2011 Session Recap

The 2011 legislative session is finally over and a new education budget has been signed into law by Governor Dayton.  Here is a brief summary and recap from Education Liberty Watch’s perspective:

THE GOOD: Of course, for families’ sakes, it is very good news that there will be no tax increases.  But the best news from Education Liberty Watch’s point of view is that despite tremendous pressure from the governor and the liberal big business community even until late in the evening during the special session, your actions and those of conservative legislators were able to keep the nanny state quality rating system(QRS) out of the final education bill.  You and the legislative leadership of Koch and Zellers, the education committee chairs Olson, Erickson, and Garofalo, as well as individual conservative legislators like Mary Franson, Steve Drazkowski, Mark Buesgens, Glen Gruenhagen, Dave Thompson, Roger Chamberlain, Pam Wolf, and Gretchen Hoffman, among others, all deserve a huge THANK YOU.  Besides saving young children from government approved indoctrinating preschool curriculum and increased regulation on private childcare and preschool, Minnesota has been spared loss of state sovereignty due to federalization of preschool by remaining ineligible for Race to the Top (RTTT).  RTTT would give winning states $50-100 million dollars of one time money from our bankrupt federal government to and, besides the QRS, would have required development of longitudinal data tracking of every child from birth, indoctrination via standards (already under way thanks to the Pawlenty administration) and kindergarten readiness tests (also started over the last eight years).  More details on baby RTTT will be forthcoming, but suffice it to say that it is VERY good that Minnesota will not be eligible for this.

Other good provisions that survived in the final bill are:

• The strong emphasis on reading especially from kindergarten through third grade with rewards for districts that show improvement in reading.  Senator Gen Olson and Rep. Pam Myrha deserve great congratulations for this.
• Early graduation scholarships and early graduation for military service scholarships
• Repeal of mandate that districts spend a certain amount on psychologists and social workers allowing them to decide they want to spend on their own support personnel for themselves and removing an over emphasis on mental health in the schools
• Reduced mandates on home schooled students
• Repeal of the January 15^th deadline and penalty requiring school districts and teachers’ unions to have reached their collective bargaining agreement

In addition, although it is regrettable that the opportunity scholarship bill that would have provided a way for poor students to escape failing public schools did not survive, Education Liberty Watch is very relieved that there is now an opportunity to redraft the bill so as not to impose the mandate of requiring the public school tests and therefore imposing the national standards on the private schools and students receiving the scholarships.

THE BAD:  There were several instances where good provisions were removed and bad ones left in or added back after the education finance bill left conference committee and was subsequently vetoed by the governor.  These included:

• Either as consolation to the social engineering desires of the Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Business Partnership who did not get their QRS, or a vain attempt to try to appear still eligible for the baby RTTT, $4 million of early childhood scholarships were put back in the final bill by some of the House negotiators.  While it is still a concern for incentivizing poor parents to have others raise their children instead of coaching them to improve their own parenting, it is still better than the $10 million that was originally there and if the economy does not improve, may have to be removed.
• The great efforts of Rep. Sondra Erickson to rein in the commissioner’s absolutely dreadful social studies standards by requiring legislative approval before implementation were sadly jettisoned.  These standards are not to be implemented until the 2013-14 school year, so perhaps something may still be done next session.
• Rep. Erickson’s and Senator David Hann’s efforts to prevent adoption of future Common Core national standards also regrettably met the same fate.  This and participation in the sovereignty and academics destroying RTTT will no doubt be contended in the next session.
• The education tax credit without mandates on the private schools was removed from the final tax bill
• Efforts at tenure and collective bargaining reform were removed from the final bill showing that the teachers’ union still carries quite a bit of clout.

THE UGLY:

• Education spending increased for the next two years when there is in no way a proportionate increase in student performance.  In fact, here is a very telling graph of education at the federal level from 2011 Cato Institute testimony before the U.S. House Education and Work force Committee:

Cato Education Spending vs Achievement

There has also been no effect on the achievement gap over all of these decades and for all of the TRILLIONS of dollars of state and federal education money spent on efforts to close it.  Between this data and the data found in the Head Start Impact Study that has resulted in even liberal columnists calling for the demise of that sacred cow, it is absolutely ugly that not only was nothing cut in education, but that spending was increased even before the final deal.  Counting the shift last biennium, this biennium and the failed federal stimulus funding, of this is one time money of over $1 billion of education spending that will now be added to the baseline. This is not logical or sustainable.

• The final negotiations were done in secret with no opportunity for public input and with the final education bill not coming out until less than an hour before the time on which it was voted, well after 1 AM on the night of the special session.  This is a really bad situation for a bill that represents 40% of the state’s entire budget.

TOO SOON TO TELL:

• Teacher and Principal Evaluations – If these lead to better student performance, they are worthy of support.  If these evaluations become the carrot and stick for rewarding or punishing teachers and administrators to promote the implementation of national standards, curriculum and tests, similar to what is being done in medicine, Education Liberty Watch will oppose them.
• Integration and Compensatory Aid – Martin Luther King spoke powerfully against dealing with people based solely on the color of their skin.  That is exactly what integration and compensatory aid did. It was wise that the legislature passed bill redirected this money to improving reading which is the foundational academic skill.  Now the final bill requires that a commission distributes these funds which leaves open all sorts of room for mischief.  This will have to be closely monitored.

THANK YOU!!!

Thank you for staying aware and involved and for your support of Education Liberty Watch and our efforts to maintain freedom in education.  Please thank and support those legislators that stood for freedom this session (House and Senate).  Also please stay tuned as more information becomes available on the federal debt ceiling negotiations and their effect on education at the federal and state level and for news about the unconstitutional federal efforts to control education via Race to the Top.  Just like any non-profit, we cannot do this work without your gracious support, so please consider a generous donation as well.