With the second bill deadline behind them, Minnesota legislators left St. Paul on Friday for their traditional spring break. This is a time for legislators to get back to their districts and get a reality check on what they’ve been working on. We hope that school leaders will take some time to reach out to their legislators to talk about … Read More
Governor Dayton: A Legacy of Early Learning
If there was a remaining doubt in your mind about the Governor’s seriousness toward expanding universal four-year old preschool, check out his news release from Friday. It appears Governor Dayton has decided his legacy won’t just be all-day kindergarten but a wholesale expansion four-year-old preschool with an aim of making it a universal program in a few short years. Questions … Read More
Omnibus Education Policy Bills Advance
The Senate E12 Committee dug the Senate’s omnibus education bill, SF1495, last week. Along with several other items, the bill from Chairman Wiger would ease the requirement for teachers who have not passed the required basic skills test. They would be able to obtain up to four, rather than the current two, one-year temporary teaching licenses, and the bill requires a streamlined … Read More
Governor Calls for Every Child in Preschool
ST. PAUL, MN – Minnesota could be among the first states in the country to offer free, full-day early learning programs for every four-year-old – if a proposal from Governor Mark Dayton and the Minnesota Senate becomes law this session. If passed, the proposal would allow an estimated 47,300 students to attend preschool in the program’s first year of operation. … Read More
School Readiness Programs Get Results
An array of research shows that providing students from low-income families the opportunity to attend a high quality pre-school program closes achievement gaps and offers extensive societal benefits. This has led to a growing interest among state policymakers to increase Minnesota’s investment in quality pre-K programming. Impressive Research Results The results from school readiness Pre-K programs are impressive. For example, data … Read More
ECFE Fund Transfers Permitted This Year
Many rural school districts are running up balances in Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) budgets and deficits in School Readiness budgets. For this fiscal year only, districts in this situation can request the Commissioner of Education to approve the transfer of funds from ECFE to School Readiness. Because both ECFE and School Readiness funds are “within” the Community Service Fund (Fund 4), these transfers … Read More
Budget Plans Begin to Hatch
As the policy deadlines loom the discussion about respective budget plans is starting to emerge. With a $1.9 billion surplus in hand the debate about education should be a matter of how much and where to spend it. The House Ways & Means Committee meets Monday morning to take testimony on what should be the upper limits of spending by … Read More
Education Policy Shaping Up As Deadlines Loom
March madness is in full swing at the state Capitol. This Monday marks the beginning of the first bill deadline. By Friday policy bills must clear their respective policy committees in order to be viable to continue on this session. Traditionally there’s an omnibus education policy bill and that’s true this year as well. The House and Senate education policy … Read More
Inside the Education Technical Policy Bill
The House Education Innovation Policy Committee on Thursday began dissecting HF1591, sponsored by Rep. Sondra Erickson (R-Princeton). The proposed legislation serves as the Minnesota Department of Education’s policy bill and contains a number of wide-ranging proposed policy reforms brought forward by Department Commissioner Brenda Cassellius. Its companion, SF1495, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Wiger (DFL-Maplewood), was heard Wednesday in the Senate … Read More
Funding Transfers of Early Learning and School Readiness
When Rep. Mike Sundin (DFL-Duluth) presented a bill that would authorize the Barnum school district to transfer money between its ECFE reserved account and its school readiness reserved account, he shared that a statewide bill will follow in the next week or two. MREA has been strongly advocating for these types of bills this session. A special law passed in 2013 … Read More