Once again this year I will donning my lobbyist hat (that's right, I am a lobbyist albeit not a "registered" lobbyist) for Education Minnesota down at the legislature.
Some of the issues we are working on:
Statewide Health Insurance
We have been working on this one for quite some time and were so close last year only to be disappointed by our obstructionist-in-chief.
Another veto dashed the hopes of educators who had worked for years to create a statewide health insurance pool for 200,000 school employees. After winning passage in both houses – and with no negative signals from the governor's office – advocates were shocked by the veto.
"If the governor or any other person or group had, at any time before or during the session, engaged the proponents of statewide health insurance in an effort to find workable effective alternatives to this proposal, the proponents would have worked with them to try to reach agreement," said Education Minnesota President Schaubach.
"This did not happen. It is a shame that school employees in Minnesota will remain locked into a failed system of purchasing health care coverage if there were alternatives that would have worked that were never brought to the table for discussion."
All Day/Every Day Kindergarten
Studies have shown that kids in all day kindergarten have a significant head start over their half day counterparts. For this reason alone, it just makes sense to get all of our students on that head start track rather than having a two tier system in which those that can afford are given a head start while those who cannot are at an additional disadvantage.
Increased School Funding
With the move back to funding education on the back of local property taxes we have created a system of haves and have nots. We need to go back to the Minnesota Miracle that made us great. Education funding has not kept up with inflationary costs of gasoline and health insurance while the demands put upon education and educators continues to rise.
Studies have shown that kids in all day kindergarten have a significant head start over their half day counterparts. For this reason alone, it just makes sense to get all of our students on that head start track rather than having a two tier system in which those that can afford are given a head start while those who cannot are at an additional disadvantage.
Increased School Funding
With the move back to funding education on the back of local property taxes we have created a system of haves and have nots. We need to go back to the Minnesota Miracle that made us great. Education funding has not kept up with inflationary costs of gasoline and health insurance while the demands put upon education and educators continues to rise.
