St. Paul – On Thursday, the Minnesota Senate approved a bipartisan bill that provides $781 million of new money and transforms the way the state delivers education. The legislation that passed off the senate floor emphasizes approaches with a track record of improving student performance in other states, like student literacy, mental health, and empowering parents.
Schools will receive a significant boost in funding of nearly $3.5 billion from combined state and federal resources. Total state education aid will reach a record of $20.6 billion for the upcoming two school years under the Republican proposal — approximately 42% of the state’s general fund budget. When combined with local levies, schools will have more than $29 billion in revenue for the next budget cycle, far more money than ever before.
“Prioritizing education means prioritizing the future of our state. This legislation is a well-balanced approach for trying to help out families across the state and give parents more of a choice on where their kids go to school,” said Senator David Senjem (R-Rochester). “For many minority students their current school is not the right school Minnesota has one of the worst achievement gaps in the country while spending even 40% of its operating budget on education. This is very serious. We must find a better way.”
The new item in the bill is the creation of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) which will empower parents with more flexibility and control over their child’s education. With ESAs, the state funds kids, not systems: If a parent chooses to withdraw their child from public school, the state would deposit that child’s share of state education assistance into a restricted, government-authorized savings account the parent could use for approved education-related expenses, including tuition and fees at a different school, online learning, instructional material, and more. ESAs empower parents and have vastly improved outcomes for kids. A March 2021 poll conducted by Morning Consult found 69 percent of all Minnesotans and 75 percent of all parents’ nationwide support ESAs. According to a 2021 survey from Beck Research, 74% of African Americans, 71% of Latinos, and 65% of all voters back the concept of school choice.
The education bill prioritizes the bipartisan issue of mental health support, including a $1.5 million grant to the organization Live More, Screen Less to address the effects of social media and screen time overuse and misuse on student mental health and $3.8 million for youth counseling at the elementary school level. The bill also includes funding for suicide prevention training for teachers and allows schools to use school safety funding for student mental health.
The bill also provides $60 million in one-time Minnesota Classroom Support Aid to allow our schools to recover from the classroom shut-down and to fully return to in-person learning.
The legislation also empowers local schools. It expands and clarifies schools’ ability to offer for-credit instruction during whatever hours work best for students. The bill expands the definition of student instruction to include all learning opportunities, such as blended learning, distance learning, project-based learning, work-based learning, service learning, supervised internships, and in-person learning in a school building. The bill allows local school districts to offer a full distance learning option to their students at any time; allows school districts to approve “flexible learning year” schedules; and grants local school boards the authority to exercise these freedoms without first needing approval from a state bureaucracy.