Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

2015 was a good year for schools. From the beginning, my goal was to fund our schools and see rural schools receive more equitable funding in comparison to metro schools. Thanks to our education bill, the Willmar School District will see their per-pupil funding increase in 2016 by $183 and by $432 in 2017. For the New London-Spicer district, their per-pupil funding in 2016 will increase by $150 in 2016 and $362 in 2017. Finally, ACGC's will receive an additional $166 per-pupil in 2016 and $351 in 2017. These new dollars are important to attract and retain quality teachers and maintain our facilities.

Additionally, we invested $95 million in proven, early learning initiatives including scholarships and school readiness aid for families that need help.

Over the course of the past year, I have visited a number of local classrooms-sharing my experiences serving as their representative in St. Paul. In addition to this, I have shared a new class called Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities (C.E.O.) with a handful of my rural colleagues. This is a program that gives high schoolers the opportunity to learn from local business owners about what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur in our communities. The goal of this program is to see these young people stay in rural Minnesota and start new businesses-as opposed to moving to the Twin Cities. This is a good workforce program that will help rural Minnesota's future.

In 2016, the legislature passed and Governor Dayton signed into law a provision I worked hard on to make funding between Greater Minnesota and Metro school districts more equitable. We also made additional investments in early education and programs to help reduce Minnesota's teacher shortage.

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