Things are Starting to Heat Up.

With the first committee deadline looming, things have started to move along as committees begin focusing on the first big steps toward honing their legislative statements for the session.  It was a bit of a respite from hearing bills that will be acted upon as on Monday, the House Education Policy Committee heard HF 874 (Hassan), the proposed constitutional amendment that has been promoted by former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page and Minneapolis Federal Reserve Chair Neil Kashkari.  The only real surprise in the testimony came from a number of witnesses who home school their children.  I'm familiar with most of the arguments for and against the amendment, but there were several home school parents who believe that, if passed, the amendment would give the state the power to force their children out of their current home school arrangement and push them into other learning environments.  It's not an argument I had heard before and I'm not a lawyer, so I can't really comment on the validity of their stance.  It just seems very out of the ordinary.

While the constitutional amendment is controversial enough, it was merely a warm-up for the Senate Education Finance and Policy Committee later on Monday where Senator Roger Chamberlain's SF 1525 was heard.  SF 1525 promotes Education Savings Accounts which could be used for private school tuition.  The label on the initiative keeps changing, but the basic direction remains the same and the annual parade of testifiers looks remarkably the same year after year.  It was a spirited discussion and much of that discussion is centered on vastly different approaches to closing the achievement gap between white students and students of color.  Some believe that provide families greater control over their educational choices is the way to go, while others believe that the traditional system has not been given the level of support necessary to get to the heart of the challenges to higher achievement.

In some ways, these two hearings revolved around the same issue of how to close the achievement and opportunity gaps and it it fascinating to see how groups align when confronting these two initiatives.

House Omnibus Policy Bill Posted and Heard.  The House Education Policy Committee heard the committee's omnibus policy bill today.  The bill HF 1081 Delete-all Amendment (Richardson) is quite comprehensive and covers a lot of areas.  The two sets of provisions that are the highest profile are the proposed changes to pupil dismissal and the tiered-licensure program overseen by PELSB.  That wasn't the issue that elicited the greatest reaction from witnesses.  Much of the testimony for or against provisions of the bill came from familiar quarters, but as in the case of the constitutional amendment, there was a stream of home school parents who object to language in the bill that would require home schoolers to report their children's test scores to the state.  About a decade ago, reporting requirements for home schoolers were greatly streamlined and while not marking a full return to the days when home schooling was more carefully monitored, it is a change that is being viewed as an intrusion on the rights of the home school families.  The bill will be fully discussed on Friday and a number of amendments will be offered.  The bill is longer than I anticipated it would be when the session began, but even with the challenges of "virtual" legislating, a number of ambitious proposals came forward on a broad range of education issues--increasing the number of teachers of color, tiered licensure, school discipline--that have been incorporated into this bill.  The Senate omnibus education policy bill, which will be unveiled tomorrow, will also be discussed in committee on Friday.