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.