Education Minnesota outlined its legislative agenda for the 2003 session, including calls for short-term fixes that will avoid further service cuts, plus a fundamental change to the way Minnesota schools are funded in the future.

'For the short-term we are concentrating on preventing further erosion of service to public school students,' said Judy Schaubach, president of Education Minnesota. 'But by 2005, we believe that there must be fundamental change in the way public education is financed in Minnesota. And we believe that such change needs to be set in motion this legislative session.'

Among the major initiatives announced Wednesday:

• A recommendation that the current mechanism for funding schools be thrown out and a new one built from the ground up. The legislature should fund such a process this session and appoint a commission that includes educators to have a new system ready by 2005. In the meantime, an inflationary formula increase will be sought for funding K-12 education in the current biennium.
• Ensuring educator input on the development and implementation of a suitable replacement for the ill-fated Profile of Learning. Any new standards and assessments must align with the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and provide students and educators with useful diagnostic information.
  
• Several quality-instruction initiatives, including preventing further class size increases; repealing the law allowing non-licensed community experts to teach independently; developing uniform state qualifications for school paraprofessionals; and requiring the posting of teacher licenses in the classroom.

'Our legislative proposals are based upon our union's basic belief that all students deserve a great public school education, from pre-kindergarten through college,' Schaubach said.

Schaubach also highlighted the current financial crisis in the state's public higher education institutions. 'In a state where job creation is a priority - and where the majority of those jobs will require a quality education beyond high school - it is short-sighted and foolish to close the door to students seeking higher education opportunities,' she said.

The Profile's collapse began with its flawed implementation, Schaubach said, and any standards that replace it must have educators' input on both the development and implementation phases. 'I can tell you that we cannot afford another debacle like the one we are experiencing with the Profile,' Schaubach said. 'It is not fair to our students, it is not fair to their parents, it is not fair to educators, and it is a great disservice to our entire state.'

Regarding an entirely new funding system, Schaubach called for a ground-up approach that starts with building a broad consensus on what services Minnesotans want public schools to provide. Only then, she said, can all parties decide how to fund them.

For more information

Visit the Education Minnesota website, www.educationminnesota.org