Refocusing Education Priorities Back on Students
by Senator Jason Rarick

As we head into our final month of Session and omnibus bills are starting to come together, it’s important we have our priorities in order. With a $6 billion deficit, it’s clear that cuts will be necessary to balance our budget, but we must approach these cuts in a thoughtful way. One area that has been discussed at length is the education budget, for which Democrats have proposed a “zero” target. Education is already about a third of our state’s entire base budget. For reference, the 2024-2025 education funding from the state totaled $24.5 billion. Even though Senate Democrats have proposed a “zero” target for the 2026-2027 budget, the education budget will still grow by 4.8%, totaling $25.7 billion. So what does this all mean? Let’s dig into the details of their proposal.

Don’t let that zero-target paired with an increased budget confuse you – Democrats have still proposed cuts to the education budget, but not in the areas you’d think. When it comes to education, their first proposed cuts were to non-public schools. They are proposing cuts to transportation, textbooks, counseling, and health services – all critical things that students and families rely on. Non-public schools are often a key alternative for students whose needs are not best met in public school settings. A foundational part of our education system in Minnesota is the fact that parents have options, so that they may choose whatever education avenue best suits their specific needs. However, with these massive cuts to non-public education, options will decrease for families, driving them to public schools that are already overwhelmed and financially overburdened. Historically, per pupil funding is much higher for public schools than it is for non-public schools, so when these students start attending public schools, it’s actually going to be more costly. Cuts to non-public education will eliminate education options, hurt families and students, and cost the state more in the long run. This is not a viable solution.

While their proposal calls for cuts to non-public schools, it does not ask the Department of Education (MDE) to make any meaningful cuts. In fact, their budget gets an increase. In 2026-2027, MDE will get a $2 million increase for operations, and a $6 million increase for their legal budget. Throughout the hearings we’ve had on these proposals, Democrats have repeatedly claimed the need for making “tough decisions” and “needed cuts.” Yet when they say those things, they apparently only mean cuts for schools, not bloated agencies. It’s concerning that their proposal appears to put agency needs over student needs.

Another issue that I think bears repeating is the fact that schools have been crippled by mandates. Over the last biennium, we saw more than 80 new mandates passed into law for schools to follow, many of which were unfunded. Every dollar that schools are forced to put towards these unfunded mandates is a dollar taken away from students and their needs. Democrats like to tout their “historic education funding” from 2023, but so much of that funding was tied to specific mandates, and for the dollars that weren’t, those ended up being used by schools to comply with the other 60+ unfunded mandates. We should take this opportunity to ease those burdens by providing schools with the flexibility to use funds in a way that will best help their students succeed in the classroom.

We’ve said it for two years and we will keep saying it until Democrats listen: we have to put our students first in every decision we make. I find it troubling that their budget proposal fails to accomplish this and instead makes cuts in areas that are incredibly important to students and families. This is not how we address our budget concerns. What we should be doing is shifting focus to meeting students’ needs, making cuts to bloated agencies, and giving schools the ability to defer unfunded mandates so they can free up funding to assist students in the classroom. This wouldn’t solve the entire $6 billion deficit, but it would be a needed step in the right direction.