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.