St. Paul, MN – Today, House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman announced a bipartisan power-sharing agreement that allowed the Minnesota House to begin conducting business during today’s session. Rep. Cheryl Youakim (DFL-Hopkins) released the following statement:
“This common-sense power sharing agreement is what Democrats and Minnesotans have been asking for all along. We fought for and secured our biggest goal – a power-sharing agreement that ensures Rep. Brad Tabke can serve the term to which he was elected, and prevents Republicans from throwing out an election in the future just because they don’t like the result.
I look forward to continuing working alongside our neighbors in Hopkins, St. Louis Park, and Edina to build a state where we invest in Minnesotans and an economy that works for everyone.”
St. Paul, MN – Amid reports that the Trump Administration is preparing to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, State Representatives Cheryl Youakim (DFL – Hopkins) and Sydney Jordan (DFL – Minneapolis), the respective DFL Chairs for the Minnesota House’s Education Finance and Education Policy Committees, released the following statement:
“It’s no secret that the Trump Administration is trying to drastically cut or fully eliminate the U.S. Department of Education – which would be the latest in a pattern of harmful, irresponsible actions that only serve to create confusion for our schools and negatively impact students and families. In Minnesota, we’ve made exceptional progress in fostering an enriching and diverse learning environment for our students. We will continue to work with our Senate DFL counterparts, as well as the Minnesota Department of Education, to protect that progress and partner with our schools for whatever obstacles await.”
Minnesota schools won $2.2 billion in new funding the last time the Legislature met, but as lawmakers reconvened this week, the 2024 legislative session thus far carries little hope of a splashy education encore.
Restraint instead is the message, and it’s been heard by education advocates, who nonetheless plan to continue to push for additional revenue as district budgets are squeezed.
“We educate the children and we won’t quiet our voices,” said St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Joe Gothard, who serves as board president of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators.
The voices are welcome, and the needs will be heard, but much of the help to be offered may have to wait until next year, said state Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins, who chairs the House Education Finance Committee.
Gothard and others, while thankful for a boost in per-pupil aid and funds to help cover special education and English-language learner costs, say the new money did not make up for years of underfunding and, in many cases, left districts like St. Paul still having to dip into rainy-day funds to balance 2023-24 budgets.
They would like an additional 2% on the basic per-pupil aid formula — the funding stream they deem most flexible and that is used to pay staff salaries, transportation and other general operations. The cost: $160 million, according to the Minnesota School Boards Association.
“We understand that’s probably going to be an uphill battle,” Scott Croonquist, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD), said Monday.
Looming over this year’s legislative funding requests is a potential shortfall in the state’s next two-year budget. That forecast, which was released in November, is to be updated at the end of February, giving hope to some groups — early-education and child-care advocates among them — that prospects may brighten and new investments still might be possible.
But the consistent message from lawmakers has been: “There’s no money,” said Matt Shaver, policy director for the education advocacy group EdAllies.
For that reason, he touted last week the potential value of a modest $1 million increase in a fund that pays prospective educators to student teach. Most are not paid during those 12-week programs — a significant barrier to people who are looking to change careers or come from diverse backgrounds.
“We don’t have enough teachers of color in the pipeline,” Shaver said.
Pushing for more
On Wednesday, the House Education Finance Committee heard about the launch of a program to bolster the ranks of special education teachers — work made possible by last year’s sweeping education bill. On Thursday, the panel is expected to be updated on the new universal free meals program and the Read Act, which is changing the way children learn to read.
Bob Indihar, executive director of the Minnesota Rural Education Association, said that the Read Act, and its requirements to train teachers in the new instructional methods, has been a major point of discussion during the past year, and will need some fine-tuning this session.
“We’re looking at how it can get paid for long term, how to fulfill timelines and finding time to train the personnel,” he said via email Monday.
On Wednesday, Youakim singled out the Read Act as a potential beneficiary of one-time funding.
Croonquist said AMSD is pursuing permanent funding for a new program allowing hourly workers to tap into unemployment insurance during the summer. It has been credited with helping districts retain bus drivers and other employees, but is limited to one-time funding through 2025. Last summer, districts paid out about $40.5 million in benefits, leaving about $95 million to spend this year and next.
The 2023 session provided a major lift to early childhood advocates by enabling more low-income families to access quality child care or preschool programs. Early learning scholarships that for years stood at $70 million were raised to about $196 million a year in 2023-24 and 2024-25.
Efforts ensued to expand the scholarships to middle-income families this session at a potential cost of about $500 million. Then came the November budget forecast.
Ericca Maas, director of policy and advocacy for Think Small, which administers the scholarships in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, said this week the group will continue to promote a middle-income expansion, even with legislators preaching austerity.
Four legislators gave me sometimes surprising responses when I asked them what laws approved this year would have the most positive impact on young people. Their answers offer helpful insights about how students and adults can have an influence on the Legislature.
Sen. Steve Cwodzinski, DFL-Eden Prairie, offered examples of immediately impactful legislation that students helped pass. He praised three high school students who approached him several years ago, describing the embarrassment some high school students have when they don’t have menstrual products in schools. “It took three years, but this year the bill passed,” he said. As of Jan. 1, 2024, all Minnesota public schools must provide free access to menstrual products for menstruating students grades 4-12. The Legislature allocated several million dollars to support this. Here’s a link to a Minnesota House hearing on this issue in which students from Hopkins and Eagan testified: https://www.house.mn.gov/sessiondaily/Story/17529.
Cwodzinski also cited new high school graduation requirements. Beginning with next year’s ninth graders, all students must pass a civics and a personal finance class before graduating. He thinks these classes can provide vital information and hopes these courses will feature “hands-on” active, project and service-learning opportunities.
Rep. Laurie Pryor, DFL-Minnetonka, chairs the Minnesota House K-12 Education Policy Committee. She’s very pleased that “we listened to experts who can help us turn the corner on where we stand with literacy. Millions of dollars were allocated for curriculum development and training on research-based approaches to teaching reading.” Pryor emphasized that the state will “track progress to measure the impact of this funding.” She also cited support for early childhood programs in public schools and expansion of early childhood programs beginning in July 2025.
Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins, chairs the House K-12 Education Finance Committee. She told me: “We’ve been talking about two things for 20 years. We finally did them. Specifically, we indexed education funding to inflation, and we significantly increased support for districts and charters to provide services for students with special needs.” She believes these two actions will help educators more effectively serve students throughout the state.
Here’s one other valuable idea that the Minnesota Legislature approved, which I’m mentioning because of an upcoming application deadline. Earlier in the spring, I wrote about legislative efforts to expand the number of Minnesota students learning construction skills as they built homes for families with low incomes and/or experiencing homelessness. Legislators heard from participating young people that these programs were immensely useful and gratifying. Educators across the state wrote legislators that they want to create more similar, opportunities.
So legislators passed two different laws to help more students participate in construction for low-income family homes.
The first involves more money for YouthBuild (see https://tinyurl.com/55rw85yk). Rep. Matt Norris, DFL-Blaine, was chief author in the Minnesota House. He told me that he is “delighted that legislators recognize these programs are ‘a triple win’ – for the students who gain these skills, for the low-income families who will get high quality permanent housing, and for the state’s economy as a whole, with more well trained workers.”
The Minnesota Department of Economic Development plans to issue $600,000 for YouthBuild programs, with the largest grant available being $150,000. The application deadline is June 30. More information is available here: https://tinyurl.com/ta5fmz75.
I’ll share more information this summer about a second legislatively funded opportunity in this area.
These are outstanding examples of laws that will have a positive impact. It’s also good to see legislators willing to work, sometimes over several years, with educators, families and students to help improve and expand learning in Minnesota.
Joe Nathan, Ph.D., formerly a Minnesota public school educator and PTA president, directs the Center for School Change. Reactions welcome: joe@centerforschoolchange.org or @JoeNathan9249 on Twitter.
More than $2 billion in new spending. Updated graduation requirements. Mandates on how schools teach children to read.
The Legislature has sent a sweeping education bill to Gov. Tim Walz that partially delivers on a raft of promises DFLers made on the campaign trail as they sought to take control of state government.
Ahead of the House vote Tuesday, the chair of the Education Finance Committee, Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins, said that the legislation will “ensure that the learning environments in our schools serve all of our students and that our teachers, principals and administrators have the tools to meet our students where they’re at.”
Republicans lauded provisions requiring high schoolers to pass a civics class to graduate and revamping the way children learn to read. But they also took issue with the legislation, arguing that despite a record funding boost, the cash has too many strings attached.
“This bill puts mandates over money. It puts mandates over students and it takes away local control,” Rep. Jeff Backer, R-Browns Valley, said during the House debate. The House passed the bill on a party-line vote, while one Republican joined Senate Democrats in passing the bill around 5 a.m. Wednesday.
Here are some top provisions in the education bill that will become law when Walz signs it as expected, plus one that already made headlines this year.
More money
Superintendents and school boards have long lamented the growing gap between what it costs to provide state and federally mandated special education and English language services and the funding provided.
Lawmakers this year pledged to cover half the shortfall in special education and about $80 million for English language learner programs over the next two years. All told, Minnesota schools will see $2.2 billion more over the next two years after legislators struck a deal that increases funding by 4% in fiscal year 2024 and a 2% boost the following year with subsequent increases tied to the rate of inflation.
Legislators also set aside $120 million over two years for a new mandate requiring districts to pay unemployment insurance to hourly employees who don’t work during the summer.
“It’s the biggest historic investment in education above base that we’ve ever done,” Youakim said.
Total K-12 education spending — $23.2 billion in the next two years — is nearly a third of the state budget.
Reading reform
Nearly half of Minnesota’s public school students can’t read at the appropriate grade level, according to the latest state testing data. The Read Act, included in the education bill, requires districts to adopt a local literacy plan from among three programs approved by the state Department of Education. Until now, districts were on their own in developing their approach to reading.
The bill provides $35 million for districts to train their teachers in those programs, as well as another $35 million to reimburse schools for materials bought since 2021 that don’t meet the state’s criteria.
The revamp will put a greater emphasis on phonics, vocabulary and phonemic awareness — or how words are made up of a series of sounds — as some curriculum vendors and reading programs that came into fashion in the mid-1990s have come under intense scrutiny.
This centralized approach marks a shift for Minnesota, which comes on the heels of at least 31 other states mandating schools to adopt “evidence-based” instruction on the topic. Ohio and Oregon lawmakers are considering versions of the legislation Minnesota passed.
Free menstrual products
Schools will be required to stock bathrooms with pads, tampons and other menstrual products to curb what Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, calls “period poverty.” She asked lawmakers to earmark $2 per pupil, about $2 million per year, for the measure.
Feist began working on the legislation two years ago when a freshman at Hopkins High School told her about classmates who routinely stayed home when they’re running low on pads and tampons. That student, Elif Ozturk, is now a junior and testified in support of the provision.
“We cannot learn when we are leaking,” Ozturk said.
Active shooter drills
The Legislature effectively banned Minnesota schools from simulating active shooter situations on their campuses during class, barring officials from conducting those exercises if more than half of the enrolled students are in the building.
Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, credited that provision in the education bill in part to the demonstrations teen activists mounted last year in the aftermath of the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two teachers.
Districts are still required to conduct school lockout drills, but must give families at least 24 hours notice when possible and have teachers host a cooling down conversation afterward. The legislation also requires schools to provide students with one hour of violence prevention training per year. The Minnesota Department of Education must also establish a statewide model for those drills by July 1, 2024.
New course requirements
Minnesota’s high school class of 2028 will need to pass courses in government and citizenship and personal finance before they’re eligible for a diploma. Rep. Hodan Hassan, the Minneapolis Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said only 7% of the state’s high school students choose to take a personal finance class. Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, lamented to a House education panel that more Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 can name a judge on “American Idol” than name either of the state’s U.S. senators.
“We’ve been in a civic slide to failure for 50 years,” he said.
The education bill also requires school districts to develop an ethnic studies curriculum and allow students to take a course on the topic to satisfy their social studies requirement.
Free school meals
Democrats pushed through as a standalone education bill a measure Rep. Sydney Jordan, DFL-Minneapolis, has been working on for the last four years. Starting this fall, every student enrolled in a Minnesota school that participates in the national School Breakfast Program will receive free breakfast and lunch.
Parents previously had to prove eligibility by filling out an income form. And this school year, the state began automatically enrolling students whose families qualified for Medicaid.
“This just makes sense,” Walz said during a signing ceremony at Webster Elementary in northeast Minneapolis. “This is the assurance that no one falls through the cracks because a busy parent didn’t fill out a form.”
The estimated cost of the free school meals program is about $200 million a year.
Staff writer Ryan Faircloth contributed to this report.
Minnesota schools will see a surge in state funding, along with new course requirements, teacher diversity grants and changes to reading instruction, under legislation that will become law with Gov. Tim Walz’s signature.
The compromise education budget that passed the House on Tuesday and the Senate early Wednesday morning will increase school funding by $2.26 billion, or 10.8 percent over the current biennium.
Much of that comes through 4 percent and 2 percent increases to the per-student state aid formula and extra money to close the gap between revenue and spending on students with disabilities and those learning English.
Schools also won ongoing increases to the per-student formula with a new provision that will tie future funding hikes to inflation, subject to a 2 percent floor and 3 percent ceiling.
“This is going to provide funding stability for Minnesota schools,” education finance committee chair Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, said before dawn Wednesday, as her party worked around a conflict in one lawmaker’s schedule in order to get the bill passed on a 35-32 vote.
Republican opposition
All but one Republican in the House and Senate voted against the bill as members complained of new mandates for schools that will consume some of their new funding.
Those include the removal of statutory language that has made hourly school workers ineligible for unemployment benefits during the summer; although lawmakers set aside $135 million to cover those new payments, that left less money for other education priorities.
Sen. Andrew Mathews, R-Princeton, was among the Republicans voting to send the bill back to the conference committee that found a compromise between the House and Senate education plans.
“This bill has come back with less money per pupil and more mandates,” he said.
Sen. Zach Duckworth, R-Lakeville, was among those complaining of a provision that will make it harder for certain teachers to get a permanent license, saying it would hurt efforts to increase teacher diversity.
Money for mandates
However, the bill does include some $50 million for recruiting and retaining teachers of color, said Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins, House education finance chair.
Kunesh dismissed the notion that the bill’s unfunded mandates will harm schools.
“This is an increase like we have never seen before,” with $2.26 billion in new money in the next biennium and another $3.2 billion in the two years that follow, she said. Given all that money, “I don’t believe there are any unfunded mandates in this bill.”
Education Minnesota President Denise Specht said the bill “contains funding and policy that will be life-changing for students and educators — if the money is spent correctly at the district level.”
Funding details
Specific provisions in the bill include:
$663 million to reduce the gap between special-education revenues and spending. State aid for that purpose would grow from 6.4 percent of each district’s special-education cross-subsidy today to 44 percent next biennium and 50 percent in fiscal year 2027.
$87 million in the next biennium and $171 million after that to close the English learner cross-subsidy as per-student aid grows from $704 to $1,775.
$75 million to improve reading instruction, mainly through teacher training and new instructional materials.
$64 million for school support personnel, such as nurses, counselors, social workers and psychologists, and double that amount in future bienniums.
$45 million in dedicated funding for school libraries, which is a first for the state.
$30 million to prepare more special-education teachers, where a shortage has left schools using hundreds of teachers whose licenses don’t comply with federal disabilities laws.
Continued funding for 4,000 preschool seats that were due to expire, plus an additional 3,000 seats in fiscal year 2025 and 2,200 more the following biennium.
Policy changes
Schools also must contend with a flurry of policy changes in the new legislation, including:
Students entering high school in 2024 and later will have to pass classes in civics and personal finance in order to graduate.
School districts must begin offering courses in ethnic studies by 2026, first in high schools, and a year later in elementary and middle schools.
Schools are not to use exclusionary discipline unless the student presents an immediate danger or the school already has tried an alternative.
Schools can’t use American Indian symbols or names as mascots without permission from the state’s 11 tribal nations.
In a welcome policy change for districts, school boards will be allowed to renew their existing operating referenda – which increase property taxes to boost local school funding – one time without going to voters.
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