By Rep. Matt Bliss
Our children have faced added educational challenges the last couple of years, and it is crucial we help them catch up on lost classroom time and regain lost learning ground.
Unfortunately, an education package (HF 4300) which recently received preliminary approval in the House doesn’t do enough to help our children overcome setbacks they have experienced. In fact, the bill focuses far too much on imposing new mandates on our schools and bureaucrats – not parents – deciding what is best for our kids’ education. The bill also prioritizes Minneapolis schools while giving those of us in Greater Minnesota the short shrift.
I recently met with numerous local teachers and administrators and a common theme from both groups is additional state mandates already are presenting significant challenges and they cannot continue to absorb added burdens. The bill which House Democrats approved includes more than 50 such directives that impact public, non-public and home schools, removing power from parents and placing it in the hands of bureaucrats. The bill includes new mandates for ethnic studies while doing nothing to address stagnant test scores in reading, math, and science.
Rather than look at cost-drivers in education and making improvements to streamline our schools, this bill adds layers of extra work that won’t directly address our children’s many needs. And, instead of focusing on mental health issues or literacy, this omnibus package creates more administrative positions at MDE at a cost to taxpayers of around $300,000.
Education dollars are precious and we need to make sure it is directed toward classrooms to have the most benefit for our children instead of funding union leaders and bureaucrats in St. Paul.
Furthermore, the disparity in funding between rural and metro schools has long been an issue and this bill exacerbates that divide by forcing taxpayers statewide to bail out major financial promises to teachers’ unions in the Twin Cities. It also increases education spending by $1,400 per pupil in Minneapolis St. Paul, compared with a $775 increase for kids in Greater Minnesota.
We need to fundamentally overhaul our metrics for school funding to level the playing field and I will be working to accomplish this.
Also not included in this omnibus bill is sorely needed reform to incentivize substitute teachers that are in short supply throughout our state, causing our students to lose instructional time.
We’ve seen headlines about how schools are struggling to find substitute teachers, but the House majority ignored this issue in its omnibus bill and has made no real effort to address it this session. House Republicans have authored legislation to make improvements, but that was not included among the more than 250 pages in this bill and has not been taken seriously by the majority. Our state spends billions of dollars on education, yet this provision – that wouldn’t cost any money – was skipped.
The achievement gap in our state is woeful and so has been our state’s response to it. This omnibus bill was an opportunity to address that issue but, instead, House Democrats are focusing on prescriptive legislation, controlling how teachers teach, what they teach – all at the expense of parental empowerment and our children’s education.
We need to do better to ensure we’re doing what’s best for our children. The Minnesota Department of Education’s mission should be to set standards, not mandates. Political indoctrination or divisive propaganda has no place in our children’s classrooms. Let’s focus on improving academic achievement in areas such as reading, writing and math in a transparent process that helps our children grow. I hope improvements with those thoughts in mind are made to this education package before we take a vote on final approval.
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