Voice of MN Education

MASA... "At the Capitol" w/ Charlie.... Final negotiations

A report on the work of the Minnesota Legislature as it enters the final couple of weeks of the session. Written by Charlie Kyte, Executive Director, to the members of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators (MASA).

The podcast above is 7 minutes long.

LEGISLATIVE SESSION BEGINS TO 'WIND DOWN'

There are just over 2 weeks left in the session. The education bills are being finalized, but there is some question if they will be signed by the Governor. See below.

EDUCATION FINANCE BILL IS PART OF THE LARGER FINANCE BILL

K-12 Education is a part of the larger finance bill and the legislative leaders and the Governors staff are still negotiating a possible agreement. It is still too early to tell if an agreement will be reached or if a Bill, without the Governors approval, is sent to him by the legislature. If the later happens, it will be a 'dare' to the Governor to veto the whole Bill and then have him use the un-allotment process at a later time.

A governor cannot veto budget cuts, so line item vetoes aren't likely in this particular case. This finance bill is about cut backs, not increases.

EDUCATION POLICY BILL PASSED BOTH HOUSES AND IS READY FOR CONFERENCING

We may see the conference committee beginning it's work this evening. Not only do the Senate and House need to come together, but they also need to work with the MDE/ Governors staff on several controversial items. One of these is the new language on school report cards. The MDE especially objects to the language in the House version of the Bill on the report cards.

HOUSE EDUCATION POLICY BILL AMENDMENTS

The House passed their version of the K-12 Policy Bill on Monday night and there were several interesting amendments added. ONe gives all Charter School students access to all sports and activity programs in the traditional public schools. Another requires comprehensive sex education fro 7-12 grade students. Another ends Minnesota's participation in NCLB. One other removes a school districts ability to non-renew a probationary teacher if the required evaluations are not completed.

Of course these and other differences in the House and Senate Bills must be reconciled. Either both the Senate and House conferees agree, or the language is not included in the final Bills.

PENSION BILL.... MAY BE LAST BILL CONSIDERED

This may be the last Bill passed in this session and would probably be signed by the Governor if no significant changes are made to it on the trip thru the legislative bodies on the way to the Governor's office. We will be watching this BIll closely in the next 2 weeks. there is more about the pension bill on the audio pod cast.

MASA... "At the Capitol" w/Charlie: Washington, DC

MASA Members traveled to Washington, DC last week. This is a report on the Federal Advocacy front. By Charlie Kyte, Executive Director.

The podcast above is 8 1/2 minutes long.

TESTING IN MINNESOTA..... NO HELP FROM WASHINGTON

As we left for Washington, DC, Minnesota was just beginning the 'testing window' for many of our tests. From the e-mails I was receiving it was apparent that most of our schools were much more concentrated on testing than on instruction.

THE FEDERAL ADVOCACY GROUP

Our group that traveled to Washington this year included Dan Brooks--Sauk Centre, Gary Amoroso--Lakeville, Kevin Wellin--NRHEG, Craig Oftedahl--Warroad, Nan Records--Sherburn-Wright Coop, Jamie Skjeveland--Crosby-Ironton, Luther Heller-SW/WC Service Coop, Jim Hess-Bemidji. Mary Law from MASA served as staff support on the trip.

Over our 4 days we met with all of Minnesota's Congressmen, Senators Coleman and Klobuchar, many House and Senate Education Committee staff persons and also attended the AASA Federal Advocacy Conference. We learned a lot and also saw how difficult it is to have the folks in DC be cognizant about what is actually happening in our schools.

CONGRESSMAN TIM WALZ

A bright spot was a talk given by Minnesota's freshman congressman Tim Walz to the whole group of AASA Federal Advocacy Conference attendees. This happened on Thursday morning with about 150 of us in attendance. Congressman Walz is a teacher from Mankato and his wife Gwen is the Testing and Assessment Coordinator for that District. They understand the difficulty of applying NCLB at the local level. Many people in the room wished they had Congressman Walz representing their states. We were proud of him and his ability to communicate with educators.

MEETING WITH THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE STAFF.... NO FIX FOR NCLB

The staff of the federal education committees are far removed from education. They mean well, but in our conversations with them it quickly became apparent that any 'fix' to NCLB was just going to make it more complicated. What is needed is a strong dose of reality and simplicity. When the federal government finally gets around to the re-authorization of this law, they should just start over.

Going back to the old ESEA would be a good idea. The federal government could concentrate resources on the neediest schools and hold them accountable. For the rest of the schools, they would do us a favor by just leaving us, and our states, to our own improvement models.

MEDICAID CLAIMING

The federal government has written new rules to prohibit medicaid claiming for schools that are working with medically fragile children. This is a result of school sin several states taking unfair advantage of this provision.

A Bill is working it's way through congress to block this new rule for one year while a new set of rules is worked out that will still permit a reasonable level of medicaid claiming for transportation and administrative costs.

MASA... "At the Capitol" w/ Charlie.... not much happenning

A report on the status of the Minnesota Legislative process to the members of the MN Association of School Administrators (MASA) from Executive Director Charlie Kyte.

The audio podcast above is 8 3/4 minutes long.

5 WEEKS TO GO

I can't count the days fast enough. We are in sort of a pause right now as the Conference Committee tries to get a Super Omnibus Bill in shape to send to the Governor. It is super in that it combines all areas of government into one Bill. It isn't super in that it is a budget cutting, rather than a funding, Bill.

FINANCE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE COMPARES K-12 BILLS

Both the Senate and the House want to find funds to secure the School Trust Fund Lands, the earning from which now go to the DNR. This would be a good move and we hope they can find the $20 million required to get this done. These Lands have the potential to have significant earnings for K-1`2 education in the years ahead.

The House proposes a 1% increase ($51/pu) to the general fund on a one time basis and uses the excess Q-Comp money for one year to do this.

The Senate proposes a 2/3 of 1% permanent ($37/pu) to the general fund and uses the excess Q-Comp money for 3-5 years to do this.

In either case the Governor will probably veto this as it limits the continued expansion of the Q-Comp initiative.

VERY LITTLE EDUCATIONAL POLICY WILL PASS

Much of the policy language adopted by both the House and Senate Education Committees will simply be dropped or vetoed by the Governor. We will probably see new language on the school report cards. The Superintendent's Passage Rate Report will be repealed. IN it's place will be the new "Achievement Gap" Report that will make you wish to have the old passage rate report back.

PENSION COMMISSION

Language to allow the TRA post-fund and active funds to be combined was passed. This would only happen if the post-fund fell to being only 80% funded (right now it is about 85% funded).

Education Minnesota is pushing hard for the Rule of 90 for all post 1989 hires. This probably won't pass as they also need to come up with a method of paying for this improvement. I haven't seen any plan as yet to pay and if this is passed without a payment plan, the TRA system will quickly be in deep trouble. MASA has delivered a letter to the Pension Commission suggesting a 'middle ground' approach. We proposed a Rule of 90 at age 62. This reduces the age of retirement for many in this group, removes much of the bias against women (who miss a few years early in their careers to have children), and recognizes that people are living and working longer. It is also a much more affordable option.

The Pension Commission also adopted Bills to allow a higher limit for post-retirement earnings (up to $42,000) and the ability to prearrange a work relationship prior to actually retiring.

The matching limit for 403b's was raised from $2000 to $7750. Also passed was a requirement that selection of 403b vendors be subject to PELRA bargaining.

We have not yet seen the final Pension Commission Omnibus Pension Bill. ONce adopted it must be passed by both houses of the legislature and then signed by the governor

ON-LINE TESTING..... PLEASE LET US KNOW YOUR OPINIONS

Districts will shortly be opening the testing window for the on-line MCA Science Assessment tests. We know this is a big undertaking for both the MDE and for school districts. We recognize that computers needed to be upgraded and that your labs will be tied up for quite some time to do this.

We would like to know if you are seeing serious glitches in the process or frustrations greater than you might ordinarily expect. Just shoot me a quick e-mail so we here at MASA can get a statewide perspective of your reactions. If you would prefer ask your testing coordinator to communicate with me. My e-mail is ckyte@mnasa.org.