MINNEAPOLIS - ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA
Last update: January 24, 2006 – 1:03 AM
Minnesotans should be alarmed by the cutbacks and hold politicians accountable.
Mark Dayton
The reduction in state funding for Minnesota's public schools and schoolchildren has been the biggest policy failure in my lifetime, and its consequences will hurt our state for many years to come.
The state's general education aid for each public school student in kindergarten through 12th grade during this school year is 11 percent less than it was 15 years ago, after accounting for inflation. Even with the increased funding provided by the Minnesota Legislature, real per pupil aid for the next school year will still be 9 percent less than in 1990-91.
Our state's funding for our children's education has also declined relative to other states' efforts. Minnesota's per pupil expenditures for its K-12 students dropped from 18th-best among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in 1990 to 22nd place in 2004, even though our state's per capita income ranking rose from 14th place in 1990 to ninth-highest in 2004. In other words, while our financial ability to fund public education increased, our actual and relative financial commitments both declined.
The negative consequences from that loss of funding show up in other comparisons. Minnesota's teacher/student ratio (class size) dropped to 37th-best among the states in 2004. Our average public school teacher's salary that year was $2,300 below the national average. And Minnesota is one of only 18 states that do not provide funding for all-day kindergarten.
The federal government has also failed to provide its promised share of funding for our elementary and secondary schools.
When Congress mandated special education in 1977, it promised to pay for 40 percent of the costs. Today's federal funding for special education is less than half of that promised amount, which will cost Minnesota schools almost $250 million this year. I have offered six amendments to increase the federal share to 40 percent, and all six have failed.
Minnesotans should be alarmed by the state's cutbacks in education funding. Historically, our well-educated children have become successful adults. Those adults have been the keys to our state's prosperity, social advances, and almost everything we value.
Conversely, people in states with lower education expenditures have experienced lower incomes, higher crime rates and poorer social conditions. Minnesota's per capita income dropped from seventh-highest among the states in 2002 to ninth place in 2004. Whether or not that drop was caused by lower education spending, it is a disturbing trend.
Another reason that the state's declining commitment to our public schools is so destructive is because their challenges are so much greater than ever before.
For example, Rochester Mayo High School's 1,800 students speak 54 languages. At Eagan's Pilot Knob elementary school, 18 languages are spoken. At Austin's Community Learning School, newly arriving children learn English in one classroom, and their parents learn English in another classroom.
During the past few years, I have visited hundreds of Minnesota schools, and I have been in thousands of classrooms. I have seen students attending regular classes in wheelchairs, on stretchers, with intravenous tubes, and using voice synthesizers. All of those children and so many others with individual learning differences are not only being included, but also being taught at their many different levels by extraordinarily committed teachers and other dedicated school personnel.
Those amazing efforts and their extraordinary successes are seldom recognized or appreciated. To the contrary, criticizing public schools and denigrating their teachers are favorite ploys of politicians who want to cut funds for schoolchildren in order to cut taxes for wealthy adults.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty recently unveiled his latest version of "blame the victim." It seems he wants Minnesotans to believe that school districts have plenty of money; it's just that they are spending it irresponsibly.
As President Theodore Roosevelt liked to say, "That is bull feathers!"
No public officials understand the value of a dollar better than school board members, superintendents and principals. Year after year, they have been forced to cut their schools' budgets, lay off needed teachers, increase class sizes, eliminate important courses, and forgo essential renovations.
The principal blame for whatever is wrong with Minnesota's public schools belongs to politicians in St. Paul and Washington who have refused to provide the resources to make them better. They love to preach "accountability"; however, they don't hold themselves accountable for their own failures. We should.
And if Minnesotans are unwilling to pay for the schools our children deserve, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Mark Dayton, a Democrat, represents Minnesota in the U.S. Senate.
©2006 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
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