If the effort depends on more state funding and less local funding then its just more gov't, so show us the price tag. The state has no money to devote to this and in fact has already taken on K12 at the expense of all of its more traditional responsibilities thanks to the original 'MN Miracle.'
If on the other hand this plan gets adjusted to derive its funding through a mandate from the state to undo the 1st so-called MN Miracle of the seventies and return local school district funding through property taxes to its historical proportions of the property tax pie, then it would be a very positive and good thing.
Property tax revenues today are comparable, in fact quite close to pre-MN Miracle 1970 levels after adjustment for inflation and pop. growth. The problem lies in the fact that 54% of those local revenues went directly to the school districts in 1970; by 2003 that had fallen to 22%. Fix that and you've fixed education funding, relieving the state of some of the burden rather than adding to it. The state can no longer afford to pick up the slack from the ball getting dropped on the local level, time to mandate re-proportioning the property tax pie to the past blueprint that served us in such positive fashion so well, for so long. The state needs to fund transportation infrastructure and post-secondary ed and the like- its traditional responsibilities- without borrowing heavily into the future to do it.
If you're wondering who has primarily reaped the windfall of gutting K12 from those property tax revenues, its the counties, and specifically law enforcement and the justice system. A decision needs to be made on what future to build for kids- one increasingly full of jails and prisons or one full of expanding educational opportunity.
Posted on September 19 at 6:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If the effort depends on more state funding and less local funding then its just more gov't, so show us the price tag. The state has no money to devote to this and in fact has already taken on K12 at the expense of all of its more traditional responsibilities thanks to the original 'MN Miracle.'
If on the other hand this plan gets adjusted to derive its funding through a mandate from the state to undo the 1st so-called MN Miracle of the seventies and return local school district funding through property taxes to its historical proportions of the property tax pie, then it would be a very positive and good thing.
Property tax revenues today are comparable, in fact quite close to pre-MN Miracle 1970 levels after adjustment for inflation and pop. growth. The problem lies in the fact that 54% of those local revenues went directly to the school districts in 1970; by 2003 that had fallen to 22%. Fix that and you've fixed education funding, relieving the state of some of the burden rather than adding to it. The state can no longer afford to pick up the slack from the ball getting dropped on the local level, time to mandate re-proportioning the property tax pie to the past blueprint that served us in such positive fashion so well, for so long. The state needs to fund transportation infrastructure and post-secondary ed and the like- its traditional responsibilities- without borrowing heavily into the future to do it.
If you're wondering who has primarily reaped the windfall of gutting K12 from those property tax revenues, its the counties, and specifically law enforcement and the justice system. A decision needs to be made on what future to build for kids- one increasingly full of jails and prisons or one full of expanding educational opportunity.
On Educators talk about 2nd Minnesota Miracle