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."