**State legislative leaders will determine in the next week or two how much funding to cut in all areas of government, including education. If you haven't acted on last week's Action Alert, please click on "Action Alert" in the box to the left to find out what you can do!**

The February forecast released on Tuesday revealed that Minnesota's deficit dropped from $6.2 billion to $5.0 billion mostly from action taken at the federal level and improving economic conditions.  Tom Stinson, the state economist, warned that $5 billion in spending cuts alone would harm Minnesota's economy more than a combination of tax increases and budget cuts.  Read more.

Unfortunately, Mideast turmoil and rising gas prices could erase the improved budget gains seen in the February forecast.  Read more.

An agreement on alternate teacher licensure was reached between the Governor and the legislature.  People who would like to teach but did not go through the traditional preparation programs at accredited teaching colleges will find it easier to teach in Minnesota classrooms.    Read more.

Several bills were heard in the Senate Committee on Education.  You can read about these bills and a definition of the laid on the table versus moving through committee in this post from Brad's Blog.

The House reviewed the nearly $100 million, decades old, Integration Revenue program.  A 2005 legislative audit found that the program lacks focus which makes it impossible to determine if the money is spent appropriately and if any results are achieved.  Committee members questioned why the Integration program appropriates $480 per pupil to Minneapolis, $445 per pupil to St. Paul, $206 to Duluth and $129 to all other districts with a qualifying percentage of racial diversity. 

The committee was going to take up compensatory funding as well but ran out of time.  It is well researched and documented that children who live in poverty do not do as well academically as their peers.  Thus, the legislature has set up a compensatory funding category that generates more revenue for districts for every child who qualifies for free or reduced lunch.

Yet due to concentration factors, a poor child in one urban district generates an extra $2,000 but the same poor child in a neighboring district would generate only $1,000 and this gap continues to grow through the funding formula.  This is not to say that an extra $2,000 a year for a student who lives in poverty is not the right investment to bring the child along academically, yet one would have to wonder why all children who live in poverty aren't given the same opportunities that this revenue could provide. 

SF422, which is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Committee on Education next Tuesday, couples two concepts that would be better approached in two separate conversations.  The bill would:

1.)   Reduce the integration per pupil funding in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth to the level received by all the rest of the districts that qualify for integration. This would be a direct funding cut to Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth.  These dollars would go back to the state to balance the budget.

2.)   Requires at least 90% of any future funding increases in education to go mainly to the per pupil formula amount and freezes the catagorical revenue at its current levels in compensatory, sparsity (another word for geographic isolation in very remote rural areas in Minnesota) and transportation sparsity.  This is not a direct cut as districts would continue to receive the categorical funding that it does now.  

SEE believes that the current funding formula is broken and strongly supports comprehensive funding reform that rationally links funding to the successful academic achievement of all children regardless of where they live in Minnesota.   Until the formula is fixed, directing the majority of future funding increases to every child in the State rather than through the broken formula is reasonable to prevent increasing the funding disparity between districts that has resulted from the heavy political reliance on categorical funding.   

The academic successes in Florida are touted by some at the Capitol as a model to improve Minnesota's students' academic outcomes and close the achievement gap.  Indeed, Florida students, who used to significantly lag behind Minnesota students in reading, are now outperforming them.  Florida is a national leader in data collections and for years has tracked individual students from pre-K through higher education.  Thus, 

Florida was in a position to implement data-driven policies as outlined in this presentation given to the education committees.  Florida credits the school grading system and the end of social promotion as the biggest factors that increased their students' achievement.  The Florida plan included:

• Establishing grades for every school from A - F based on students' proficiency and growth.
• Creating an incentive program for successful schools and options for students in failing schools.
• Ending social promotion of 3^rd graders who tested in the lowest level in state reading tests and increased the graduation requirements.
• Providing funding for rigor.
• Promoting choice.

It is important to note that Florida significantly increased funding for its schools over the decade that these policies were implemented and results were obtained.  Read this post from Brad's Blog for an analysis of reforms and resources.