Minnesota Management & Budget on Thursday released an economic forecast for state tax collections and spending for the current and next fiscal biennium. The forecast shows a $1.87 billion surplus for the current biennium, which ends on June 30, 2017. Current law requires one-third of that projected surplus to be put into the state’s budget reserve, increasing it to almost … Read More
Minnesota Awards $11 Million for Broadband Projects
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) awarded $11 million in grants to projects to expand broadband access in 15 Greater Minnesota communities. The announcement came Nov. 20 at the Blandin Foundation’s annual “Border to Border Broadband: Better Together” Conference. The latest round of broadband grants will improve access to high-speed broadband for 3,222 households, 786 businesses and … Read More
ESEA Rewrite Passes U.S. House
The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), 359 to 64, on Wednesday. The bill, molded out of ESEA, reduces the federal role in education for the first time since the early 1980s, handing greater control over accountability and school improvement back to states, while maintaining and increasing funding important to schools. It keeps in place the NCLB … Read More
MREA Members Approve 2016 Legislative Platform
MREA announced today its platform of the key education issues for the 2016 Legislative session. MREA members approved the platform at the annual business meeting on Nov. 16. The platform comes from months of grassroots input, research and reflection on how to keep us positioned to be effective in the legislative process. Anticipating that property tax reductions will be a … Read More
White House Praises Passing of ESSA
The Obama Administration today is praising action by the House of Representatives to pass the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a bipartisan bill to fix No Child Left Behind, and is calling on the Senate to take swift action on the legislation so that it can be signed into law before the end of the year. The bill rejects the … Read More
Share Support of ESEA Today
MREA encourages individuals share with their U.S. Representatives the importance of supporting an ESEA reauthorization and why the proposal serves as a strong starting point. The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Dec. 2. Get their contact information. Look up your Congress Rep. The conference committee met before Thanksgiving break and voted to move forward with the conference report. Both Rep. Kline … Read More
U.S. Congress Develops Framework for ESEA
The House and Senate Education Committee staff have been working on an Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) framework, a proposal to reconcile the differences that exist between the House and Senate ESEA proposals, as passed this summer. Noelle Ellerson of NREAC and AASA provides this two-fold summary: The first half details what we know about the framework and the second … Read More
MREA Prepares for 2016 Legislative Session
MREA traveled the state through the fall and heard from Greater Minnesota schools. Now it’s time to focus our collective voice on behalf of rural students as the 2016 legislative session approaches. The MREA Board of directors recommends the following platform for member approval at the annual meeting at the 2015 MREA Annual Conference on Nov. 17. View the proposed platform. The proposed platform focuses … Read More
Coming Together for Concurrent Enrollment
When faced with a complex problem in public administration that requires a solution, management experts advise nearly unanimously to “get the stakeholders together in a room and work out solutions.” Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius has said the department’s working groups have been successful because they get bright people together who are committed to solving the problem. Protecting Early College through … Read More
MREA To Host Virtual Meetings on 3 Key Issues
MREA will host a series of “on-point” virtual meetings in the next few weeks to gain feedback on specific issues currently impacting our Greater Minnesota schools: early learning, teacher shortages, and school bond debt. Member feedback from the meetings will form the basis to build MREA’s Legislative Platform for the 2016 legislative session. Teachers, board members, and administrators are encouraged to participate. … Read More