Putting Students First
by Senator Steve Green
It might sound like a broken record, but we have to start putting students first in Minnesota. For the last two years, Democrats have failed at this. Every single education mandate they passed has crippled schools and their budgets. It has also led to stagnated performance for students across all subjects. And now it will result in fewer options for families. Unsurprisingly, Democrats have once again put forward an inadequate education plan this year – it will just make these problems even worse. I wanted to let folks know a bit more about their plan.
Education makes up a large portion of our budget – about a third. We spend a lot on it, which makes it even more confusing that our schools are struggling, but we’ll come back to that. What I first want to point out is that the 2024-2025 education funding from the state ran about $24.5 billion. This year, with our $6 billion deficit to contend with, Senate Democrats proposed a zero target for education. But that target is misleading. The education budget is still slated to grow by 4.8%, which amounts to $25.7 billion for 2026-2027. Republicans have been sounding the alarm on this out-of-control budgeting, and Democrats have finally caught on. In recent weeks in both education committees, they’ve made the concessions: “we need to make cuts” and “we need to make hard decisions.” Unfortunately, those “cuts” are not where they should be.
Democrats are proposing to cut funding to non-public schools. Yet at the same time, they are proposing an increased budget for the Department of Education to the tune of an additional $2 million for operations, and a $6 million increase for their legal budget. This move signals they are putting agency demands over student needs. Their priorities are out of line.
The non-public school cuts are a disgrace. They’d affect transportation, textbooks, health services, and more. These are all things families rely on. And I want folks to be aware that per pupil funding is higher for public schools than it is for non-public schools. So when these cuts force kids to switch to public schools because they don’t have any other choice, it’s going to cost the state more. Families have a variety of reasons why they send their kids to non-public schools over public schools. Some kids need more attention in smaller class sizes, some need additional support in certain areas, and some have different goals they want to reach in school. These cuts are clearly targeted and will remove these options from the table. This is nothing but a way to funnel kids into a public school system that many see as a total failure. Why else would they propose funding cuts to non-public schools but not MDE?
That brings me to another point – our public schools are struggling. Democrats passed what they called “historic” education funding in 2023, and our schools are worse because of it. Their budgets are broken. That’s because nearly all that funding was tied to mandates. Over 80 of which were passed onto schools, many unfunded. So all that so-called “historic” funding was either earmarked for specific mandates, or eaten up by schools trying to adapt to the other unfunded mandates. That’s why so many schools across the state have come to the Capitol to tell us they’re in trouble. Budgets are in the red, staff and programs are being cut, and Democrats’ solution is to not address the mandates that have caused them to struggle, but to just make cuts to non-public schools, which will funnel more kids into the struggling publics. All alongside budget increases for MDE. This solution makes no sense. None of these things put students first.
We have to adjust course. We must put our Students First. That means doing things like supporting non-public school options, reducing agency bloat to MDE, and providing mandate relief. Only then will our education system be in a better place. Unfortunately, Democrats are suggesting the complete opposite. Every part of their plan prioritizes MDE over kids and families. This is backwards. It’s time for a change.