The House and Senate are each bringing finance and policy proposals that MREA supports to end of session negotiations. Here’s a snapshot of some of the provisions, organized by the issues outlined on MREA’s 2016 legislative platform: Facility Fallout The House tax cut package contains an Agricultural school bond credit of 50 percent. MREA is in strong support of this … Read More
Technology, Teacher Recruitment Top Priorities in Omnibus Bill
The House and Senate Education Committees passed their education finance bills on schedule last week. They neatly bracket the Governor’s target of $60.77 million. The Senate’s budget tops $100.5 million, while the House spends $52 million. Both bodies assume that several districts with Capital loans will repay their loans thus providing the state with an infusion of $52 million. Even … Read More
MREA Opens Call for Conference Presenters
MREA welcomes dynamic presenters to share best practices, solutions, and research at our 2016 Annual Conference: Making Teaching Matter. Expectations for today’s professional teachers are redesigning teaching and making it a more demanding profession. Research continues to demonstrate that great teaching is more important than ever to student achievement. Presenters will have the opportunity to positively impact more than 300 … Read More
National Teacher to Keynote "Making Teaching Matter"
Sarah Brown Wessling, National Teacher of the Year, has been selected as the keynote speaker for MREA’s 2016 Annual Conference. The conference will focus the theme, “Making Teaching Matter.” It will be hosted November 13-15 at Cragun’s Resort near Brainerd. Why “Making Teaching Matter?” Expectations for today’s professional teachers have redesigned teaching and made it a more demanding profession. Research continues to demonstrate that … Read More
National Teacher to Keynote “Making Teaching Matter”
Sarah Brown Wessling, National Teacher of the Year, has been selected as the keynote speaker for MREA’s 2016 Annual Conference. The conference will focus on the theme, “Making Teaching Matter.” It will be hosted November 13-15 at Cragun’s Resort near Brainerd. Why “Making Teaching Matter?” Expectations for today’s professional teachers have redesigned teaching and made it a more demanding profession. Research continues to … Read More
Education Omnibus Bills Introduced: How They Compare
After three packed weeks of bill introductions and testimony, both the House and Senate Omnibus Education Policy Bills passed out of committee for their first deadline. HF 3066 DE and SF 2744 A5 are designed to include policy changes that do not have state-level cost impacts. View side-by-side comparison of bills. Some of the more significant proposed policy changes include: Personal … Read More
Bill Presented to Help Paras Receive Special Ed Licensure
The House Education Finance Committee on Wednesday heard a bill that would create pathway to be licensed in special education teaching for current paraprofessionals. HF3427 authored by Rep. Chris Swedzinski (R-Ghent), would establish a pilot project in partnership with Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota, the surrounding school districts, and the Southwest-West Central Service Cooperative. This program would be available online, on evenings, … Read More
Guide to Overcoming Minnesota’s Teacher Crisis
How do we recruit and retain the teachers we need to prepare the World’s Best Workforce? This is an essential question for the next decade in Minnesota and across the nation. MREA released a report on Minnesota’s teacher crisis to provide background and guidance on the issue for policy makers, advocates and educational leaders. Download the guide below. MREA identifies these … Read More
Map Shows Q Comp Participation Growth
Where are the districts that have schools with Q Comp? Which districts have added Q Comp since the Legislature raised the funding cap to $88.118 million last year? MREA released a map today to answer these questions. A thumbnail is below. View the interactive map. The 99 Minnesota school districts shown on this map as well as the 69 charter schools … Read More
Budget Forecast Retracts to $900 Million
The updated state budget forecast released today reveals a slight retraction in the $1.2 billion surplus initially projected as of December to $900 million, according to Minnesota Management and Budget. Legislative leaders now have to grapple with the budget news as they head into session on March 8. The competition for tax cuts, transportation spending and early learning funding just got more … Read More