Fundamental Right to an Adequately Funded Education: The Role of State Standards (Part 2)

This is the second in a series on the Fundamental Right to an Adequately Funded Education in Minnesota as contemplated by the Skeen decision.   Understanding the Minnesota Supreme Court's vision of an adequate education that meets all state standards is critically important, because unfortunately, there have been, and continue to be, nefarious efforts to characterize the Supreme Court's vision of those standards as mediocre and undemanding.   Nothing could be further from the truth. 

In the 1980's advocates for education in a number of states launched suits demanding that their state legislatures reform their public education systems so that they delivered a constitutionally adequate education.   And, in many states, Supreme Courts developed court fashioned guidance on what an adequate education would entail.  In a pivotal case --Rose v. Council for Better Education (Kentucky, 1989) -- the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down the state’s entire education system as unconstitutional,  articulating a set of seven guiding “Rose standards”  including for example communication skills, knowledge of government, and vocational preparation.  The Rose court ordered the legislature to implement legislation consistent with the seven Rose Standards, and then to distribute the necessary funding.  As we shall see, the Skeen Court approached this differently because of what the Skeen parties conveyed to the Supreme Court. 

In the important McCleary decisions (Washington, 2012 and subsequent enforcement rulings) the Washington Supreme Court explicitly based its adequacy analysis on the already existing Washington Basic Education Act of 1977, as later amended (notably in 2009 and 2010) and adopted it as the framework for an adequate education.  In a series of enforcement actions, the Washington Supreme Court ordered the legislature to determine the revenues required to deliver the education required by the Basic Education Act.  (The 1977 Act was in part the product of prior litigation in Washington.)   The McCleary court accepted the 1977 Act as consistent with minimum constitutional standards, but found that that the Washington constitution demanded that the legislature must provide enough funding to meet those existing standards. 

In the New York case -- Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) v. State (2003)-- the appellate Court defined adequacy as the resources necessary for a “sound basic education.”which was operationalized as basic literacy, numeracy, and verbal skills,s kills necessary for civic participation (jury service, voting) and ability to obtain employment and compete in a global economy. The Court ordered the legislature to commission a cost-study to estimate the amount of funding required to deliver that sound basic education. In all of these cases, and in virtually every other case, the plaintiffs in state constitutional cases were representing students and schools serving disadvantaged students who were clearly receiving an inadequate education. That study was completed by Management Analysis and Planning (MAP). 

The Skeen case arrived at the Minnesota Supreme Court in a different posture.  Importantly, the Minnesota Skeen case was brought by districts serving comparatively advantaged students with above average performance statistics.  Let's take a look at what actually happened in the Skeen case, and how the "all state standards" came into existence. 

Minnesota's Historically Weak State Standards 

When Skeen was decided in 1983, a standards movement was sweeping national public education to redress what was widely regarded as a "rising tide of mediocrity" in public education.    As of 1983, Minnesota was stila radical local option state, with very weak state standards allowing local districts flexibility to set their own standards. Minnesota had no state proficiency requirements, no minimum rigor requirements.  Graduation standard were largely determined by the school districts themselves.  For example,  Minnesota’s state requirement for elementary education merely included a minimum length of school day, a minimum number of school days per year, and certain licensing  and staff ratio requirements.  State standards did not require all students to be able to read by third grade, nor was there a state math, science or reading literacy requirement for elementary students.  As a practical matter, the level of rigor was almost entirely delegated to each school district.

For middle and junior high schools, the state simply established a chart prescribing the minimum number of hours required for each subject, along with certain staffing requirements. The state thus allowed local school boards to set their graduation requirements, and that meant that by local option, students could graduate without adequate reading, math, science or other skills.  There was no LEAPs Act; there were no proficiency requirements for math and reading, no World’s Best Workforce law, and no state requirement for rigorous standards and rigorous curriculum. 

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the Skeen Court accepted Minnesota's minimal standards as constitutionally adequate.  We shall shortly see that the Supreme Court did not approve Minnesota's 1983 standards as constitutional.  On the contrary, none of the Skeen party participants even challenged the constitutionality of those standards: instead, they stipulated that those standards should govern Skeen's case, and they agreed that all of the school districts were meeting those state standards.  Implicitly recognizing the weakness of those state standards, the Attorney General actually represented tto the Supreme Court that the legislature was replacing them with rigorous outcome based standards that would measure what students learned. 

Skeen Plaintiffs Stipulate that Their Districts Meet All State Standards

The Skeen case was brought by the Association of Stable and Growing Districts. These were largely outer-ring suburban districts characterized by rapid growth on the suburban/rural fringe, relatively stronger household wealth but weaker tax base per pupil.  Their membership excluded  the big urban districts and  also excluded some of the more wealthy inner ring suburbs.  Skeen was thus an exceptionally unusual educational rights litigation, because all other state suits were brought by  districts with high poverty and minority populations.   

Twenty-four intervenor districts joined the Skeen case to oppose the Skeen plaintiffs position. These 24 included property tax rich inner-ring suburbs and Iron Range schools with stronger tax bases.   The opponents to the Skeen Plaintiffs pointed out that despite their financial challenges, all of the plaintiff districts were able to meet Minnesota's very modest state educational standards, standards which had little to do with students proficiency, or lack thereof.  The Skeen plaintiffs signed an agreement, (a legal stipulation), which became central to the Skeen Court's decision and fostered Court's adoption of the "all state standards" requirement.  The Skeen plaintiff districts stipulation agreed that all Skeen districts'  students were receiving an education that met all state standards, which the stipulation defined as:

“all educational requirements for themselves and their students established by the Minnesota Legislature, the State Board of Education, and the Commissioner and the Department of Education”  (Skeen Parties Stipulation in Skeen v State.) 

All state standards, thus included statutes (that is "established by the legislature"), regulations and policy (that is established by the Commissioner and the Board of Education)  Although Minnesota's state standard were so weak,   had they been challenged, surely they could not have passed constitutional muster as conferring an adequate education, but nobody in the Skeen case challenged the legitimacy of those standards, because the legislature had already abandoned the old standards and was in the process of replacing them with new ones.  The Skeen plaintiffs did not even bring an educational adequacy case; they demanded instead that every school district was entitled to equal access to the same revenue per student. 

 State Relies on Admission that  Plaintiff Districts Were Meeting All State Standards

Based on this stipulation, the state and the advantaged intervenor districts argued to the Supreme Court that: 

1) At most, the state’s constitutional obligation was to provide enough funding so that students in the Skeen districts were receiving an education that meets all state standards.   

 (2)  The legislature, not the courts, must decide what an adequate education by establishing standards for the districts and their students.    

(3)  The legislature was in the process of mandating new outcome based proficiency standards which would measure what students learned, rather than what courses they took, or what they were taught.  State standards were being reworked to measure learning, not teaching.  This last representation led the Supreme Court to conclude that the legislature's constitutional funding obligation required appropriation of enough funding to districts to afford each student with an adequate education meeting all state standards.  

Attorney General Commits to the Supreme Court that New State Standards 
Will be Rigorous and Require Student Proficiency

To recap, by the time the Skeen case reached the Supremen Court, under the influence of the national standards movement, and Nation at Risk, the legislature had ordered the Minnesota Department of Education to implement a new set of proficiency-based outcome-based state learning standards.  The State of Minnesota’s Skeen brief told the Supreme Court that the state standards that would govern districts in future years would be proficiency-based, outcome based, rather than based on the amount of time students spent in class.  The State’s brief emphasize that state standards were about to become rigorous: The State’s brief explained: 

The trial court erroneously decided to base its decision on inputs rather than upon analysis of whether students are learning what they should be learning because it believed that outcomes are not as easily measured as inputs are.  What is easiest almost always is not what is right. In fact, some important outcome-type measures are already easily quantifiable: graduation rates, post-high school success in education and employment, and achievement of some learner goals. Moreover, there is uncontroverted testimony in the record that the state is moving rapidly toward being better able to use outcome-based standards to compare districts and students, much the same as inputs measures were used to do such comparisons in the past.”  State of Minnesota Skeen Reply Brief. P 6-7.  

Under this new approach, that is requiring all students to learn at high levels regardless of demographics and student need, different districts would need different funding levels.   Hence, the Skeen plaintiffs' demand for funding equality would not deliver funding necessary to deliver an adequate education to each student. The State’s Skeen brief accordingly argued that the measure of constitutional adequacy should be based on the new proficiency standards under current development, because the State should be striving for 

adequacy of education defined in outcome-based terms as "that educational opportunity needed. in contemporary setting to equip a child for his role as a citizen and as a competitor in the labor market.  Reply brief Note 10.  

Since 1983, the legislature has implemented its commitment in Skeen, to implement rigorous standards based on what students actually learn.  But it has utterly failed to correlate its funding to those new standards. In fact, forty plus years after the Supreme Court required the legislature to provide districts with enough funding to afford each student with an adequate education that meets all state standards, the legislature has never undertaken to collect data on the amount of revenue required to deliver those standards.

There can be no question that the Supreme Court rested its decision to adopt a constitutional adequacy standard based upon the Attorney General's representation that the new state standards would be predicated on what students actually learned.   The brief explained:

 Minnesota is also a national leader in the implementation of outcome based education programs and learning methods. Outcome based education, which focuses on what students need to know to function in society, is regarded by state and national educators as being essential to the success of students in the next century.  

In summary, the Supreme Court adopted the "all state standards" test to set the constitutional standard based on new outcome based proficiency standards.  The fundamental right was based on the funding needed to provide each student with an adequate education that would meet those standards.  In subsequent posts we will argue the state legislature, the Governor, the Attorney General, and even constitutional plaintiffslost sight of the importance of the rigorous all state standards requirement.  

Our Constitutional Officers Have a Responsibility to Implement Minnesota's Education Clause

 In our last post, we began a series examining Minnesota's constitutional education clause with a focus on the Supreme Court's holding in the Skeen and Cruz Guzman cases that the legislature must provide school districts with enough funding to afford each student with an education that meets all state standards.  We pause after Part 1 of that series to suggest that Minnesota's constitutional officers themselves have an obligation fully to implement the letter and intent of those decisions.   

Role of the Governor and MMB. You may point out that the text of the education clause explicitly targets the legislature. But the legislature does not function in a constitutional vacuum.  The legislature cannot perform its constitutional duty, unless the constitutional officers in the executive branch provide the legislature with adequate information.   For example, the legislature can't make sure that our bridges and other infrastructure are safe, unless the Commissioner of Transportation provides them with accurate information on the state of those bridges.  Similarly, the legislature cannot provide enough funding to school districts  to afford each student with an adequate education that meets all state standards, unless the Governor, Commissioner of Education and Office of Management of Budget (MMB)  each provide research-based data and a plan to fulfill that constitutional responsibility.   MMB acts as the governor's agent, but its legislative duties also involve directly interacting with legislative committees and providing financial data to the legislature.  

Role of the Attorney General.    Article V of the Minnesota Constitution requires each officer to "take an oath or affirmation to support the constitution of the United States and of this state...." In particular, the Minnesota Attorney General holds a unique constitutional and statutory responsibility that goes beyond merely defending the state in litigation. By virtue of the office, the Attorney General is sworn to uphold both the United States Constitution and the Minnesota Constitution. This oath is not symbolic—it establishes a primary duty to ensure that the laws and practices of the state conform to constitutional limits. When the Attorney General becomes aware that a statute or government practice violates the Minnesota Constitution, the responsibility to advise the Governor and Legislature is inherent in that duty. The purpose of such counsel is not to substitute the AG’s judgment for that of elected lawmakers, but to safeguard the constitutional framework under which all state action must occur.  

Statutorily, Minnesota law reinforces this advisory role. Minn. Stat. § 8.01 authorizes the Attorney General to act “whenever, in the attorney general’s opinion, the interests of the state require it.” The “interests of the state” necessarily include fidelity to the Minnesota Constitution, which is the fundamental law binding all branches of government. Moreover, the Attorney General is the legal advisor to state officers and boards under Minn. Stat. § 8.06. This mandate presumes an active duty to provide candid legal advice—including warnings—when governmental conduct risks violating constitutional rights. To withhold such advice would frustrate the very purpose of the Attorney General’s role as the state’s chief legal officer.

From a structural standpoint, the Attorney General’s duty to advise on constitutional compliance is indispensable to the separation of powers. The Legislature enacts laws, and the Governor executes them, but both rely on sound legal counsel to ensure their actions remain within constitutional boundaries. The Attorney General, independent and sworn to the Constitution, is the official charged with offering that counsel. This responsibility is heightened in cases where political pressures might tempt other branches to disregard constitutional limits. In those moments, the Attorney General serves as the constitutional conscience of state government, reminding policymakers that their authority is bounded and must yield to the rights and liberties secured by the Minnesota Constitution.

In sum, both the oath of office and Minnesota statutes require the Attorney General to do more than passively defend state laws. The office carries an affirmative obligation to advise the Governor and Legislature when their actions contravene the Constitution. This responsibility not only ensures adherence to the rule of law, but also preserves the legitimacy of state institutions by maintaining their fidelity to Minnesota’s fundamental charter.  

Minnesota Attorney General's Recognition that Inadequate Funding Prevents Delivery of an Adequate Education.   To his credit, in April of this year, Attorney General Ellison joined with other  state Attorneys General to demand that the federal government end the freeze of federal education funding. On behalf of the state, the Attorney General alleged that the withholding of a $188 million of Title I funding would severely compromise Minnesota's ability to serve Title I eligible students.   Paragraph 99 of the federal complaint admits that adequate funding is necessary to deliver an adequate funding as follows:

If Minnesota were to lose the funding for the programs described above, resources that have been appropriated by Congress and obligated to Minnesota, Minnesota would be unable to replace  federal funding administered by ED. The results would be catastrophic for Minnesota students.  Specifically, the academic impact from loss of instructional support and the economic impact from  loss of jobs in Minnesota schools will result in lasting damage to the State’s efforts to ensure  equal access to education for all students.  Loss of special education funding would devastate schools and districts’ abilities to serve students with disabilities. 

The state of Minnesota has thus signed onto a judicial admission that school districts need adequate funding to deliver an adequate education and to "ensure equal access to education for all students."  Just as the loss of a mere $188 million created a substantial risk to students, justifying action by the Attorney General, so the deeply inadequate funding of the districts disproportionately serving low income students and English language learners justifies a constitutional remedy.  

Minnesota Faces an Educational Crisis.  Minnesota faces a crisis in education students who need extra support.  MDE data from 2023-2024 reports that 50.3 % of students reached proficiency in ELA (reading/language arts) and 47.4 % in math.  In Grades 3–8, 59 % of white students reached proficiency  in EL, wheras only 31 % of black/African American students scored proficient in ELA.   In Minneapolis, only about 20 percent of black students who are not classified as English Language Learners score at or above the proficient level. In contrast more than 70 percent of white students score at or above proficient.   

Test scores are only one window on this problem.  Although the Minnesota Supreme Court has held that there is a fundamental constitutional right requiring the legislature to provide districts with enough funding to afford each student with an adequate education that meets all state standards, no constitutional officer, not the Governor, not the Commissioner of Education, not the Attorney General, have taken bold steps to provide the legislature with research based data on the amount of funds necessary to comply with the constitution, nor have they acted to assure accountability and effective practices.   

Our next blog post will continue with a detailed description of what the Skeen and Cruz Guzman cases have actually said about the constitutional funding obligation.   

Minnesota's Constitutional Right to an Adequately Funded Adequate Education (Part 1)

This begins a series of posts that argue that it is time for legislators, the executive branch, the education community and its advocates to take steps fully to comply with the constitutional mandate to provide all Minnesota students with an adequate education that meets all state standards, through adequate funding, robust accountability and adherence to research best practices.  In our July post we referenced nine authoritative reports  warning that Minnesota has failed to make adequate progress in addressing the educational opportunity (or achievement) gap. One after another, these reports have decried Minnesota's persistent failure to provide an adequate education -- one that meets state standards --to low income students, students of color, and English language learners and others.  

Our plan of attack is to show that Minnesota's constitutional education clause contains two corresponding mandates:  (1) to identify educational standards, and create and (2) to fund a uniform system to deliver those standards to all students.  The legislature has historically met this first requirement, by  adjusting state educational standards to identify the education necessary to participate as citizens in a republican form of government, and to serve as a great equalizer to prepare all children to participate in the economy, regardless of economic status, race or class. However, the legislature has persistently failed in meeting this second constitutional responsibility:  to provide adequate funding and accountability systems necessary to deliver an adequate education that meets state standards to the children with the greatest educational needs. 

Minnesota Public Education at Crisis Point

At the national level there are signs that the Trump administration is preparing to slash funding and other support for English language learners, for early childhood education, and for the needs of students most in need.   The Trump administration's justification for abandoning traditional federal supports for public education is that public education should be left to the states.  This shift of responsibility would necessarily call for Minnesota and other states to replace what the federal government has slashed with corresponding increased funding and accountability.  In some states, governors have acknowledged the need for fundamental reform, but in Minnesota, that leadership so far has been missing. 

 Neither Minnesota's legislature nor the Governor have advanced bold reforms in funding and accountability.   Neither has coalesced around a robust plan to implement best practices, for accountability, nor has either targeted necessary funds to implement those reforms for students with the greatest needs.  The Association of Metropolitan School Districts policy position describes this as an abject failure to meet the states constitutional obligation as follows: 

1. Failure to Meet Constitutional Obligation "Minnesota’s constitution makes it the Legislature’s duty to establish a general and uniform system of public schools. By many measures, the State is not meeting that obligation."
   
   
2.  Basic Formula Losing Ground to Inflation.  ""The basic formula has lost significant ground to inflation. It would be $1,364 per pupil higher for 2025 if it had kept pace with inflation since 2003 — the year the Legislature eliminated the general education levy and committed to funding education with state income and sales tax revenue."
   
   
3.  Special Education Funding Inadequate. "The 2023 Education Bill increased special education cross subsidy reduction aid to 44 percent for the next three years and then to 50 percent in FY27, providing welcome financial relief. However, even with this significant investment, a significant shortfall will remain." 
   
   
4.  EL Funding Inadequate.  "In FY22, AMSD school districts spent nearly $145 million on services for English learners but received just $34.6 million in English learner funding. The 2023 Education Bill included new investments in the English Learner program, but even after full implementation, a shortfall will remain. "

Twenty years of persistent failure to implement bold reforms suggests that those reforms will not be implemented unless the constitutional officers are compelled, by conscience or through litigation to do their constitutional duty.  In this post, we begin a detailed review of Minnesota's constitutional education clause and what it requires. 

 The Education Clause and its Historic Foundations

Article XIII Section 1 of Minnesota’s Constitution requires the Minnesota legislature to establish and fund a uniform, thorough and efficient general and uniform system of public schools.  Minnesota's Supreme Court in its Skeen and Cruz-Guzman decisions have held that this constitutional provision mandates the state legislature to provide public school districts with enough funding to afford each student with an adequate education that meets all state standards.  The Skeen decision is now over thirty years old, but the Minnesota legislature, our governors and attorneys general  have treated the educational constitutional right as a mere slogan.  

 Article XIII Section 1 of Minnesota’s Constitution requires the Minnesota legislature to establish and fund a uniform, thorough and efficient general and uniform system of public schools.  It reads as follows: 

 Section 1. UNIFORM SYSTEM OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it is the duty of the legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools. The legislature shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise as will secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the state.

 This constitutional clause was written by delegates at the 1857 Minnesota Constitutional Convention, but the text of Minnesota’s education clause was inspired by  similar education clauses adopted by states from 1850 to 1868. These constitutions reflected a growing concern that economic and social inequality, and the slavery system, constituted a threat to the republic.  
  
During this time there was an evolving consensus that a free public education education was  inherent in a republican form of government, and that sentiment was given voice in Minnesota's constitution.   Two excellent law review articles provide context. (Steven G. Calabresi & Michael W. Perl, Originalism and Brown v. Board of Education, 2014 Mich. St. L. Rev. 429, 450–54 (2014); Derek W. Black, The Constitutional Compromise to Guarantee Education, 70 Stan. L. Rev. 735, 739 (2018)).  

Education as the Balance Wheel of the Social Machinery.   

As we consider the intent of the education clause, it is critical to recognize that the authors of Minnesota's constitution were influenced by the common school movement, inspired by Horace Mann and others. Mann’s thesis was that “public education had the power to become a stabilizing as well as an equalizing force in of the conditions of men—the balance-wheel of the social machinery.”   The authors of the Minnesota constitution expected that an adequate education would be delivered to children regardless of class, native language or color.  They rejected any suggestion that students with less advantages were less deserving of an adequate education.   When we later consider the Supreme Court's decisions in the Skeen and Cruz Guzman cases, we will see that the Supreme Court emphatically rejected an assertion that the state meets its funding responsibility simply by providing the same amount of funding to all students and districts regardless of need.  

Legislature's Obligation to Set Educational Standards

Over 150 years, the Minnesota legislature’s assessment of the education  required to “equalize the conditions of men” evolved with changing social, economic, and demographic conditions. The flexibility of Minnesota’s education clause allowed for this adaptation.  In the mid-1800s, the common school movement fostered a basic McGuffey’s reader-based education that was deemed sufficient to accommodate the then-existent agrarian-based economy.    

Then, at the turn of the century, the Minnesota legislature recognized that the education system could not remain stagnant, while serving as the “great equalizer of the conditions of men” envisioned by the Constitution. To this end, in 1899, the legislature passed a compulsory attendance law requiring children age eight to sixteen, living within the borders of a school district or city, to attend public or private school.  In 1913, the Minnesota Supreme Court heard and rejected a challenge to the legislature’s efforts to elevate Minnesota’s public-school system by creating centralized shared high schools, thus reaffirming the court’s recognition of the robust role of our Education Clause. Justice Hallam  wrote that the words of the Constitution:

“were not [merely] a grant of power to the Legislature, for all the powers there mentioned would have existed without such grant. They were inserted as a mandate to the Legislature, prescribing as a duty the exercise of this inherent power."

As of 1910, less than half of the United States population had completed an eighth-grade education, a statistic that remained relatively constant until 1940.   Compulsory attendance—and a great expansion of Minnesota public high schools—began to transform the education levels of the next generation of Minnesota students. By 1991, the enrollment rate for five- to nineteen-year-olds rose to ninety-three percent for blacks, whites, males, and females alike. Although the median years of education rose dramatically, American leaders and decision-makers became increasingly convinced that our public school system was not preparing our young to compete in the new global economy.

National Movement to Increase Educational Standards

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education issued A Nation at Risk. The report urged that "Our once  unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world . . . 

We report to the American people that while
we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and
colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to
the United States and the well-being of its people, the
educational foundations of our society are presently being
eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very
future as a Nation and a people.

Nation at Risk gave birth to a new standards movement which sought to ensure that all students received a more robust education, and a correlative movement to assure that all students, including those with greater educational needs, receive that education.  

In the next post, we'll see that ten years after Nation at Risk, the Minnesota legislature responded by implementing more robust state standards, standards which focused on what students actually learn, and we'll then discuss how the legislative demand for rigorous standards applicable to all students, impacted the two seminal Supreme Court decisions, Skeen and Cruz Guzman. 

 

 

 

 

Illinois Coalitions Act to Improve School Funding and Accountability

 For years, we've been urging that Minnesota advocates for public education form a robust coalition to reform Minnesota's dysfunctional school finance system.  But given the threat of truly catastrophic federal funding cuts, adequate state funding is imperative.  A significant portion of federal funding is targeted to students most in need.  That means reductions in federal education funding will disproportionately impact districts serving those students.  The Minnesota legislature failed to provide significant relief for English language learners.  Compensatory funding is inadequate.   If the federal government slashes federal education funding, Minnesota has a constitutional obligation to maintain adequate funding for those students.  Adequate education is a state responsibility, and cutting federal funding will not absolve Minnesota of that responsibility. 

To that end, we've begun a series of posts on coalitions and advocacy in other states. Today, we look at Illinois.

The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization committed to advancing social and economic justice for all. Our evidence-based research has helped generate fundamental changes in education, healthcare, housing, economic development, and tax policy in Illinois and nationwide.  The Center has worked for years to promote and support legislation including the Evidence Based Funding for Student Success Act, or EBF—which is designed to work towards its promise of closing the drastic funding gaps between school in property-rich and property-poor districts,  as well as between schools in predominantly white communities and schools that serve predominantly Black and Latinx students

Funding Illinois’ Future (FIF) is a coalition of more than 100 school districts, leaders, parents, educators, community, civic and faith-based organizations that helped fix Illinois’ worst-in-the-nation school funding formula in 2017 with our advocacy for the historic implementation of the K-12 Evidence-based Funding Formula (EBF). We are now focused on the goal of equitable and adequate funding for all K-12 schools, and providing every Illinois student with the excellent education they deserve.

As a result of aggressive statewide advocacy, the Illinois legislature implemented a new comprehensive education reform system that combines better funding focused on under-resourced districts with a state level accountability system.  The Illinois legislature created an Evidence-Based Funding Professional Review Panel composed of a group of practitioners, experts, legislative leaders, and advocates tasked with reviewing the first year of the state’s historic funding reform implementation, as mandated by Public Act 100-0465. The panel will recommend continual re-calibration and other modifications to Evidence-Based Funding to meet the needs of all students in Illinois.

To assess progress on implementing recommended best practices, Illinois School Code80 created the Balanced Accountability Measure Committee within the State Board of Education. The purpose of the Committee is to develop recognition standards for student performance and school improvement for all school districts and their individual schools. The standards developed will be an outcomes-based, balanced accountability measure. 

Although Illinois Evidence Based Funding has created a robust structure to encourage best practices and direct more funding to the districts most in needs, unfortunately, the legislature has grossly underfunded the formula.  Illinois has no constitutional requirement for adequate funding, and so implementation depends entirely on political advocacy.  

Advance Illinois 

Motivated by the urgency that Illinois was not preparing its students to compete in a global marketplace, and with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, and the Boston Consulting Group, leaders from more than a dozen civic, philanthropic, business, and education organizations from across the state came together and founded Advance Illinois in 2008. The bipartisan, non-profit policy and advocacy organization was modeled on successful efforts elsewhere and founded on the shared belief that equitable, high-quality education is a shared value that unites all Illinoisans.

The Partnership for Equity and Education Rights Illinois is a statewide advocacy network dedicated to driving increased investment in our children.

 

 

Minnesota Needs a Coalition Dedicated to Assuring the Constitutional Right to an Adequate Education

  Although the Minnesota Supreme Court has issued two decisions decreeing that our state constitution demands that the legislature provided districts with enough funding to afford each student with "an adequate education that meets all standards," Minnesota opinion leaders have not stepped up to the plate to insist that the constitutional right be faithfully fulfilled.  

Now, more than ever, it is critical that those who care about a genuinely robust and adequate education unite to make an adequate education a reality for all students in all districts. But we can't get their by merely advocating for more money: true reform will require greater district accountability, implementation of proven best practices, and of course more funding. In this post, JvonKorff on Education begins an examination of how coalitions have formed in other states to demand education reform and educational adequacy.  While these other states may offer guidance, we in Minnesota must recognize that our constitution provides a far more powerful tool than most other states: we already have a Supreme Court precedent that establishes adequate funding as a fundamental right enforceable in the Courts. 

Today's post takes a look at how Michiganders have organized to reform their educational system.   Michigan Partnership for Equity and Opportunity is a coalition of civil rights, social justice, civic and business leaders working to promote educational equity for all Michigan students, especially the most underserved.  Their partners include long established civil rights organizations including NAACP, the Urban League, and numerous non-governmental organizations and the nationally recognized Education Trust.  It advocates at the legislature and builds support for needed reforms.  For example, the Partnership has actively urged that the Michigan legislature take action to provide additional funding to compensate for the Trump administration's cuts to education. 

The Michigan Education Justice Coalition  is a statewide network committed to advocating for equitable public education policies and funding to create safe and healthy learning environments. The organization focuses on the idea that young people must play a central role in demanding educational improvement.  However, its organizational partners include about 34 advocacy organizations that include teacher and parent organizations. 

Education Trust Midwest.  The Education Trust is a leading advocate for educational reform focused on effective practices and adequate funding.   EdTrust-Midwest successfully drove important policy changes to improve educational outcomes for Michigan’s students. It shaped the statewide narrative and engaged in strong advocacy to close opportunity gaps, particularly for students from low-income backgrounds and Black and Latino students. It launched a new campaign to drive more investment for students with the greatest needs in our public schools, driven by years of data, policy, research, and best practices. Through a multi-pronged advocacy effort with partners, it scored significant fair funding wins for students from low-income backgrounds, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities. The trust scored a major policy victory to improve early reading outcomes for Michigan’s students through bipartisan legislation that took more than six years of collaboration with advocates and policymakers. 

Now, Michigan faces great challenges. We in Minnesota begin with a head start, because our funding system is fairer in many respects.  But that merely means that we don't need to go so far to reform our system and make it adequate.

Importance of Advocacy on Behalf of Underserved Students:  Michigan suggests the importance of developing strong coalitions of advocates for students and especially the students that Minnesota is not serving well. Education Minnesota, MSBA, AMSD, SEIU, and similar organizations perform a valuable function in fighting for public education, but they are compelled to focus on protecting the interests of their members.  Minnesota also needs a strong coalition of advocacy organizations whose number one reason for existence is to fix the system and make it work for the students who need education the most. 

Our next post will look at coalition building in another state.

 

Minnesotas Two Decades of Inadequate Progress in Public Education

Two Decades of Reports on Minnesota’s Achievement Gap

In the last 20 years, multiple reports have been issued warning that Minnesota has failed to make adequate progress in addressing the educational opportunity or achievement gap. This post itemizes  nine important  task force reports decrying Minnesota’s failure to make progress in closing its achievement gap.  Each report title is linked to an online report. 

Together, these reports establish that the Minnesota legislature and executive branch have jointly failed to make the necessary improvements in funding, accountability and best practices to provide a large proportion of Minnesota students with an adequate education that meets all state standards as required by Minnesota's constitution. 

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”.) 

Ø Providing all students with a world-class education Recommendations from the MDE Task Force on Financial Supports 2025 Minnesota is grossly under-funding school districts, especially those serving large enrollments of those student.   The report finds that those funding shortfalls are a major contributing cause to Minnesota's persistent achievement gap.  

Ø English Learner (EL) Task Force: Challenges and Recommendations Report to the Legislature, (2025)  As base funding has gone up for all students, the categorical funding stream for ELs has remained static. Even with the recent increase in EL state funding, there is still a large deficit, and the funding is inadequate for EL students to meet all state standards. Since the funding is based on the number of students, this gap is most problematic for Local Education Agencies (LEAs) with a higher density of English learners (20– 30% or more of English Learner population in their district). Caps on EL concentration revenue and compensatory revenue further compound this issue. This lack of funding tells EL students and families they don't matter."