Governor, Legislature Must Fully Fund Education in State Budget Agreement

Nearly 30 years ago, syndicated columnist Neal Pierce wrote, The Book of America: Inside the 50 States. The book culminated years of travel and research by Pierce, and featured this assessment of Minnesota: “Search America from sea to sea, and you will not find a state that has offered as close a model to the ideal of the successful society as Minnesota.” 

I wonder if Mr. Pierce still feels that way about our state?

As Governor Dayton and our legislative leaders consider the next two year state budget, they must find a way to reinvest in the education of our children. When it comes to investments in education, I am reminded of a saying my mom often used. Whenever a bargain product didn’t meet expectations, she would often sigh and say, “I guess ya get what ya pay for.” 

If our state is not willing to invest in a top quality education, including more innovative and efficient service delivery models, we ought not be surprised when “we get what we pay for.”

As a South Washington County School Board member, I have fought for adequate funding for K-12 education. I have fought for smaller class sizes and additional resources for our teachers who are committed to improving the academic achievement of our students. 

The Legislature’s K-12 Education funding proposal would undo much of the work already done at the local levels to improve education outcomes. It reverses a positive trend toward local control.  Most education research demonstrates that local education professionals are in the best position to determine how to improve educational outcomes. How to spend education resources should be decided at the local level, where our teachers and administrators are in the best position to address the unique concerns and characteristics of our individual schools and students. 

While local control over education spending decisions is preferable, the state is in the best position to provide all districts with the equitable revenue necessary to make adequate investments in education. 

Unfortunately, we are relying increasingly on local taxpayer revenue to keep our schools operating. During the 2006-07 school year, South Washington County schools received 79 percent of our general fund revenues from the state. For the 2009-10 school year, state aid accounted for 70.3 percent of total revenues. 

Our local taxpayers were forced to ante up over $5 million per year, not to improve our schools—but simply to make up for the state reductions in funding for K-12 education. 

It’s disingenuous for legislative leaders to claim they are not raising taxes when their policies are forcing local property taxpayers to offset the cuts made by the state in numerous areas, including K-12 education.

 The current state funding trends for K-12 education have stymied innovation and opportunity more than any other factor. While my mom taught me, “ya get what ya pay for,” my dad taught me to, “never start something you can’t finish.” 

If we are unsure of the state’s willingness to provide adequate educational resources into the future, it is risky for local districts to start new initiatives they may not be able to continue—even if those initiative promise to deliver a significant return on investment in the long term.

I’ve been on the South Washington County School Board for 16 years. My first year on the Board, the legislature approved a $3,150 per student General Education Aid formula allowance. Had the state allowed that General Education Aid formula allowance to adjust for inflation throughout my tenure on the board, the state would have provided our schools with an additional $840 per student during the 2010-11 school year. 

For South Washington County, the failure of state education aid revenue to keep pace with inflation has cost our schools nearly $14 million during the past school year alone. That loss of $14 million in state aid has resulted in an increased property tax burden for our local taxpayers and reductions in the level of service we provide for our students.       

Three years after I was first elected to the Board, Tom Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation, a book that documents the tremendous personal sacrifices our parents made so we would enjoy a better quality of life than they had. History may look back on our generation and conclude that we too agreed with our parents. 

Based on our unwillingness to invest in education to the extent our parents did, our generation is apparently complacent with enjoying a better quality of life than our children will have.