Funding Committee was the only education-related committee that met today and they covered two bills during their hearing.  The first bill--HF 1024 (Pinto)--would create a cabinet-level Department of Early Childhood.  The new department would transfer some employee complement from the departments of Human Services, Education, and Health and put them under one administrative roof.  If the bill is passed and signed by the Governor, the new agency would take effect January 1, 2023.  While few, if any, of the current legislative roster were around in the early-1990s when the Department of Children, Families, and Learning was created and many of the same employee transfers took place.  That agency last about a decade before it was split apart during the Pawlenty Administration with the various employees and state program jurisdictions returned to their original agencies.  This initiative somewhat deviates from that effort in that it creates a single new agency instead of adding onto an existing agency (Education) from other agencies (Human Services and Health).  A case can be made that creating an agency that would give parents of young children a one-stop agency instead of having to deal with programs that are funded in one budget and administered by a different agency is a good idea, but there will also be pushback from those who believe these programs can be streamlined (or reassigned) to cut through some of the confusion that is currently experienced.  The committee approved the bill and sent it on its way to its next committee.

The committee then turned to a bill that is already moving in the Senate.  HF 288 (Edelson) would create a grant program that would allocate $1 million in each of the next two years to school districts to provide staff development in the LETRS (Language Essentials for Teacher of Reading and Spelling).  The success of this scientifically-based reading program is well documented and it appears to have strong support in both the House and Senate.  I neglected to include the LETRS website when I wrote about the Senate hearing on this bill, so I will do that here:  LETRS

Monday, Monday. The House Education Policy Committee and the Senate Education Finance and Policy Committee met today and both hearings were interesting.  The House Education Policy Committee featured a presentation by a number of agricultural interests stressing the importance of Agriculture in the Classroom initiatives.  Agriculture continues to play a large role in the Minnesota economy. While the number of people actively involved in day-to-day farming has decreased over the decades, the food industry remains very strong and that fact was stressed mightily throughout the presentation.  Another angle that was brought up and discussed was how in an era where more and more of Minnesota's population lives in urban and suburban communities it is important that Minnesota students are exposed to the "food cycle" to gain a more comprehensive understanding of where their food comes from and the work required to put food on the table of Minnesotans.  

The committee then moved to Representative Urdahl's HF 562 , a bill that would require Civics be taught as a course (instead of standards) in 11th or 12th grade in Minnesota high schools.  The bill also would give students the option of studying either personal finance or economics and not both.  Representative Urdahl has been working on this bill for a number of years and the arguments do make some sense.  There are always issues surrounding when Civics should be taught (most Minnesota schools do it in 9th or 10th grade) and what some consider to be a diminished ability of students to take electives if another course is formally wedged into the curriculum.  The other part of the bill that provides a choice between economics and personal finance is a little trickier seeing that Minnesota social studies standards cover both of these subjects and the standards are often embedded into classes as opposed to being taught as stand-alone subjects. The case for more attention to social studies in general--and perhaps Civics in particular--has been building over the past decade and complications notwithstanding, it will be interesting to see where the discussion goes this year.

The Senate tackled four bills:

SF 707 (Nelson)--This is the bill that provides grants to the 12 education partnerships that exist throughout Minnesota.  These partnerships--heard earlier in the session in the House as HF 156--have been vitally important during the pandemic as they have helped families in a wide variety of ways with a focus of helping students academically and meeting their basic needs.

SF 987 (Dornink)--Legislation that would require recipients of legislative grants to provide data analysis outlining the results obtained from the grant.

SF 628 (Chamberlain)--This bill would require school districts to administer the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments tests this spring whether the students are still in distance learning or not.  The argument for the bill is that it is extremely important to obtain baseline data for students who have not been in formal classroom settings for much--if not all--of the past year.  The argument against is that the scores won't mean that much and that it will be extremely difficult for school districts to implement the tests.

SF 859 (Hoffman)--This bill was introduced last session, but like so much legislation it fell by the wayside as the pandemic forced the Legislature into hybrid mode.  Under the bill, families could negotiate with school districts to have the private duty nurse that provides health supports to their medically fragile child to accompany their child to school and perform the same services in that setting.  It seems straightforward, but as we all know, when it comes to special education law, nothing is straight forward.  Advocates and providers have worked to come to a compromise over the past year, but there are still several outstanding issues to be resolved, most of them around the status of Federal law as it pertains to these potential arrangements.

In the spirit of today's blog title, let's jump in the Wayback Machine and set the date to 1966 and listen to the Mamas and the Papas on Ed Sullivans really be "shoe" singing "Monday, Monday."

First Education Floor Action.  There's been some major legislation passed of the floor of a legislative body this session, but today was the first time that an education-related bill has been acting upon.  The Senate passed SF 2 by a vote of 40-27.  I have not seen the roll call, but given the final vote, it's apparent that several DFLers supported the bill.  The bill is very straightforward in that it prohibits the Governor, current and future, from closing schools through an emergency order.  Passage was expected, but the bill's path likely ends here as it is highly doubtful it will get out of committee in the House of Representatives.  That doesn't mean that COVID and the state's response to COVID won't remain high-profile subjects throughout the 2021 legislative session.  I am not surprised, but it is a little disappointing seeing that there was agreement shortly after the election on a substantial COVID relief package that there isn't a more unified approach on how to move forward. 

New Guidance on School Opening.  Governor Walz issued new guidance regarding getting schools back to normal with an expectation that all middle and high school students will be back in the classroom by March 8.  Many districts have already been bringing students back in and this should accelerate that process.  There will likely be some tricky adjustments as spelled out in the guidance, but this go-ahead is what parents and school personnel have been hoping for.

Here is a link to the Minnesota Department of Education's guidance on the re-opening:  Prioritizing In-Person Learning for All Students

Single Education-Related Committee Today.  The House Education Finance Committee was the only education-related meeting today.  The committee heard two bills:  HF 587 and HF 725.  HF 587 (Murphy) is the full service community bill that has been considered the past few sessions and is contained in the Governor's budget recommendations.  HF 725 (Youakim) would expand extended time revenue for districts for every student they place in a facility offering mental health services, juvenile justice services, or related programming.  District 287 Superintendent Sandy Lewandowski provided concise and insightful testimony on the challenges faced by students and service providers who face a situation that necessitates such a placement and how HF 725 would be helpful.  

Wednesday Tripleheader.   The day led off with the House Education Finance Committee hearing Representative Paul Marquart's HF 498, a bill that would allow districts to include in their Long Term Facilities Maintenance levy costs associated with maintenance at cooperative units (intermediate districts, cooperatives, joint powers agreements) to which they belong.

The action then moved to the House Education Policy Committee in the early afternoon.  The committee covered three bills, the first being Representative Cheryl Youakim's HF 378.  HF 378 would establish a minimum of 16 hours of training for paraprofessionals, Title I aides, and other instructional support personnel, with 8 of these hours needing to be completed prior to the first day of school.  The bill provides for funding of this training and the bill was re-referred to the Education Finance Committee after passing on a split vote on which several, but not all, Republicans voted against it.  The committee then moved to HF 469, Representative Kelly Moller's bill that would require seizure training for school personnel and require school districts to have a seizure action plan.  The testimony in favor of the bill was quite moving and it's a testament to the students who suffer from seizure disorders and their parents for their fortitude in dealing with the challenging medical effects related to seizures.  The committee ended by considering HF 786, a bill authored by Representative Fue Lee that would modify and fund after-school academic programs.  As in the case of HF 378, because the bill calls for funding, it now will head to the Education Finance Committee.

The day ended with a whirlwind session of the Senate Education Finance and Policy Committee.  SF 790 would provide funding for the Sanneh Foundation.  Senator Zack Duckworth is the chief author of the bill.  The committee then turned to all of the Governor's recommendations that are carried in three bills that have been introduced:  

SF 973 (Chamberlain)--Governor's "Summer" Bill

SF 960 (Chamberlain)--Governor's Budget Recommendations

SF 788 (Chamberlain)--Minnesota Department of Education Policy Bill

Minnesota Department of Education staff went through the highlights of the budget at a brisk pace and testimony on the provisions was quite limited.

 Governor's "Summer" Bill Heard in House Education Finance Committee.  The House Education Finance Committee heard HF 1064 this morning.  The lion's share of the bill provides assistance to students who have been adversely affected by the state's transition to hybrid and distance learning through a variety of educational opportunities,  Here is a breakdown of those funding initiatives:

• $5 million for community partnerships for tutoring and mentoring programs.  Eligible programs include school districts, charter schools, intermediate districts, and cooperative units.  Maximum grant amount is $100,000.
• $3.25 million for expanded tutoring.  Same programs eligible as with community partnerships.  Maximum grant amount is $200,000.
• $1 million for mental health supports.  School districts and charter schools eligible.
• $10 million for field trips and hands-on learning experiences.  School districts and charter schools eligible.  Revenue distributed per ADM and concentration of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch.
• $10 million for Adult Basic Education.
• $5 million for neighborhood programs.
• $20 million for Summer pre-school programs.  Grant amount of up to $4,800 per student,
• $6 million for Summer college program for graduating seniors.  Grant amount of up to $512 per course.
• $6 million for School-Linked Mental Health Program.
• $1.025 million to the Office of Higher Education for learning acceleration and college readiness initiatives and to combat learning loss of historically underserved students.
• $25 million to school districts who have lost enrollment due to the pandemic by increasing the percentage in the declining pupil aid program from 25% to 48.5%.

The funding for all these programs comes in FY 21 and the programs run for this summer only.  It is hoped that this bill will be passed early in the session so that education providers can plan to implement the programs outlined in HF 1064 smoothly.

There was a lot of testimony in support of the bill, both written and presented.  The companion to HF 1064--SF 973--will be heard in the Senate Education Finance and Policy Committee tomorrow along with the Governor's budget recommendations and the Department of Education's policy bill.  Full day ahead.

Flying Through a Monday.  I'm always reminded on days like these when the temperature flirts with 20 degrees below zero that as bad as I think the weather is treating me when my car won't start, I can't imagine my father having to get up at 3:30 in the morning and taking an axe to the ice in the water trough outside our barn so the cows could drink.

It's President's Day and there's no mail, but the Legislature still meets and held floor sessions and committee meetings today.  The House Education Policy Committee had an abbreviated session today and took up two bills that were knocked off the agenda last week when the committee went overtime on the comprehensive sex education bill.  The bills considered today are both authored by Republicans.  Representative Dean Urdahl's HF 561 would require that school districts set aside a portion of the current staff development reserve fund and invest the revenue into teacher mentorship programs.  Under the bill, the Minnesota Department of Education in consultation with education groups must develop a model plan for teacher mentorship and provide funding for its implementation.  The committee then moved on to HF 351, a bill authored by Representative Peggy Scott that would suspend the current academic standards review process and have the Commissioner of Education report back to the Legislature in 2022 with findings as to if the standards review process should be revised and, if so, how it should be revised.

Action then crossed the street (if there is such a concept as a street in the universe of distance-legislating) with the Senate tackling four bills during its committee hearing.  First up was Senator Roger Chamberlain's SF 627, which would slightly increase the safe schools revenue category, equalize the levy, and would extend safe schools revenue to the intermediate districts and cooperative units.  The committee turned to Senator Justin Eichorn's SF 925.  SF 925 would expand eligibility for counseling services provided to nonpublic schools to include elementary school students.  Private schools have long qualified for state aid for counseling services, but those services are only available to secondary level students.  Informal discussion of SF 1012--another bill authored by Senator Chamberlain--then took place.  Earlier in the session, the committee heard from experts and parents about the negative effects of social media on students.  SF 1012 would provide a grant to the non-profit LiveMoreScreenLess to identify a network of partners to help develop and implement a train-the-trainer model to help combat cyberbullying and other aspects of social media that are damaging students.  Capping off the hearing was Senator Cwodzinski's SF 237, which would limit the allowable screen use by students in Pre-K and Kindergarten classrooms.  Under the bill, students in those levels could not use a screen unless under direct engagement with a teacher.  The bill also calls for the Minnesota Department of Education to contract for the production of educational materials that would inform parents of the effects screen use on children.

Single Hearing Today.  Only one education-related hearing on the docket today and the House Education Funding Committee heard two bills.  The first of these--HF 292 (Frazier)--would allow school districts to renew expiring referendum levies provided there is no increase in the levy amount or the length of the levy beyond the amount and term originally approved by the voters.  While not spelled out on the SEE platform this year, SEE has supported this proposal in the past and I was more than happy to make the organization's stance known to the committee members.  Three witnesses testified in favor of the bill:  Robbinsdale Board Member John Vento, Mounds View Superintendent Chris Lennox, and Owatonna Superintendent (and MASA President) Jeff Elstad.  There was the usual pushback on the bill from committee members who believe that taxpayers should have a direct say on renewal of these levies.  It was pointed out by all the witnesses that the community does receive input from the school district during the truth-in-taxation process.  I would add to that with the following point.  All levies--even voter-approved levies--are discretionary to the extent the board wants to levy the entire amount for which they are authorized.  While districts have not under-levied to an appreciable extent in recent years, it wasn't that rare in the 1990s when many districts did not levy the entire amount they were allowed under the now-defunct special education levy.  I can also think of examples of more recent vintage where districts did not levy the full amount of their referendum or local option revenue allowances.  It's rare, but it is also prevalent enough to show that school boards are cognizant of the desires in their community and if they have to adjust their levies downward, they often do.

The other bill--HF 683 (Olson)--is a local bill for the Duluth school district that would adjust the special education base on a one-time basis.  The formula glitch due to charter school billing caused Duluth's special education base to erode, causing a considerable increase in the cross-subsidy.  The base adjustment would mitigate that issue.

Things Taking Shape.  We are still a couple of weeks away from the February budget forecast that will provide the Administration and the Legislature with the revenue picture that will dictate the remainder of the 2021 legislative session.  At this point, it appears that the shortfall for the coming biennium will be reduced somewhat, but that the state will still be looking at a deficit and difficult decisions will have to be made.  At this point, it's difficult to know exactly where things will be heading, but hearings being held in the various committees are giving us an inkling of where the two legislative bodies will be heading as they move toward setting their targets and meeting their committee deadlines.

After finishing their review of the Governor's budget yesterday, the House Education Finance Committee took up Representative Zack Stephenson's HF 843 this morning.  HF 843 would increase the general education basic formula by 2% in each of the next two years:  $134 per pupil unit in the 2021-2022 school year and $6,832 per pupil unit in the 2022-2023 school year.  The total budget commitment is just under $400 million over the biennium.  This is richer than the Governor's budget recommendations, which sets the basic formula at $6,633 per pupil unit for the 2021-2022 school year and $6,799 per pupil unit for the 2022-2023 school year, increases of 1% and 2.5% respectively with a total revenue commitment of $300 million.  The committee also heard Representative Dan Wolgamott's HF 156, a bill that would provide funding for a dozen education partnership programs.  These programs supply vital full-service links in the communities they serve and a number of these programs are located in SEE member districts.

The House Education Policy devoted its entire hearing to Representative Sydney Jordan's HF 358.  HF 358 would require the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to develop a model curriculum for comprehensive sex education.  This bill was part of the House omnibus education funding bill in 2019, but it did not survive the conference committee process.  Debate on this bill was quite spirited as this is a somewhat controversial bill and school districts would be expected to implement the model curriculum during the 2023-2024 school year.  Districts not wanting to implement the model would have to submit an alternative curriculum for approval by MDE.

The Senate Education Finance and Policy Committee plowed through four bills (well, not exactly plowed as will be explained) during its hearing.  The bulk of the hearing was dedicated to Senator Carla Nelson's SF 2.  SF 2 would rescind the Governor's ability to close schools during the peacetime emergency that has arisen due to COVID-19.  This has been a bone of contention between the Senate Republicans and the Walz Administration pretty much throughout the decision to curtail in-person instruction, especially during the 2020-2021 school year.  It is difficult to tell at times whether the disagreement is over the use of emergency powers in general or the specific decisions the Walz Administration has made concerning schools and businesses.  It will be interesting to see if this bill travels on its own (which appears to be the plan at this point) or is folded into an omnibus bill.  Given that there won't be much, if any, of the 2020-2021 school year left, the effect of limiting gubernatorial powers would have little immediate effect, but one doesn't know if (or for how long) COVID-19 and its variants will stick around and what effect it may have on school opening in the Fall of 2021.

The committee also covered the following bills:

SF 380 (Draheim): Requiring school districts to publish costs related to consulting fees.

SF 438 (Chamberlain):  Suspends academic standards review by MDE for one year.

SF 522 (Clausen):  Requires the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board to work with higher education institutions to make sure that online programs (including out-of-state programs) are available to teaching candidates in all licensure areas.  Currently, there are a number of licensure areas for which there is no program at any Minnesota higher education institution.

 Finishing Last Week . . . And On To This Week.  The House Education Funding Committee finished off the education action for last week with the initial presentation of the Governor's proposed budget for the coming biennium.  There's only so much that can be explained in an hour-and-a-half and the Governor's budget is extremely ambitious and is much broader in approach than what we have seen for a long time.  What we've seen most over the past decade are "narrow and deep" budgets with concentration focused on major budget components and major upgrades in the form of all-day kindergarten and increased pre-K programs; programs that affect almost all school districts.  The upheaval resulting from COVID-19 has certainly forced everyone from school districts on up to the Governor's Office to think outside the box and many of the programs proposed in the Governor's budget aim to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on learning, both in terms of student academic achievement and the stress and trauma brought on by distance and hybrid-learning models.

Here is a link to the Committee hearing page for that day.  Several information documents for you to download:  House Education Funding, February 4, 2021 (Scroll Down to 10:30 Meetings)

If the education meetings on Monday are any indication, we are now entering the stage when the direction of each house of the Legislature will begin to become more clear and given we have the only legislature in the country that has split partisan control, we can expect those directions to be somewhat different.

The House took up Representative Jordan's HF 603 and Representative Lee's HF 505, two bills that would provide continuing contract rights to community education teachers.  The changes proposed in these bills have long been sought by community education staff and the changes have been resisted by management.  A series of amendments were offered to the bill by Representative Sondra Erickson trying to curb some of the provisions of the HF 603.  All of them failed and most (I can't say for sure "all") on a party-line vote.  These bills have a long and winding path ahead of them, as they need to go through a number of non-education-related committees before trekking back to its likely landing place in the omnibus E-12 bill (provided the HF 603/HF 505 survive the gauntlet). 

The Senate Education Finance and Policy Committee didn't tackle any legislation today, but did delve into several controversial topics.  The first of these surrounds a book being used by some school districts that deals with a police shooting.  While it is the intention of the book to elicit discussion about race, it is viewed by some to as being too critical of law enforcement and that the discussion emanating from the book may actually be further deteriorating the relationship between the police and communities of color.  The committee then turned to the process by which the new social studies standards are being developed.  There has been a push to include a greater concentration on bringing in multiple ethnic perspectives--usually termed "ethnic studies"--into Minnesota's social studies standards.  This is welcomed by some, but others believe it tosses out much of what has been traditionally been taught without much consideration of merit.  It is difficult to discern what the Legislature might do on this front.  There generally has been reluctance on the part of the Legislature to delve too deeply into the standards-setting process and instead leaving that to the committees and panels that compose the standards.  The last time the Legislature got deeply involved, Minnesota ended up with 126 pages of social studies standards in 2004 and I think everyone wants to avoid that path.  However, if one side of the debate or the other believes that the process has gone too far in one direction (or not far enough), I can see this issue working its way into the debate this session.  Lastly, the Minnesota Department of Education outlined its plans on the process for re-opening schools in the coming months.

Neither Snow, Nor Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Covid can stop the Southeast Service Cooperative from putting on a dynamite legislative forum.  Last week, a strong showing of legislators met virtually with over seventy school board members and school administrators from Southeastern Minnesota.  Kasson-Mantorville Superintendent Mark Matuska served as Master of Ceremonies and introduced several panels that dealt with the basic formula, the special education cross-subsidy, the English Learner cross-subsidy, and property tax fairness (especially as it relates to debt service).  Great job by all the presenters and special thanks to Southeast Service Cooperative Executive Director Steve Sallee and his remarkable staff.

A Day Late (and Many Dollars Short).  Is it just me or does anyone else get about 90% done with a blog entry and suddenly . . .  it totally disappears never to return?  I think this sums up how I felt about 9:00 PM last night when "poof" went an hour and a half of work

So here, delayed by a 13 hours is the report on Wednesday's proceedings on education-related issues at the State Capitol.

The House has established a new committee this session--the Industrial Education and Economic Development Finance and Policy Committee chaired by Representative Gene Pelowski--and they had an absolutely dynamite hearing on career and technical education on Wednesday morning.  The hearing featured testimony from educators and administrators in school districts and cooperatives that have career and technical education programs that are exemplary and reach a number of students.  As many of you know, state support for career and technical education was decimated in the 1990s and only now is there seeing some recovery.  It is difficult to tell why the state backed off funding career and technical education.  Some blame the reform movements spawned at the Federal level by Goals 2000 that morphed into No Child Left Behind that morphed into the Every Student Succeeds Act.  While career and technical education is not totally ignored, the testing regimen and core content requirements that states enacted as part of those efforts has clearly left many students without room for electives in their schedules and has forced school districts to concentrate more heavily on accountability as measured by standardized tests.  Comedian/Talk Show Host Dennis Miller used have a line "I don't go off on a rant here" and in that vein, I'm not going to go further than to simply say career and technical education is needed and desired by both students and the business community.  These programs are more expensive to implement and maintain than the standard classroom, so strengthening categorical funding for them is warranted.  Interest from the committee was quite fervid so that time ran out before witnesses from small business could testify.  They will be returning for a future hearing.

The House Education Finance Committee heard Representative Hassan's HF 217, a bill that seeks to increase the number of teachers and administrators of color that are working in Minnesota schools.  As was the case in the House Education Policy Committee, the testimony on this bill was extremely compelling, as students and recent graduates of color in Minnesota school districts outlined their experience of rarely, if ever, having a teacher of color throughout their time as a student.  Numerous studies show that students of color often show better achievement if they are exposed to teachers and administrators of color, but as former Monticello Interim Superintendent (and current Assistant Superintendent in Roseville) Dr. Michael Favor pointed out, all students benefit from having teachers from a wide range of racial and ethnic backgrounds.  Representative Lisa Demuth offered three amendments that will likely re-surface as this bill (and others aimed at increasing the number of teachers of color) moves along.  The amendments would increase districts' ability to place teachers of color with Tier 1 licenses instead of having to first consider higher licensure tiers and to not necessarily adhere to current seniority rankings when making layoff decisions.  The argument against these amendments is that they would disrupt current teacher licensure practices and also decimate the practice of "last in/first out."  There is a wide range of ideological opinions regarding teacher bargaining and how the current paradigm affects hiring and retention of teachers (and not just teachers of color).  All three amendments failed, but Representative Hassan agreed to work on the issues moving forward.

The last hearing of the day was the Senate Education Finance and Policy Committee, which heard four bills.  The first bill, SF 351 , authored by Committee Chair Senator Roger Chamberlain, would provide aid to students whose education has been greatly disrupted by COVID-19.  To qualify, the student would have to qualify for free- or reduced-price lunch and eligible expenditures would include tutoring and a variety of technology purchases.  Parents would have to apply for the grants and could receive up to $450 per eligible students.  Parents with students in either public or private schools would be eligible to apply.

The committee then moved to Senator Rich Draheim's SF 379 that would streamline the process and eliminate some paperwork for school districts that are charter school authorizers.  Northfield Superintendent Matt Hillman--a stalwart SEE member--testified in favor of the bill.

SF 408 was next up.  This legislation has been around for a few years and has come close to passing at several junctures.  The bill is authored by Senator Karin Housley and it would make changes to the transportation sparsity formula.  While the current situation does not affect all Minnesota school districts, most of those districts affected by the current situation are subsidizing their transportation operations out of their general funds for costs beyond what the state formulas provide.  It's another one of the hidden cross-subsidies that plague Minnesota's education funding system.  Forest Lake Superintendent Steve Massey has worked on this issue extensively and this proposal was part of the Minnesota Department of Education's  School Finance Working Group's final recommendations that were issued last month.  

Last bill of the day was Senator Carrie Ruud's SF 96.  This bill would limit participation in women's and girls' athletics to individuals born biologically female.  This issue was grappled with by the Minnesota State High School League several years ago, but both here and nationally, there has been some pushback over allowing male-to-female transgendered students from competing on women's and girls' teams.  Needless to say, the debate over the bill was spirited and you can expect this bill to receive more attention as it moves through the process.

So, there it is!  I didn't lose it this time!  The wonders of modern technology even though it is being operated by a Luddite.   

 One Committee Today.  The House Education Finance Committee was the sole education-related committee that held a hearing today.  The hearing was devoted to education reform movements that seek to close the achievement gap and promote social-emotional learning.  The largest segment of the hearing was devoted to Reimagine Minnesota, a project developed by the Association of Metropolitan School Districts.  Drs. Christine Osario and David Law, superintendents of North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale and Anoka-Hennepin respectively, were the presenters and they did a great job describing this ambitious program.  The new realities of Minnesota's student population calls for a wide range of reforms that will recognize this change and there's no question Reimagine Minnesota offers a wide variety of proposed reforms that will see all students, personalize their education, and ensure all students have equitable resources.  Added to these goals are strategies aimed at recruiting and retaining more teachers- and administrators-of-color, which is another aspect of ensuring equity and narrowing the achievement gap.  For more on Reimagine Minnesota, click the link below:

Reimagine Minnesota

The second group before the committee was The Good Trouble Principals.  Formed in 2020, this self-described "loose coalition" of  162 Minnesota school district principals seeks to bring greater racial sensitivity to Minnesota's public school environment and engage in "better, more equitable educational practices."  For more on The Good Trouble Principals (the name draws its inspiration from the late Congressman and civil rights pioneer John Lewis), click the link below:

The Good Trouble Principals

The meeting ended with a presentation from schools associated with the Barr Center, another education reform enterprise with a model that is showing success in the schools that implement practices associated with the program.  32 different schools in Minnesota are involved with the Barr program and a short synopsis of their participation is featured on the Barr website.  For more on Barr:

The Barr Center

Minnesota Schools Participating in Barr 

Spotlight on Equalization.  As reported last week, the Governor's budget calls for a significant increase in equalization by looking at a number of different levies and increasing equalization overall.  The boldest move on this front is bringing greater equalization to the Local Option Revenue.  It is a bit of a shuffle and I have yet to work through all the numbers and it does look a bit confusing.  Currently, the first tier of the Local Option Revenue ($300/PU) has an equalizing factor of $880,000 RMV/PU.  The next $425/PU is equalized at $510,000 RMV/PU.  Under the Governor's plan, the entire $725/PU would be equalized at $844,600 RMV/PU, which would lead to property tax relief for all but about 30 districts in the state.  It does look a bit counter-intuitive because the proposed equalizing factor is lower than the current equalizing factor for the first $300/PU in Local Option Revenue, but the increase in equalization resulting from the significant hike in the equalizing factor for the remaining $425/PU more than makes up for it.  The shift in the equalizing factor for the first $300/PU (a drop of 4.0%) is more than offset by the increase in the equalizing factor for the next $425/PU (an increase of 66.0%).  The equalizing factor would be indexed to statewide property wealth growth, which would prevent erosion in the aid/levy ratio that currently occurs.

As for the operating referendum, a new equalizing factor is set at a slightly lower level than the current equalizing factor--it moves down from $576,000 RMV/PU to $574,300 RMV/PU--but it is set at 85% of the state average so it would be indexed to statewide property wealth growth.

In terms of the debt service program, the local effort threshold of 15.74% remains in place, but a single tier is created and all debt service above the threshold is proposed to be equalized at 100% of the statewide average ANTC/PU.  Currently, the increment of debt service between the 15.74% threshold and 26.24% is equalized at roughly 55% of the statewide average ANTC/PU.  Improvements to the debt service equalization program have been a long time coming and hopefully, this proposal will receive considerable attention during the 2021 session.

Here is the breakdown of the budget amounts for the coming biennium dedicated to these proposals:

Increase in LOR Equalization:  $68.1 million

Increase in Referendum Equalization:  $9.5 million

Increase in Debt Service Equalization:  $17.9 million

I plan on analyzing sections of interest in the Governor's budget over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

It was Tuesday.  So how about some 'til Tuesday, the 1980s band led by Aimee Mann.  Here they are with one of their best.

Round Up from Last Week and Monday Report.  The House Education Finance Committee heard HF 4 (Hassan), the bill that would appropriate $118 million in programs to help make up for the revenue loss resulting from the loss of student enrollment due to COVID-19.  I was a bit surprised that the hold harmless on general education revenue (achieved by allowing districts to use the greater of their 2019-2020 student enrollment pr 2020-2021 student enrollment).  The remainder of the revenue would be dedicated to increased extended time revenue, special education revenue, grants for professional development aimed at reducing student trauma, grants to help establish full-service community schools, and appropriations for the Reading Corps and the Math Corps.  The committee heard the bill, but did not take further action.  There are some adjustments that need to be made to the language, but I expect the bill to be play a role in the House's response to the adverse effects COVID-19 has had on school districts throughout the state.

The House Education Policy Committee devoted its hearing today to the education-related recommendations of last interim's House Select Committee on Racial Justice.  Those recommendations can be found on pages 40 and 41 of the final report of the committee issued in December, 2020.

House Select Committee on Racial Justice Report and Recommendations 

The hearing featured testimony from a variety of interest.  Former Minnesota Court Justice Alan Page was a featured witness and he again stressed his stance that the constitutional amendment that he and Minneapolis Federal Reserve Chairman Neil Kashkari needs to play a central role in any approach to bringing greater racial justice to Minnesota.  While it wasn't discussed today, others believe that while education is important, there are other factors--housing, access to quality medical care, police reform--that loom as large, if not larger, than education if true progress on this issue is to be realized.  The question that arises "Is this an either/or or a both/and proposition?"  My guess is it's more a both/and, but with limited resources the question will be in determining the final mix of proposed solutions.  Working on this issue is one of the House's top--and maybe the top--priority during the 2021 session, so we will likely have a better idea as the session wears on.

The Senate E-12 Finance and Policy Committee tackled four bills today and it flew right through them.  The first was SF 190, which would allow a single district to establish an area learning center instead of being required to form it as a cooperative with other school districts.  Currently, Minneapolis and St. Paul are the only districts that can form an area learning center on their own and SF 190 would expand it to all districts.  It would certainly make sense for large suburban districts to be able to share this ability.  

Senator Clausen's SF 147 was also heard this afternoon.  SF 147 would remove the requirement that school districts annually report information for all probationary teachers in the district who were not renewed including the teacher’s licensure area and the teacher preparation program that prepared the teacher.  There was some pushback on this proposal from groups that believe the requirement provides transparency, but many believe that the report is irrelevant as most probationary teachers are not renewed due to budget constraints and not due to training or performance concerns.

The final bill was Senator Dahms' SF 389.  SF 389 would allow member districts of a cooperative unit to use their long term facilities maintenance revenue for costs associated with facilities maintenance at a cooperative unit.  This change to the law would create greater statewide equity in terms of facilities maintenance.