What does Cruz-Guzman II mean?

 On December 13, the Supreme Court delivered its second decision in the years-long Cruz-Guzman case.  In the seminal 1993 Skeen v State case, the Minnesota Supreme Court established 2 important foundational principles under Minnesota's constitutional education clause.  (For more on Skeen Click here)  (1) That our education clause establishes a fundamental right enforceable in the courts to an adequate education that meets all state standards. (2) That the education and uniformity clauses do not demand that each school district receive the same amount of funding.  Rather they require that the legislature provide school districts enough funding to afford each student with an adequate education that meets all state standards. Districts serving students with higher learning challenges must receive more and adequate funding.  Unfortunately, the Cruz-Guzman plaintiffs and their attorneys attempted to convert the Cruz-Guzman case into a modern form of Brown v Board of Education, in which Minnesota would be required to make sure that racially imbalanced public schools were unconstitutional without proof that racially imbalanced students deprive students of an adequate education.  This may be a worthy objective:  but the core purpose of the Education clause, as interpreted by our Supreme Court is to provide students with an adequate education.

In Skeen, the Supreme Court correctly recognized that the purpose of public education was to deliver an adequate education to all students.  The authors of our constitution included a mandate to provide a uniform thorough and efficient system of public education to all students, including the descendants of slaves, immigrants and English language learners.  They believed that education was the "balance wheel of the social machinery," essential to our democratic tradition. The Cruz-Guzman plaintiffs refocused the courts' attention off of educational adequacy, off of adequate funding, and onto racial balance.  Skeen was a funding case sought to assure adequate education for at least some of Minnesota students.  Cruz-Guzman became an integration case.  Yet while allowing the Cruz-Guzman plaintiffs to proceed, the Court itself, in Cruz-Guzman I itself reminded us of the education clause's essential purpose.   

Justice Hudson explained the Skeen decision as follows:

[In Skeen, we specifically stated that “there is a fundamental right, under the Education Clause, to a ‘general and uniform system of education’ which provides an adequate education to all students in Minnesota.” We declared that the Education Clause requires the state to provide enough funds to ensure that each student receives an adequate education We declared that the Education Clause requires the state to provide enough funds to ensure that each student receives an adequate education ….an adequate level of education which meets all state standards,. “

This "all state standards" was used by the Supreme Court intentionally and with a specific meaning in mind.   You can read about why the Skeen Court used that language by clicking here and also by clicking here.   The standards that the Supreme Court had in mind were proficiency based learning standards that would be established in accordance with state law, regulation, and policy. 

But in the lower courts, these fundamental principles lost their way.  Neither side, not the plaintiffs, and surely not the Attorney General, were interested in the true meaning of Skeen: the right to enough funding to afford each student with an adequate education that meets all state standards.  Instead, the litigation centered around whether the education clause could be used for important social engineering: to create a more integrated society.   But Cruz-Guzman II is pointing the way back to Skeen and the education clause's true purpose, to assure that students receive a truly adequate education.

Cruz-Guzman II stands for several propositions, and we'll post about this more in the future:

• The Court reaffirmed Skeen's decision that the constitution provides a fundamental enforceable right. 
• However, that right is founded in an adequate education.  Cruz-Guzman II does not decide what an adequate education is: the answer to that question is found, explicitly in Skeen and Cruz-Guzman I.  The reason is that neither party before the Cruz-Guzman II was advocating for the adequate education demanded by the prior two decisions. 
• To establish a practice is a constitutional violation, plaintiffs need not proved that the challenged practice is wholly responsible for denial of an adequate education, but merely that it is a substantial contributing factor in denying that right. 

The Cruz-Guzman plaintiffs themselves, and other advocates for the constitutional right would do well to take heed: The education clause is specifically about funding and adequate education.  If properly enforced, plaintiffs will now demand that the state provide enough funding to districts serving students of color, lower income students and emerging multilingual students-- enough funding to afford them with an adequate education that meets state standards, and will also assure that adequate funding is used efficiently and effectively for those students.

How Much Expanded Education Will Minnesota Districts Fund under the 2024-2025 Education Budget (1)

The media  has left us all with the impression that the Minnesota legislature showered new funding on Minnesota school districts--at times the new funding has even been described as transformational: "the Education funding we've all been waiting for."   So what transformations can you expect from your local school district?  How do we measure how much it really received; what it could be used for; and what should advocates for educational transformation expect from the new district budgets to fund priorities.  In this post, we'll describe different windows on how practically to measure the magnitude of these increases and hopefully decipher the hype that accompanies the biennial education budget, using my own St. Cloud School District as an example.   The leadership of the St. Cloud District is genuinely committed to using new money to benefit the students who need improved educational services the most.   What has the legislature given them to work with and what can they do?

So let's take a critical look at how to measure what a school district received, and then in that context, examine what discretion district leadership has to make a difference for students. It will take us a couple of posts to do that.  

The Post-Legislative Budget Cycle.  

School Districts need to pass their budgets before the beginning of the fiscal year, and that usually means by the end of June.  A tremendous amount of work goes into that budgeting process.  In St. Cloud, collective bargaining contracts coincide with the two year budget calendar, and serious bargaining is difficult until the legislative budget is in stone. Except for targeted funding, almost all revenue is "on the table," for bargaining, and so, the budget passed by June is filled with imponderables.  In St. Cloud the June 2023 budget used last year's base funding.  It didn't include the new money that was expected to come in the budget, and it didn't budget for the increased compensation that would result from collective bargaining.  While the administration aspired to use some of the new money to provide expanded services, appropriating that new money for expanded services would have been criticized by bargaining partners as unfairly taking money "off the table," and this is likely true for many other districts.  

As the legislative budget was passing, Education Minnesota was urging its member groups to push for proportionately fair packages  and urging them not to harm other districts by settling for too little.  Like similar districts, the St. Cloud District needs to expand services for lower income students, for English language learners, for students with dyslexia, students for color, and for other pressing needs.  In a perfect world, those expansions, would be part of the budget passed in June,  but Minnesota's funding cycle makes that almost impossible. 

Assessing the Magnitude of What has Been Received in Context

How should we measure District funding increases?  Unfortunately, there are multiple ways to measure what the legislature has provided your school district.  The official reporting for the St. Cloud District's General Fund Revenue, the state funding that delivers most educational services, shows the St. Cloud District as receiving   $136 million in FY 2021 "increasing" to $161 million in FY 2025, the second year of the new legislative budget.  So "wow" that's an 18% increase over 4 years time measured that way.  But that's only window on the funding.   Here are some differing approaches to looking at education revenues in context:

• Total state unadjusted increase 2021 versus 2024 and 2025.  This approach has no adjustment for inflation and no adjustment for changes resulting from enrollment.   MDE legislative funding reports show St. Cloud District receiving $137 million general fund dollars in FY 2021 and $161 million projected for FY 2025.   A legislator might then say, “we gave you $24 million, an increase of $6 million per year.  What did you do with all that money?  ($24 million)

• CPI (or IPD) adjusted increase per ADM, 2021 versus 2025.   MDE’s spreadsheet for the St. Cloud District shows no increase in the inflation adjusted general fund revenue from FY 2021 to projected FY 2025.  Adjusted for the consumer price index the 2025 revenues for the district did not increase at all.   (No increase)
  

• Old Law versus New Law Revenue for FY 2024 and 2025.  This measure compares how much state revenue the district would have received if the operative formulas in law remained unchanged by the new legislation versus the amount that the district will receive under the newly passed formulas.  MDE reports that the new law revenues for district 742 in 2025 will be $13 million greater than its old law revenues.   This $13 million largely derives from the special education cross subsidy relief, formula increases, basic skills revenue (ELL and Compensatory) adjusted by reduction in enrollment.   This is the new money that the district receives beyond what it would expect to receive if the legislature kept formulas constant.  
  
  
• Basic Skills: Compensatory and ELL Funding Increases.   From FY 2021 to FY  2025, the St. Cloud Districts basic skills revenues, increases intended for English Language Learners (increasing from $2 million to $3.4 million) and for lower income learners (from $13.6 million to $20 million) a total increase -- not inflation adjusted -- of about $8 million   This increase may reflect an increase in the percentage of eligible students, or legislative intent that districts should use this funding to expand and improve education for the students covered by the two formulas. About $6.4 million of the increase is slated to occur in 2024--2025.  What will this money be spent for? How are other districts like St. Cloud assuring that the new basic skills revenue actually provides improved services for students of color, lower income students and English language learners.  If new money was not in your districts' June budget, what is the public process involving stakeholders in your district to allocate these funds? How will the district determine how fairly to allocate increases between expansion of services and compensation and other cost increases of current services?
  
  
• In 2023, the St. Cloud District ran a deficit in its ELL program budget of $3.4 million.  Other districts with similar ELL enrollment concentrations have similar or even larger deficits.  If the District were to use the EL and basic skills increased revenues to cover some of that deficit, a form of supplanting, that money would not increase services to EL students at all. How much of the increased basic skills revenue will be used to increase learning time for those students, to add more teachers, counselors or ELL specialists. How much of the revenues will be used to increase compensation for existing staff, and how much will remain to expand services?  All of this is a challenge for the St. Cloud District, and it will be as well for other districts in Minnesota, and these decisions as they are made across the state will determine the impact that the 2024-2025 budget has on the students Minnesota's education system leaves behind. 
  

• Loss of Temporary Federal Revenue.  The district predicts a drop in federal revenue in 2023-2024 of $14 million dollars from termination of temporary federal funding. It appears that  federal revenue may drop another $11 million in the following year, or a total decrease in federal revenue of $25 million.  The budgeting for permanent improvements will be colored by loss of this funding.
  

 Districts across the state are grappling with these issues.  How will they maintain federally funded programs that have turned out well?   How will they explain the budget challenges in this biennium while political leaders are asserting that the legislature provided districts with transformational funding?    How will they make these decisions transparently and in the public interest?

 

 

St. Cloud District Resolution Supporting Full Funding of ELL, Compensatory and Special Education

 On March 3, the St. Cloud St. Cloud Board of Education adopted the following resolution urging the legislature and governor to fully fund education for Multi-lingual learners, lower income students and to eliminate the special education cross subsidy. 

 

St. Cloud Area School District 742 Resolution 2023-1 Supporting Full Funding of English Language Learners, Compensatory and Special Education

 WHEREAS:

1)   It has been thirty years since the Supreme Court declared that the Minnesota Constitution creates a fundamental right under the Education Clause requiring the Minnesota legislature to provide enough funds to ensure that each student receives an adequate education that meets all state standards, yet Minnesota has still failed to implement that constitutional requirement;  

 

2)    In 2004 the Governor's School Funding Task Force, recommended that Minnesota's education funding formula should:

"take into account the added costs included with relevant characteristics of each student (e.g., disabilities, poverty, school readiness, English multilingual learners, and student mobility)"

And further recommended that funding should "cover full dollar costs of ensuring Minnesota public school students have an opportunity to achieve state specified academic standards", yet Minnesota has still failed to implement that recommendation;

3)     The Governor's 2004 School Funding Task Force advised that Minnesota should conduct cost research to determine the appropriate weighting for the various relevant characteristics, and advised that "once instructional and operational costs are reasonably determined and sufficiently funded, local education officials have an obligation to ensure both that public resources are deployed efficiently and that students achieve high standards," yet Minnesota has still failed to investigate and determine the instructional and operational costs required provide a fully adequate world class education;

4)   Since that time, a series of reports have decried Minnesota's lack of progress in closing the achievement gap, including Funding Education for the Future, (MDE May 2011) ("There are wide gaps in reading and math proficiency by race and by economic status. Little progress was made in closing these achievement gaps between 2006 and 2010. ''); 80-20-10 Bringing Equity to Minnesota's School Finance System (School Finance Working Group, November 2020) (Over the past 20 years, educational outcomes measured by state accountability tests have stagnated with a large, persistent achievement gap while the percentage of children of color has more than doubled from 16% to 34% ); Office of Legislative Auditor A Minnesota Department of Education's Role in Addressing the Achievement Gap (2022) p 3 ("Minnesota has had long-standing academic achievement gaps, despite efforts by MDE, school districts, and charter schools to implement policies designed to close them.); Educational Outcomes and Minnesota's Economy, Minnesota Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2022 ("Data show that Minnesota's public schools consistently underserve students from low-income families, Indigenous students, and students of color".)

5)    While the proposed 2023 budget contains substantial funding increases, it fails to base its funding formulas on instructional and operational costs and continues to foster an unacceptable funding adequacy gap that adversely impacts school districts serving students of color, lower income students, and English multilingual learners;

6)    The St. Cloud District has advised the board of education and Minnesota Department of Education that programming necessary to meet the full educational needs of English multilingual learners, students of color and lower income students will cost $19 million per year beyond the funding that sustains existing programming.

 
7)    The Governor's proposed 2023 budget fails to provide adequate funding to districts disproportionately serving students of color, lower income students, and multilingual learners because it under funds English language education, fails to base compensatory funding for lower income students based on the documented costs of meeting their educational needs, and leaves districts with large special education cross subsidies;

NOW THEREFORE, the Board of Education Resolves and calls upon the Governor, the Department of Education, and the Minnesota legislature to:

1.      Implement Bold Cost-Based Increases in Compensatory Funding, accompanied by requirements that assure that the increases in funding are allocated to increase and improve educational programs and services for lower income students, students of color and English multilingual learners.

 

2.    Determine Instructional and Operational Costs Necessary to Provide Adequate Education. The Board urges the Minnesota Department of Education and Governor Walz to restart the abandoned work of the 2004 Governor's School Funding Task force and to work with school districts principally serving lower income students, students of color, and English multilingual learners to determine the instructional and operational costs necessary to provide those students with the adequate education necessary to achieve high state standards. 

3.    Fund Both Adequate Compensation for Employees and Expanded Educational Services. Minnesota's education budget must provide enough funding to meet the reasonable compensation requirements of existing staff, and also must provide enough funding to expand educational services and programs necessary to deliver the world class education that all students deserve. Having done so, the legislature should establish guardrails to assure that local resources are deployed efficiently and that students achieve high standards. Governor Walz admirably called for a transformational budget: in order to be truly transformational, school boards should not be forced to choose between delivering a transformational education and providing staff with competitive compensation.

 The Superintendent, the chair and their designees are authorized to convey the Board's advocacy for closing the Adequacy Funding Gap, and the Board's commitment to use funding appropriated for those purposes to provide district students with the adequate education necessary to achieve high state standards.

Will the Education Budget be Transformational for Students who need Transformational Education the Most ? Part 2

 This is a second in a series on what the 2023-2024 budget must do, if it is to be truly transformational.  Shortly after our first post in the series, Minnesota Public Radio published an online article based on the research of Rutgers University and the Shanker Intitute which discloses that Minnesota grossly underfunds school districts with concentrated populations of lower income students, English language learners, and students of color. (See How Minnesota school funding leaves the most in-needs school districts behind.).   The Rutgers-Shanker study compares Minnesota's school funding for each Minnesota district as compared to the funding necessary for that district to provide its student with a national average education -- a much lower standard than Minnesota's constitutional requirement for an adequate education that meets all state standards. The Rutgers-Shanker study shows that even at this lower standard (a national average education), Minnesota's finance system fails many districts:

"The least adequately funded districts in Minnesota include both Minneapolis Public Schools and St. Paul Public Schools, which is consistent with national patterns of below adequate funding in large, diverse, urban school districts. But the list also includes many districts outside of the Twin Cities, like Worthington, St. Cloud, Chisholm and Mabel-Canton–and suburban districts, including Columbia Heights and Brooklyn Center. ..."What these districts have in common is that they have a higher proportion of students who need the most from public schools, in combination with local factors that increase the costs of school districts. These local factors include local wages and geographic sparsity."

Minnesota's Adequacy Funding Gap 

The "adequacy funding gap" is the difference between the state funding necessary for a district to provide an adequate education to its students and the funding actually provided.  Assessing whether Minnesota districts have an adequacy funding gap depends, in part,  on one's definition of an adequate education.  As we have said, the Rutgers-Shanker measure of the adequate funding gap utilizes the national average education for that purpose, a rather low bar for Minnesota Department of Education's vision calling for a world-class education.    The Rutgers-Shanker study merely estimates the additional funding required to raise a district's educational results to the national average.   By way of example the Rutgers-Shanker study estimates that the state underfunds St. Paul by about $4800 per student, Minneapolis by about $4500 per student, and my own St. Cloud district by about $6700 per student.

The regrettable fact is that the State of Minnesota -- Governor and legislature -- has never investigated the question posed by the Shanker-Rutgers study.  To close the achievement gap, Minnesota must close the adequacy funding gap, but Minnesota can't do that effectively when it doesn't have data on what an adequate education costs in the districts serving large number of students with higher educational needs.  At the same time, the legislature must develop policy guardrails to assure that adequate funding is actually used by local school districts efficiently and in a manner that delivers that adequate education.  As the legislature begins to close the adequacy funding gap, the legislature and MDE must implement a measure of accountability for funds designed to close the gap in funding and the gap in educational results

 Minnesota's past failure  to determine the full cost of providing an education that meets all state standards and mandates

Two decades ago, as Minnesota increased state mandates designed to assure that all students received a world class education, districts across the state complained mightily that mandating higher expectations was raising the cost of meeting those expectations.   Formerly, Minnesota had imposed no proficiency expectations for public education.  New proficiency expectations particularly raised costs for district serving higher numbers of students with higher educational needs.  

In his 2003, State of the State address Governor Pawlenty highlighted this growing concern, stating:

“As good as our schools have been, we are leaving too many children behind. And the sad reality is, they tend to be poor, disabled or children of color.”

 To this end Governor appropriately appointed a  blue-ribbon school funding task force to report on whether: 

"Minnesota’s education finance arrangements ensure resources are distributed “equitably” to students throughout the state and does Minnesota appropriately adjust state revenue allocations for legitimate cost differences between districts, including additional costs for “at-risk” students?"

That task force reported that Minnesota could not close its achievement gap, unless Minnesota re-calibrated its school funding formulas to cover the "full-dollar costs of ensuring Minnesota public school students have an opportunity to achieve state specified academic standards."   Cost based funding, the report explained required that the funding formula must be:

Tailored to relevant characteristics of each individual student. “Relevant characteristics” means a student’s grade level and incorporates, where appropriate, extraordinary conditions such as  student disabilities,  household or neighborhood poverty,pre-K or Kindergarten readiness,- English language learners, and high incidence of school-to-school mobility.

The report noted that in a number of districts the percentage of students with higher educational needs was growing.  To address this challenge, education funding should be based on costing data, that is on:

"research to determine the appropriate weighting for the various relevant characteristics (e.g., student disabilities, poverty, school readiness, English language deficiency, student mobility) of individual students...."

It would be impossible for the legislature to mandate the delivery of an adequate education without knowing the cost, any more than it would be to build an adequate bridge, without determining the costs of materials and construction.   But making that determination is just the first step in delivering a constitutionally adequate education to Minnesota students.  Minnesota must then provide districts with the full cost of that education, and further must assure that the new funding is actually used to provide a better educational product.  For that reason, the 2004 task force recommended that further study be conducted so that the state could accurately base funding on the cost of educating student to state-specified standards. The resulting cost based allocation model, the Report explained:

"will shift education funding to a more rational, transparent, and publicly understood basis. Once instructional and operational costs are reasonably determined and sufficiently funded, local education officials have an obligation to ensure public resources are deployed efficiently and students achieve to high standards." (emphasis added)

Concealing the Cost of Delivering an Adequate Education

However, in 2004, the Governor may have feared that determining the actual cost of delivering an education (one that that meets state mandated standards) could be used in a constitutional suit to enforce the constitutional right to an adequate education, that is, to force the state fully to fund the "full-dollar" cost of an adequate education under the Supreme Court's Skeen decision.  For whatever reason, the Governor dismissed the task force before it completed its work, halting efforts to make manifest the extent to which  Minnesota's funding formula was not sufficient. 

Since that time, although there have been several Minnesota education finance studies, no Governor, nor any Minnesota education commissioner, has allowed any of the education finance studies to report on the full dollar cost of educating English language learners, students of color, or lower income students to the high Minnesota state standards.  By so doing, the state has hamstrung the legislature from performing its constitutional duty, and has shielded the public from understanding why Minnesota has persistently failed to close its achievement gap.  

Since the 2004, as we showed in the last post, study after Minnesota study, has decried Minnesota's persistent failure to make adequate inroads on its achievement gap.  Minnesota has tried numerous remedies, but has persistently refused  to follow the most important recommendations of the 2004 blue-ribbon task force:  (1) Full Funding: to fund school districts with the full-dollar cost of providing an education that meets all state standards for students with greater educational needs, and(2) Use Full Funding to Achieve High Standards:  to assure that local education officials meet their obligation "to ensure public resources are deployed efficiently and [that] students achieve to high standards." 

 In Part 1 of this series, we pointed out that in issuing his Education budget the Governor articulated the laudable goal that in this year of surplus, his budget would be truly transformational. On January 22 along with the release of his public education budget, the Governor pronounced:

"My messages to families, to students, to teachers, to support staff is, 'This is the budget for many of us who taught for decades, this is the budget we're waiting for. This is the transformational moment that can happen,"

 However, like every past budget, the Governor's 2023 budget is not based on cost, and although the details on the budget's impact on district has not yet been disclosed, it is not at all clear that the Governor's budget will address the funding needs of districts with high enrollment rates of students with higher and more costly educational needs.

 Will the Governor's Budget Close the Adequacy Funding Gap?

In Part 3, we'll ask: How is the Governor's budget transformational?   And for whom?  How, if it all,  does the proposed budget attack Minnesota's achievement gap?  Should  we expect that a budget designed to attack the achievement gap would direct significant and targeted relief to the students who are lagging behind and to the districts that serve them?  Shouldn't we expect that a a truly transformational budget would reflect transformational funding targeted specifically to addressing the achievement gap?   

In Part 3 of this series, we'll take a look at the components of the Governor's proposed education budget with special reference to whether that budget continues Minnesota's practice of intentionally under-funding the full dollar cost of providing an adequate education to students of color, lower income students, English language learners and students with reading challenges such as dyslexia.  In that post, we will dis-aggregate the Governor's proposed budget into categories to try to determine whether the Governor's budget is making a significant effort to close the funding adequacy gap, or whether it simply maintains the status quo, by spreading money around without regard to need. 

A nationally recognized study has determined that Minnesota needs to provide significantly more funding to districts serving lower income students, English language learners and students of color.  That study used a lower standard of educational adequacy than the one to which Minnesota aspires:  a world class adequate education that meets all state standards.  It is essential to recognize that placing more funds on the basic funding formula will not address efficiently this problem.  To address Minnesota' s adequacy funding gap, the 2023 education budget must direct significantly more money to districts serving students with higher more costly educational needs.  Correspondingly, it is equally important that truly transformative funding will be tied and targeted to accountable use of that funding on proven strategies to close the achievement gap. 

Will the Education Budget be Transformational...for the Students that Minnesota is leaving behind?

On January 22 along with the release of his public education budget, the Governor pronounced:

"My messages to families, to students, to teachers, to support staff is, 'This is the budget for many of us who taught for decades, this is the budget we're waiting for. This is the transformational moment that can happen,'

There is every indication that the legislature intends to craft an education budget that will include significant increases in funding for public education.  The Governor has proposed increases in the general education funding formula of 4 percent and 2 percent for the next two years.  Historically, increases have topped out at 2 percent and 2 percent for two years, and in some years significantly less.  The 2024-2025 Biennial Budget Base report for education explains that from FY 2003 to 2021 "when adjusted for inflation, revenue per student remained essentially constant."  When adjusted for the "Implicit Price Deflator"  (IPD) funding for districts during this time period actually declined.  . 

Inflation Adjusted General Fund "Increases":  The cost of the 3 percent average annual increase in the general fund formula is $1.4 billion in the second year.  To put the Governor's proposal in context, the Consumer Price Index for urban consumers in 2021 rose 7.5%, and for 2022 rose 6.5%, although in recent months the CPI has moderated. However, advocates at the Capitol rightly point out that the proposed budget will apparently yield further declines in the general education formula adjusted for inflation. 

In my home district, a two year 6% increase in the general education formula (that is an average of 3% per year) would increase state funding by about $5.1 million in the second year, or about $510 per student. Taken by itself, is this a truly "transformational" budgetary increase?  The answer depends on whether the governor's budget provides enough money to provide fair compensation for existing staff, and whether it also provides enough additional funding to cover the cost of making transformational improvements in programs addressing the needs of lower income students, English language learners, students of color, and students with dyslexia.  A review of the budget suggests that Minnesota public education may be gravely disappointed when it is discovered that there is not enough new money to address both of these objectives.

It is true that the Governor's budget contains other relief, some of which we discuss here.    The Governor's budget proposes to reduce the special education cross subsidy by 50%.  Although the "runs" translating the budget into district-by-district projected funding appear not to be available, if spread proportionally across districts, this would provide about $6 million in permanent relief for the St. Cloud district (about $600 per student) and $25 million for the Minneapolis District, by the second year in the biennium.  

By What Mechanism does this Relief Become Transformational

There is additional targeted funding in the Governor's proposed relief, and we'll discuss that in a following post.   But so far, we've identified two of the most significant forms of relief, formula increases (costing $1.4 billion in the second year) and partial special education cross subsidy relief (costing $840 million in the second year).  Importantly, none of this relief is targeted, none of it requires any school district to allocate a single dime of this relief to addressing the educational needs of lower income students, of English language learners, of students of color, or of the over 15% of students with dyslexia.   There is some targeted relief in the Governor's education budget, totaling about $581 million, of which $434 is dedicated to early childhood education.  However, even targeted relief is not inevitably transformational, unless it is actually used in the local district to implement transitional improvements. 

A Truly Transitional Budget Must Address the Unmet Educational Needs of Students

Take for example, the estimated  $6 million new money allocated to my home St. Cloud District in 2024, or the $25 million new money allocated to Minneapolis, to cut their special education cross subsidy in half (assuming that the funding is allocated prorata to reduce deficit proportionally.)   Each of these districts has very high unmet needs in the areas of English language learners, lower income students and students of color.  The cross subsidy deficits has impaired those districts ability to deliver necessary programs to address the needs of those other students, and restoration of that money should be used to improve the services provided to those students.   And we know that many districts in Minnesota are in this position, because report after report has warned that Minnesota districts serving these students have been unable to make adequate progress in closing learning gaps disproportionately impacting those students.  (See report list below). 

This question places squarely before us whether the Governors' budget has allocated enough funding to accomplish two important goals:  (1) to cover the legitimate needs of teachers and other existing staff for fair compensation and (2) to expand the educational services required to make meaningful inroads on the education of students who are not meeting state learning standards, to meet the legislative 2013 mandate that "All racial and economic achievement gaps between students are closed, and "all students are ready for career and college." (Worlds Best Workforce -- WBWF).  Sometimes we are asked to double-count an appropriated increase.   Teachers and staff may expect that the new funds are intended to provide them with transformational increases, so that the increases simply yield the same staffing and same programs, but at a higher compensation cost.   Districts struggling to meet the needs of students with unmet educational needs may see this new funding as finally providing transformational opportunities to meet those needs.  But if the actual funding is not enough to meet both needs, how is the budget truly transformational?

In districts like Minneapolis and St. Cloud, the special education cross-subsidy deficit has resulted in a reduction of necessary programs that would otherwise be addressing the WBWF goals.   With restoration of half of that deficit, suppose those districts add that money back into their budgets to expand services to English language learners, students with dyslexia or low income students!   Suppose representatives of staff say, wait a minute, the Governor's budget has only provided the district with 6 percent increases, 3 percent per year.   Look at inflation!  We are falling back.  We demand that you use that new special education deficit relief  money to compensate us fairly!  If that happens, will the Governor's budget turn out to be transformational, or will it merely address the legitimate needs of employees, but still leave unmet the needs of students who are historically unmet? 

This is the time to confront this problem: rather than letting it play out in a string of labor disputes and threatened shutdowns.    A truly transformational budget must fulfill both of these legitimate needs: the need for fair compensation for existing staff, and the pressing and persistent need for the state to provide enough funding to deliver high quality programs that assure that all students receive a world class education.   If the Governor's budget is inadequate to accomplish both of these objectives, then it is not truly transformational.   Instead of pretending that not-enough is really enough, the legislature must assure that  money to cover the cost of transforming education for students we are now leaving behind is allocated and targeted, and it must assure that when the money reaches districts, the districts who receive it actually allocate it to true transformation. 

We'll discuss this issue in coming posts, in part by discussing the Governor's targeted funding, but we end today's post with a reminder of Minnesota's continuing persistent failure to meet the needs of too many students listing 20 years of reports:

Ø Investing in Our Future: Seeking a fair, understandable and accountable, twenty-first century education finance system for Minnesota (Acknowledging that “Minnesota has one of the largest achievement gaps in the nation )(Governor’s Task Force July 2004 P11)

Ø Funding Education for the Future, (MDE May 2011) (“There are wide gaps in reading and math proficiency by race and by economic status. Little progress was made in closing these achievement gaps between 2006 and 2010.” ) Education Finance Working Group Recommendations and Report p 5 (Nov 2012)

Ø 80-20-10 Bringing Equity to Minnesota’s School Finance System (School Finance Working Group, November 2020) (Over the past 20 years, educational outcomes measured by state accountability tests have stagnated with a large, persistent achievement gap while the percentage of children of color has more than doubled from 16% to 34% )

Ø Office of Legislative Auditor A Minnesota Department of Education’s Role in Addressing the Achievement Gap (2022) p 3 (“Minnesota has had long-standing academic achievement gaps, despite efforts by MDE, school districts, and charter schools to implement policies designed to close them.)

Ø Wilder Foundation “Tackling the achievement gap head-on” (2006) (A wide gulf divides public school classrooms throughout the Twin Cities region. It closely follows the lines of family income and of race and ethnicity. This achievement gap persists throughout the school years, from grade-school test scores through high school graduation rates.)

Ø  Minnesota’s Educational Achievement Gaps: A Statewide Crisis. (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2019 (Minnesota’s education achievement gaps have persisted for decades despite implementing policies designed to close them.)  

Ø Educational Outcomes and Minnesota’s Economy, Minnesota Federal Reserve Bank of Mnneapolis, 2022 (“Data show that Minnesota’s public schools consistently underserve students from low-income families, Indigenous students, and students of color”.)