With the March 20 first
committee deadline
approaching, both the House and Senate education committees have been hearing many policy bills. Most of the bills are sent straight to either the House and Senate floor and can be taken up for consideration at any time. It doesn't look like there will be education policy omnibus bills, where numerous different bills are combined into one large bill. At this point, I don't see an appetite to try to get controversial policy through the divided partisan legislature. If they do continue to meet, they may pass bills where there is agreement. You can see these bills on the
SEE Education Bill Summary
. Senate and House companion bills on the same line in the summary, and are on the General Registry in the House and the General Orders in the Senate, have a better (although diminishing) likelihood of becoming law. Right now, there is only one bill that fits that criteria. Foster care students have the right to stay in their current school even if they are placed in a new foster care home outside the district.
I was asked by a SEE member to share this entry from
Brad’s Blog.
What a good idea to spotlight some of the excellent work SEE member districts do to advocate for equity in education.
Verbatim
: Attention on Equalization.
It's been a good week for the topic of equalization. Whether anything comes of the welcome attention remains to be seen, the issue did come up in two separate venues last week. On Thursday night at the Minnesota Department of Education's session of the Education Finance Working Group, South St. Paul superintendent Dave Webb and Finance Director Aaron Bushberger gave a stellar presentation on the issue, providing a great example of the disadvantage property taxpayers in low property wealth districts face when attempting to augment state funding for operations or for building projects. Kudos to both of them on a job well done.
