(00:00:00) It's from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Greta Cunningham. Minnesota Vikings general manager Tim Conley met with key lawmakers yesterday. And what many are calling a first attempt to pursue a new stadium for the football team Senator Dean Johnson of Willmar attended yesterday's meeting and says even without the official visit there have already been discussions about the stadium among lawmakers rather than building a new stadium strictly for the Vikings at the University of Minnesota would be given authority to build new stadium on campus lease it back to the Vikings. So both the Gophers in the Vikings would play football there. And then the Metro dome which is 16 16 years old and paid for would be retrofitted for much lesser cost Johnson says voter support for a publicly-funded stadium is still very low as of yet. No one has formally proposed any legislation this session for new sports stadium for either the twins or the Vikings a federal judge has temporarily stopped work on a Logging Road near The Boundary Waters canoe area. US District Judge Donovan Frank ordered a delay in plans to extend the road until the hearing can be held next Tuesday last week the superior Wilderness Action Network sued the u.s. Forest service to stop construction of the road opponents claim the forest service fail to do an adequate environmental assessment of the effects of the road in the logging. The agency says it's assessment was proper the forecast for the state of Minnesota today calls for some light snow possible. Statewide high temperatures near nine above zero to the single digits below zero tonight a chance of light snow. Once again with lows ranging from near 0 to 10 below zero right now Duluth reports light snow - to a wind chill index of minus-30 in the Twin Cities Cloudy Skies - one a wind chill index of - 33 that's news. I'm Greta Cunningham. Thank you Greta six minutes now past eleven o'clock and reminder that today's programming is made possible in part by The Advocates of Minnesota Public Radio contributors include the McKnight Foundation working to strengthen families and Good morning. Welcome to midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary eichten glad you could join us the debate over how much to spend on education can get pretty confusing on. The one hand state officials will point out that state spending for K-12 education has continued to go up up up in the coming fiscal year. The state of Minnesota will spend nearly four billion dollars on Education Plus another two and a half billion dollars will be spent in local money plus some federal money plus additional State money for individual tax credits and deductions in pre-kindergarten programs. Lots of money to be sure but at the same time any Educators and parents say the schools are actually short of money, they point out that many teachers don't even have the basics to work with things like paper and pencils they have to Those items with their own money. They argued that the state should increase spending for Education, especially given the State's new graduation standards. Well last year the legislature passed a law which required Minnesota school districts to tell legislators how much more money they would actually need to make sure students meet those standards. This week was the deadline for the reports to come in and while most districts apparently ignored the requirement many of the ones that did comply said, they needed tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars more. So we're going to take a closer look at what those districts reported and what it might mean for the State education funding picture in the future joining us. This hour is the man who ask the basic question. How much is enough Minneapolis dfl state? Senator Larry Pulga Miller who is the chair of the Senate K-12 education finance committee, and we invite you to join our conversation as well. Give us a call. Our Twin City area number is 6512276 thousand 6512276 thousand. Outside the Twin Cities one eight hundred two four two two eight 286512276 thousand or one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight morning Senator. Good morning Gary the first of all in terms of what the school districts were supposed to Target. It was 99 percent pass rate on the basic skills test, right and (00:04:24) that did it also include completing the (00:04:26) profile of learning or was it just the that basic skills (00:04:29) test. Well the let me tell you exactly what the question was that was asked. It was a three-part question. First question was how what expenditures are required in your District to maintain your programs and then to reach 80% student passage rate on the basic skills test in 2001 in the eighth grade. (00:04:53) Okay, two years from now eighth-graders 80% of them would be able to pass right? (00:04:57) And then the second question was same question except for 90% on the basic skills test in the eighth grade and that means reading and Mathematics and then the third part of that question was 99% in the 12th grade. The reason for that is is because that is the test that a student will have to pass to get a high school diploma. So that was question 1 question 2 was what are the expenditures required to provide all your programs and to maintain those targeted rates of 80% 90% and 99% and the long term and the attempt there was to say look we understand that that perhaps in two years. You may not have in place all the changes you need an early childhood programs and Etc to do this. So give us a second set of numbers that says assuming you're able to to reform your school delivery mechanism how you would like with early childhood and all of that. What's it going to cost to maintain this then the third question was how much money are you cross subsidizing from? Education to special education or to compensatory funding money for poor children. And that one the final question was one that we've asked over the years. We've got an Auditors report on that. We think it's about two to three hundred million, but now we want the district's to tell us what they think the number is for their district will add it up and then presumably will try to resolved that this legislative session and no one I don't think anybody is having consternation over that discussion there seems to be some consternation Over Districts some districts apparently are wondering whether they can tell us how much it will cost to get an 80% or 90% passage rate. And I think that'll be interesting in and of itself. I we do know already that as of yesterday half the districts have returned the information. I believe they're supposed to do it by last weekend, but you know, it's not like the deadline is not that crucial. So we're at half I presume many more came today. So I'm guessing that by the end of the week or early next week. We'll have most of the district's reporting there's over 350. Rick's in the state and then we'll start to analyze the data and try to make some assessments of where we are in terms of funding and answer basic questions. Like do districts think they can do this do they think they can provide our constitutional requirement for every child to have an adequate education which in some sense means can they pass the basic skills test to get a diploma. And so I think the legislature thinks this is a fairly straightforward question. We understand that it's not perfect science, but certainly District should be able to give us a pretty good back-of-the-envelope estimation. We didn't even ask him to tell us how they're going to do it. We just want the numbers so it and so that we can work with those numbers. Are you surprised (00:07:46) given your assumption that this is a pretty pretty basic. (00:07:52) Series of questions to answer are (00:07:54) you surprised at the consternation? This is apparently caused. (00:07:59) Well, I'm not aware. I've seen the two newspaper workers. The the Committees have not yet gotten the data from the Department. So what we know about as much as what was reported in the newspaper and in those articles, I think I'm not surprised that every District didn't get the daddy in as of the deadline. I mean, I that's fine. We've got time. We've got a few weeks with that's no big deal. I am surprised when apparently some districts tell us the you that they can't tell us how much money it would take or when they say that there's no research that indicates that money matters. We know Research indicates that you can identify the incremental cost to gain student achievement. Well, if money doesn't matter then why is everybody lined up at the legislature asking us for millions and millions and millions of dollars and on the point that a district feels it can't tell us the number I I think we'll talk with those districts and ask them if they can come up with a number because it's my understanding that both Minneapolis and st. Paul have provided numbers and if those districts who have the most complex largest number of students and anoka-hennepin apparently is also providing the numbers. So the three largest districts with the most complex student populations are able to give us numbers. I would think that other districts would be able to do many many rural districts. I was at a conference during the summer many many rural districts are extremely excited about providing these numbers because they think it will help make the case for them of one how good they're doing but also what the increased challenges are for them demographically and with teacher shortages on the horizon and the less student spending in rural Minnesota overall. They're very concerned that they won't be able to maintain the quality of their programs that they have so far because they may not be able to attract the kind of teachers they have so we're seeing a lot of excitement by school people with regard to this and I would Hope that any District that feels that this is not a worthy exercise. One of the one of the quotes in the paper was that they felt this was just an exercise well to the extent it's just an exercise. It does have to do with 12 billion dollars every two years and if a district doesn't want to go through the exercise to justify the kind of money, they need to do their job. So be it I would think a district in the end would think it was not thoughtful cannot tell us how much they needed. Were you surprised at the huge variance in cost (00:10:27) estimates that that it came in at least in the first batch is reported by the by the st. Paul Pioneer Press and Star Tribune. I notice for example, Eden Prairie estimating that it would only need about another two and a half million to get up to the I guess it's the 99 percent rate as compared with Minneapolis 270 million dollars. And even another (00:10:55) Suburban District South (00:10:56) Washington County was talking about a hundred and sixty 1 million dollars more. Does that say something about the the nature of the questions being asked or two or the need or what? How do you (00:11:09) explain that? I think it's different. I think it may be a combination of those things and we'll have to work through that because we the department worked very hard to try to make the question your work in a way their districts could to could understand how to kind of calculate this in an Apples to Apples comparison. And I think they'll be some work that will be necessary to kind of iterate back to the districts and ask them to you know, did they consider this did they consider that so that we make sure that we've got some pretty good comparisons across districts, but I think with example, you know Eden Prairie is already at the 80% So presumably other than inflation or demographic shifts in their population. They don't need more money to get to 80% And long-term. They perhaps are doing well enough that they feel that they're going to have most of those students hit the 99% So I that Eden Prairie number doesn't surprise me. The Minneapolis number does appear to be a lot of money and I think we need to examine that they are saying in the short term that they can only get to 50% in the eighth grade for 90 million. And so I think one of the questions were going to have to ask there is well if Minneapolis field it can only get 15 percent that means there are other students that were not as a state providing an adequate education for and we'll have to work through that. I think one of the important things to understand here is that these will be back of the envelope calculations. They're not perfect and we understand that these are not scientific numbers, right but ballpark numbers are hopeful to and I think the committee will discuss debate look at the numbers think about them. Ask districts for additional information or ask a maybe to do some recalculations and then we'll see where we are. And so at this stage, I'm not sure if anybody should have sticker shock. I'm not sure if they should be surprised at what the numbers are because I don't think we've yet had an opportunity on a Statewide basis to kind of analyze what we've got here. We'll have to work with the district's we're all in it together. It's not Minneapolis versus Eden Prairie. It's not rural versus Urban. It's not the legislature versus school districts are constitutional responsibility is every child gets an adequate education and to do that. We need to know how much that will cost and if our delivery system cannot deliver that then we need to look at alternative delivery mechanisms (00:13:33) citizens parents taxpayers, when they see these reports and you and you say well these numbers need to be worked with I mean, it wouldn't nobody should draw any wild conclusions, but the initial conclusion that many people could draw is gosh we need to And a whole lot more money here on education and we have a huge budget surplus maybe rather than returning that money to anybody to taxpayers. We ought to set that aside and use it for Education (00:14:06) that perhaps could happen. That's not the intent of trying to gather the number the intent here isn't to try to create a lobbying or leveraging number that we can now kind of work through the legislature. I think the intent is to try to provide a little rigor to the debate to this point. I've been on the education committee for 17 years. We are every year we are told in essence if we are given more money we can do better. Seems to me that's not a rigorous enough. Thing to deal with it seems to me we should have a if you give us X dollars, we will deliver X result and that's where we're trying to head. We're trying to get to a point where we can kind of create some rigor around this debate and then move forward there are many legislators who clearly believe it will take more money to accomplish the results. We need there are some legislators who believe 12 billion dollars twelve billion dollars, every two years is enough to have every child be able to read and write and do arithmetic and I think the truth is probably somewhere in between as that usually is but until we start to put some rigor on it. I think we're just going to continue to go in this circle of finger-pointing about who's not doing what and there's not enough money for this or that and I think we ought to just kind of get down to business and say how much do we need? Is that a realistic number or isn't it? And now the legislature should either accept the challenge or Except or tell people that it's not going to fulfill its constitutional responsibility. I mean, it seems to me to some extent it's that simple. I understand that the exact numbers are not simple to calculate but the principle of can you tell us how much it is to get what result I think is very straightforward very simple and I think it's a legitimate question to ask state. Senator. Larry Hogan Miller is our guest this our he is the chair of the Senate's K-12 (00:16:01) education finance committee and he's come by today to talk about a (00:16:04) questionnaire that's being (00:16:07) returned to education officials one that was set out to try to determine just how much (00:16:13) more money school districts would need to (00:16:16) try to ensure that all the kids (00:16:17) in Minnesota schools could pass the basic skills test. (00:16:20) If you'd like to join our conversation, give us a call six five one two, two seven (00:16:24) six thousand 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight and before we get to our first caller. (00:16:34) I need to ask you I see (00:16:36) Governor Ventura has now named (00:16:38) Christine Jack's (00:16:39) as the new head of the Department of Children families and learning professor of education at st. Mary's University Twin Cities campus a good choice. Do you know her I do know her she's actually constituent of mine. She is the spouse of Representative beer nut. Hmm. I do not. I don't know much about her professional background, so We will work with her (00:17:07) first caller is from st. Paul Vance. Go ahead please hey chiropractor and I appreciated over the years your thoughtful votes on Health Care issues, but I certainly pay attention to education issues. I will be 40 next week and (00:17:29) I grew up with nothing in the world. It's not the end of the (00:17:32) world. Oh God at any rate. I was thoughtfully reflecting on a time back in the 60s when 70s when the school's I went to a nursing Paul and Maplewood seem to have hot and cold running everything. I remember playing in the band. We always had enough instruments for those that wanted them. Athletic teams did not need money from parents. I don't recall holes in the bottom of my teacher shoes or that they were driving bad cars and there did not seem to be enormous money issues. And we seem to get a good education. I can out spell a lot of my younger I could have out spelled when I was at age a lot of my young patients right now and I'm wondering what what what has happened over these last 30 years that schools have gotten into so much trouble if we not kept up with inflation or is it is it a genuine money problem II just don't understand it myself and I I I wonder how things have changed so very much and how education has gotten into such a quandary if we just haven't spent the same amount of money that we did 30 years ago. I'll take my answer of the are pretty basic question (00:18:55) Senator. Well, that's kind of one of the things we're trying to get at here and trying to create some rigor around that debate. I think generally I think most policymakers and Educators and citizens would agree that there have been societal shifts in terms of the makeup of the family and how families support children that have started to affect the job that's being asked to be done at the schools. So I think there's a general understanding that the job has become a little more complex in one fashion by the same token. I think we clearly spend significantly more money now than we did when you were in school. Even on a per-student basis. Yes clearly on Astor per student and it's clearly kept up with inflation all of those things relative to What we spend compared to other states, we have slipped because they've caught up we used to be rated much much higher than other states in our spending because most of them didn't spend very much and since they've accelerated their spending dramatically, Minnesota's ranking has now slipped but we still spend as I say 12 billion every two years to a billion dollars we have about a nine hundred thousand to a million students and I think we are we are trying to ascertain how to differentiate the changes in society from the spending patterns to what we're asking schools to do. We're trying to figure all of those things out and this is an attempt to provide a little rigor for that debate and legislators of all beliefs. Every possible reason for why it has become more complex or why there's either enough money or too much money exists in the 201 legislators. There it is all there. And so what we're trying to do is try to get a collective view of how to move forward we know. That the from our basic skills test that we've got about thirty percent of our children who can't pass basic skills test in the eighth grade and those are about 6 grade level tests and we just we need to do better than that and you don't need to blame anybody to come to the conclusion that we need to do better. And so we're trying to avoid blaming and just say, okay, let's move forward what how much do we need to spend who's willing to do the job for what price and let's get the job done. Let's assume that these (00:21:08) preliminary numbers that came in our kind of Representative and you add it all up and let let's say when you get done adding up all the numbers it comes to say a billion dollars Hefty amount. Okay, but still only about 15 percent more than what we're currently spending any will do you suppose at the legislature to say, okay. Here's another billion dollars a year and this will take care of our problem. If the problem will be solved will be getting all the kids at least a basic good (00:21:38) education. I would like to get to that point of billion dollars. Not out of the out of the question we put in about a billion dollars both the last biennium but last two bienniums, so when you talk about inflation and pupil growth a billion new dollars in the budget is not out of the question that mean that is not out of the realm of possibility if that's what the number is I that is doable. I don't know that that's what the number will be like, you might even be higher than it probably will be I would think is they're the kind of will though to spend that additional money at the (00:22:10) Capitol. You think if assuming the the trade-off is a virtual guarantee that all the kids will pass this test (00:22:20) boy, that would be an awful tough deal to turn down. I don't think it'll be quite that clear cut based on the information. I've seen the paper some of the districts are not saying that there is a dollar amount at which they can deliver 80 90 and 99 percent and we'll have to deal with that issue too. Obviously. So I wish it would be that simple in the end that is where we're trying to get. We're trying to kind of get the deal done here. If this legislature stands up the table and does its job and the district's agree that they'll do their job. Then what should get done pretty much or we should get closer to the end where we are and you know with the with the new Administration coming in. I do think we have an opportunity here to deal with these complex issues in straightforward fashion like this and I think that would be helpful. Sometimes we get caught up in the complexities of it all it's all too complex. There's nothing that can ever be figured out there for just send money and life will be better and I just some things are fairly straightforward and whether a child can read or write is pretty straightforward. We can measure that Lisa your question, please (00:23:27) hi. Out what is it clear? Are we differentiating here? The difference between the basic skills test versus educating teachers about the changes. We need to make about how kids learn IE the high profile performance learning and performance assessment or is it pretty much straight up just the basic skills of Reading Writing and Mathematics and my second piece could have piggybacking on what you gentlemen. The chiropractor said when he called in asking what has changed. Well for one thing in the 50s the dropout rate was about 40 percent because people could leave our schools without a grad, you know, without a diploma and make an honorable living because we had an industrialized Society at that time right now. The unskilled Workforce is at 20% and projected to be below 10% So part of the change working in our schools is we have to educate all children. Now, we don't have just the sixty percent that are going to go the academic route. We have to educate all children. I think if you look at some of the research that really skews how Things like test scores are coming out because the very population is taking those tests is much broader than it used to be and I think that's one issue that isn't, you know, really brought out publicly very clearly. My question really is was this about asking the district. What is it going to take to implement the high-profile learning to you know teach teachers how to teach in a performance way or was this pretty isolated to how are we going to get kids to the basic skill level I think the two are tied but that's my question. (00:25:08) Okay, your second point on the dropout rate is excellent. I'm glad you made it. I should have made that point that that is one of the crucial points that need to be made about what the difference is from 30 years ago. Thank you for making that point with regards to the question on the profiles versus the basics standards. We are the we did not ask districts and I think the article in the st. Paul paper might have created a little confusion on this we did not ask districts to tell us how much would it take to implement the high standards? We are presuming that they are going to do that because that is what schools are supposed to be doing challenging every student the measurement that we put forward though was only on the basic skills test because that's the one that is fairly straightforward and easy to measure. So the assumption is that they are implementing high standards for every child, but we're only asking the measure the measurement that there can be measured against at this stage is just the 80 90 and 99 percent now obviously in the long term as we're better able to measure how we're doing on the high standards and the critical thinking then presumably we would move into asking for a report on that type of measurement. So your questions, excellent the the question and it was made clear to districts that they obviously are providing all of their regular District programs, and we just need to know what it will take to do that plus hit the targets on the basic skills test. And so your questions is (00:26:37) excellent state senator Larry program. As our guest this our he's the chair of the Senate's K-12 education finance committee. He stopped by today to talk about report coming in from the various school districts on how much more additional money they would need to make sure that virtually all Minnesota students pass that basic skills test will get to some more callers just a couple of minutes (00:26:59) on the next all things considered the art of Thomas Hart Benton. (00:27:03) He was famous for walking around in a plaid flannel shirt in a corduroy jacket with jeans when everybody else in New York was dressed, you know in this black beret-wearing kind of artist Persona Benton prided himself on looking like a hick (00:27:20) All Things Considered begins at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio Canada wfm 91.1 in the Twin (00:27:26) Cities. Over the noon hour today. We're heading off to the National Press Club our luncheon speaker today, Oklahoma Congressman JC Watts, who is one of the members of the Republican Congressional leadership first black member of to a republican to serve as a leader in the Congress and he'll be speaking at the Press Club today live coverage here on our midday program programming. I'm gonna sort of public radio is supported by standard Heating & Air Conditioning the Twin Cities Home Comfort Experts for 69 years featuring York Heating and Cooling products Greta Cunningham joins us now with some news headlines Greta. Good morning, Gary Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan, officially announced moments ago. He's retiring from basketball. Jordan ends. His playing days seven months after leading the Bulls to their six NBA title in eight years President Clinton told reporters today. The most important thing he can do now is the business of the American people. He wouldn't comment on the brief. His lawyers have filed except to say that it speaks for itself President Clinton's legal team filed. A hundred thirty page brief with the Senate outlining their impeachment defense in their brief Clinton's lawyers call the house impeachment vote on wise and unwarranted. They also say there's no basis for removing Clinton from Office. The Senate resumes its historic impeachment trial tomorrow with opening statements from house prosecutors. Kosovo Rebels have released their hostages the u.s. Head of the international monitoring Mission says the rebels freed the 8 Yugoslav army soldiers today. They had been taken hostage Friday setting off new tensions between ethnic Albanian separatists and the Yugoslav government today's release follows talks between International negotiators and the rebels at least four people are reported hurt in the collapse of a roof at a Campbell Soup plant in Northwestern. Ohio crews are trying to determine if more people may be trapped inside authorities are not sure whether snow piled on the roof caused the collapse. The area has received about 16 inches of snow and ice in the past two weeks in Regional news, Governor. Ventura has named Bloomington businessmen Al Horner as Of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Horner like Ventura is a former Navy SEAL. He owns the air in Carlson Corporation in Minneapolis and has no experience in state government Ventura also named Christine. Jack's to head the Department of Children families and learning she is a professor of education at st. Mary's University Twin Cities campus and has worked with children and Educators for more than 14 years. And Jean Houston is reappointed as agricultural commissioner a position. He's held since 1995 the forecast for Minnesota today calls for some light snow Statewide with highs ranging near nine above to the single digits below zero tonight a chance of light snow. Once again with lows ranging from 0 to near 10 below zero at this hour mostly cloudy skies reported around the region and temperatures around the zero Mark Rochester reports clouds and a temperature of zero. It's cloudy and 0 in Duluth. And in the Twin Cities Cloudy Skies 0 with a wind chill index of - 23 and Gary. That's a look at the latest news. Thank you Greta our guests this hour on our midday. Ram state senator Larry Hogan Miller here to talk about education funding and how much more school districts may need to actually make sure that virtually all the students in the state of Minnesota can at least past the basic skills test. All the school districts were asked to fill out a questionnaire on that subject many of them have returned the questionnaires. Some of the numbers are pretty startling and senator. Paul Miller has come by today to take your questions George and go ahead Place. Yeah. Thank you for taking my call. I am a teacher currently on Child Care leave in the Rochester Public Schools. I teach in the high school and I really appreciate first of all the commentary on this subject. But my question is will the legislator use this information coming back from the questionnaires to kind of to if the numbers to startling to put a kibosh on these basic standards. That's a concern because I think these are this is an important thing that we're doing and I'm just worried that people will get nervous and say we can't do this. Let's give up. (00:31:27) Don't I don't believe that will happen because for the legislature to do that would be to say that we're not willing to fulfill our constitutional responsibility to provide an adequate adequate education for every child. So I don't think there should be any fear that that's going to happen. And I think related to that the previous colored asked about the profile. I think there's a political commitment to maintain the profile of learning the high standards. I believe there also is a political commitment across the board Governor house senate to look at the implementation see how we're doing provide any additional assistance that's necessary sandpaper at do whatever we have to do because we think most of the complaints that are taking place in most of the concerns related to the profile and the high standards are really related to implementation issues not to the basic concept of having high standards for every child might this open the door to lots a lawsuits though. (00:32:24) It's next year I Believe by next year. First group of students will have had to pass this basic skills test to get a diploma (00:32:33) correct or the year 2001. (00:32:36) Okay, and unless something dramatic changes thousands of kids aren't going to get a diploma if their District reported that they needed more money and you folks didn't provide it wouldn't their parents have a legitimate beef lawsuit gosh. Well, my child was denied a diploma because you folks wouldn't spend enough money. (00:32:58) I don't I don't know about that. I do know that we currently have two lawsuits going on in the state to adequacy lawsuits. So I'm not sure that additional lawsuits will add to the mix but I do think it's a it's a legitimate and I represent of Kelso who has left the legislature has pointed this out over the last couple years that we need to whether sober face and a sober mind. Think about what happens in 2001 June of 2001 when Some students have not passed the basic skills test and we have to say no you don't get a diploma that is going to be very difficult for our state to have the stomach to follow through on that. And I think the question at that point will be are we doing that student any favor by giving them a diploma even though they can't read and write and so I think we've been talking about this for a number of years over a decade and I think we need to keep in mind our responsibility to deliver for every child and we have in the last two sessions provided additional money for remedial to help those students that didn't pass the test. So people are thinking about this and it's it's a very serious issue. Of course. The Constitution is very serious. It says every child every child Minnesota should get an adequate education Governor Ventura has (00:34:15) repeatedly emphasized cloth smaller class size as the route to good education. How much would that cost? If to get to his I believe he's looking at a 17-2 On teacher-to-student ratio how much additional money would the state have to spend to make sure that that occurs in all the districts around the state (00:34:36) but we just started hearings on that this morning in the senate committee and to date we've spent about 450 million dollars to get a reduction from about 20 to 18 in the lowest grades. And so the governor we will be waiting for his proposal as to how to finish that task. We've been working on this for about six years. We'll be waiting for his proposal to how to finish that task. It's not clear to me that he's going to ask for additional Revenue to do that and we will work with him because I think we agree with his goal of getting more personalization between students and faculty, but we'll need to come to some agreement as to whether that takes additional money or not. And we're at this point. We're waiting to see how he weighs. And on that and we want to work with them on it Roger your question, please (00:35:31) I wonder if I like to challenge the whole premise that more money definitely means, you know, 99% I want to challenge the idea that more money to Public Schools is always the answer where privatization or homeschooling or alternative methods to, you know, encourage better performance result. I wonder what the privatization private schools cost per student and success ratios are and lastly I wonder if success is really related to more of Economics of the family than it is to how much money we spend per student. We're probably spending the same amount Minneapolis, but the people come from or tougher background (00:36:11) ex-boy in just a 30 or 40 second. Comment. Roger is hit on all the key issues. I couldn't agree more it this survey does not presume that the only way to accomplish our constitution responsibility is through Current public school structure and we will be looking at data as we go through this in the next year or so as to what is being spent by others. We have Charter School data, we can look at will be trying to gather private school data. And so I think that point is well-taken. There's not only one way to accomplish this and about 10 percent of our students are not currently in the Public's the current Public School structure. And so we have some comparisons we can make on your second point. I think it is generally understood the demographics does make a difference in terms of what it would cost it. We know that the level of Parental education and the level of income at the of the family are correlative to results on basic skills tests. The level of correlation is what's at stake here because we currently do spend more on kids who come from poorer backgrounds. The question is getting down to well. How much more do we should we legitimate be spending? I don't There's a debate that we should be spending more our fact out of all the states in the country. We have one of the better systems for allocating additional revenue for kids in poverty. But even with that we clearly are not getting to where we need to get and every study comes out and shows that even though overall the system is doing pretty well. It is on basic skills. It is clearly not doing well for children in poverty or kids from different cultural backgrounds. And then there is also the question of whether the overall system is doing well enough for high standards, which is a separate issue also the (00:38:07) emphasis on helping poor kids or providing extra money. Is that a good good way to approach this Governor Carlson used to argue. Of course that (00:38:18) the (00:38:19) I don't want to oversimplify his position on this, but essentially he always argued that poor kids were eminently capable of getting Good education doing well in school and so on. They just needed a chance basically do we focus perhaps on the wrong thing when we focus on the income level of the students family. Is (00:38:40) there some other variable there (00:38:42) that would be better to Target rather than (00:38:44) income. I think that's one of the things we can look at here. I think Governor II certainly don't want to speak for governor Carlson, but I think his point his point clearly was a child from a poor child certainly can learn there's no disagreement with that. I think the argument is that if you have all poor children one place, it costs more to take all of them to where they need to get. So that's a poverty discussion as opposed to level of income poverty is a condition of a concentration of poor people, but I think Governor Carlson did I don't think he actually disagreed that it would cost more for certain cohorts of students. I think his question was and frankly what led to part of this was his discussion. Was how much more you never tell us? How much more you keep I'm a I will relate an experienced during while he was governor about two years ago. I went to meet with him as we always with the chairs of the committee's as we're putting the final bill together. And at one point he stood up he started to walk around the room and said Larry you're always asking for more money for poor kids how much more and the bottom line was I couldn't answer that question and that partially led to this question here because I think that is a simple straightforward fair question how much more and we're trying to partially answer that now we're not limited just how much for poor kids. We're asking how much for the whole system and then we'll try to back out on the demographics to find out how much we should be weighing that factor because your question is a good one. Also, we have many school districts with poor kids rural areas where they're doing fantastically and they're spending less than we're spending in Minneapolis. Now I think we need to work through that and think think about the differences between level of income and poverty and other social conditions and and work through all those differences all over Minnesota. There are kids in poverty who are getting good education's but in aggregate the system is not doing as well for those kids as it is for others Lonnie your question, please (00:40:48) okay. I'd like to make two quick comments one is that if the district can prove that more money can do the job. I'm all for it. And number two that I graduate within the last ten years. I have my little brother that's in high school right now. And when I was in high school, we'd have my parents and I would have discussions about how you know within the last year's how students have changed not just the schools but how students have changed, you know, my dad would say that you know, when I was in that when I was in high school we couldn't do this and we treated our teachers like this and we did our homework for fear that not only get in trouble at school, but we'd get in. Home and I was raised that you know you go to school you do your work and if you do your work you get the job done and you get the grade and that's what you deserve. No, is it something that more money could really help students. I mean if a student doesn't want to learn my brother does not want to learn. I mean, he's a problem student and is more money going to help him. There are some the junior high he went to had a wonderful program where there were were like a counselor of some person that really was in personally with him that worked and I think more money could help but if a student really doesn't want to learn they're not going to learn no matter how much money you put in (00:42:05) there. I couldn't agree more that point has been made over and over and I think we need to differentiate points at which money can make a difference and then acknowledge and directly confront instances where money won't make a difference but still we have a responsibility to deliver. Or your brother to figure out a way to deliver for your brother and that may mean different delivery mechanism that may mean putting your brother in a different learning environment to get the job done. But constitutionally we have to figure out a way and I would argue economically figure out a way to to unlock what's going on with your brother and help him to become an active and quality learner and it may not be just money. It may be the right kind of teacher in front of them that calls his bluff and says listen we're going to do it this way and and I think Governor Ventura will help on this because he's clearly set the standard in his political rhetoric and discussion about there are responsibilities for receiving public funds and I believe that's that's accurate and true. You have to be an active learner otherwise no amount of money is going to be helpful is the 99% passage rate for the basic skills test. Is that too high. We should you give schools a little more slop room for the kids who just no matter what you do there. They just don't seem interested. You can't get through to him. Whatever excellent question. That's one of the reasons we put it at 99% because we're trying to find out from districts whether they think where is that number? Is it 99 percent is at 97% Where is it? And we've apparently gotten back some data where some districts who are doing very well. They've got already 92% passage rates are saying they can never get to 99% and I think that's one of the things we want to look at very closely. We want to figure out what our expectations should be and then we need to examine if there is a percent that that districts are saying they can't get to then we need to examine. All right. Is that something we accept or is there something else we have to do and I don't think we know that answer to me. We need to figure out what we mean by every child. What does that really mean? Jair question, please. (00:44:19) I have a comment. I went to school in the 50s and graduated in the early 60s and one of the things that it seems to That has changed is the attitude or shall we say the authority that the teacher in the classroom carries children beginning of very young children, you know will push you just as far as they can if they want to test the limits that are out there and I remember that if somebody was disruptive disruptive student this affects the ability of others in the class to learn Etc, you know, the teacher could come down on them and and impose order somebody just made the comment about finding a teacher that I'll say. This is the way it's going to be the problem is right. Now if you look at a kid cross-eyed and you're a teacher it seems to me somebody can file a lawsuit against it is now politically correct. It seems to view students as having the same basic civil rights as shall we say adult and I postulate that really is not the case and I think that if teachers were given the opportunity to Force discipline in the classroom one-on-one without having to go through eight committee meeting here. He comes and what-have-you before something can be done collectively with a particular student. You'd see more bang for the buck and you see an overall increase in graduation rates and I'll take my answer off here. (00:45:45) I agree 100% we hear that constantly from teachers that can be fixed. It needs to be fixed. No teacher should have to be with a group of students that choose not to be with that teacher teachers have rights also and how can we expect a teacher to teach someone who doesn't want to be with them? So I agree with that having said that that doesn't absolve of absolve us of our system responsibility for that child. We have to find I think it's our constitutional responsibility to find a learning environment within which that student will become an active learner and I don't think a student has a right to be with a certain teacher. I do think they have a right under our constitution. In some environment where it might work and and I think we've confused that over the years. I think teachers are exactly right. They should not be asked to have a student in their classroom who is just give him the finger metaphorically giving them the finger are literally or literally because the kids act obviously not being an active learner that point so wife why create pain for the teacher and it's and it's affecting other students. But again, I want to make the point that if we allow that student to be removed from that classroom, which I can live with I have no problem that does not absolve our constitutional responsibility to still figure out a way to deliver for that child. (00:47:07) Let's get one more caller on here before we wrap up Nancy. Hi. I'm actually very happy to hear about the results that are coming in and the 99% is certainly a great Target, but I'm concerned about those students who consistently test. Well or extremely high and whether or not the surveys to school districts are also inquiring about how better to address their needs specifically, for example, my daughter's does test extremely high and so it's difficult. She is in classes where they basically are spending most of their time preparing for the standards test that she's already past our will pass and be in the 99th percentile passage, right the same material year after (00:47:54) year. We had use of her time they keep in mind that's what the profiles is all about. The Challenge on the profiles is that every student every individual student is challenged and if they've already passed the basic exams, we certainly don't want that student sitting there wasting their time on that. And so that's why this this questionnaire will not undercut the basic profile or high standards concept that I want to share this parent of that and to the extent that your child is not challenged. I apologize. And we need to figure out a way where this system challenges every child individually to high standards (00:48:32) before we wrap up here Senator on the profile of learning their range of opinions. Leave it alone. Let it let it work its way through to Let's scale it back. It's become a little unmanageable to scrap the whole thing. It's a goofy idea. What is the legislature actually going to do this year on the profile of learning? (00:48:51) My my judgment is that the legislature and the governor are not going to back off high standards. They are not going to do that. I believe we will have a close examination of how the implementation is going. And I think there will be adjustments on the implementation. There's a lot of miscommunication and confusion among communities about what's going on there. But I think we can work through all that and I'm optimistic that the legislature will take steps to provide additional assistance to school learning communities and also additional breathing room to get the Done, but I do not believe there is any I don't believe there's going to be a effort to repeal high standards. If there is I believe it will be fought heavily by the governor and the legislature (00:49:42) chatter. Thanks for coming in today. I suppose a month or two. You'll be back with a precise dollar figure as to how much we should be spending on education (00:49:50) and and we'll look forward to that. I hope it'll be that simple but it probably won't Larry Hogan Miller who is the chair of the state Senate's K-12 education finance committee joining us during this first (00:50:04) hour of our midday program and will continue in just a