The big new this week is the House and Senate budget targets were released.  As in the governor's proposal, both the House and Senate keep K-12 education funding flat.

Governor's K-12 education funding          $14.22 billion

House K-12 education funding                 $14.16 billion

Senate K-12 education funding                $14.16 billion

The funding is for two years.  As in the governor's proposal, both the House and Senate continue the $1.4 billion education aid payment shift.

The Governor proposes raising significant taxes on wealthy Minnesota citizens to balance the $5 billion deficit.  In contrast, the House and Senate want to slash funding to health and human services, higher education, government operations and aid to cities while providing tax breaks for businesses and families.  Read more. 

Chair Pat Garofalo of the House Education Finance Committee told members that as the funding to education has not been cut, the conversation is no longer about how much money education will receive but will shift to how education funds are spent.  He said his committee will look at what works and continue to support those initiatives, and determine what isn't working and reallocate funding from failing programs. 

It is clear that both the House and Senate education committees do not plan to maintain the status-quo.  That was evidenced by the flurry of bills making their way through the education committees.  Most of the bills heard this week were laid over for possible inclusion in the education omnibus bills which must be finished by March 25.  Its looks like the education funding omnibus bills will include plenty of policy.  Here is a listing of the bills heard this week and scheduled for next week.

Expect changes to the teachers' collective bargaining process.  This could include:

·         Elimination of the January 15^th, $25 per student,  penalty if teacher contract negotiations are not completed by January 15.

·         Reclassification of school employees as "essential employees" effectively removing their right to strike.

·         Limiting contract negotiations to happen only during the summer months.

·         Requiring teachers to accept a final offer from the school board if the total compensation package offered is at least equal to the increase in funding from the state. 

Read more.

It also looks like the legislature is interested in developing rating systems based on student proficiency and growth for teachers (HF945), principals (HF879) and schools (HF638).  If rating systems are established that identify excellent efforts to replicate throughout the school and district, or support is given to those underperforming, then the system would benefit our students.  However, without providing sufficient resources, incentives and flexibility to implement change, rating systems appear to be merely punitive.  It will be interesting to see how this develops. 

Once the final education omnibus bill get through the House and Senate it will proceed to the Governor's desk.  If the Governor does not support the policy in the bill, he will not sign it.  Then the negotiations begin. . .