- Doug Lemov on the power of reading books together in class
- How have Horace Mann's reform ideas fared over the years?
- Less math grading, more feedback and thinking
- Teaching in the era of ChatGPT
- Elementary scheduling for equitable service delivery
- Planning a literature-based unit on mental health issues
- Recommended middle-grade books about periods
- Getting better at difficult conversations
- What went wrong with teacher-evaluation reform
- Thomas Guskey on solving the problem of inconsistent grading
- How to deal with students who refuse to do their work
- Supporting struggling readers in the upper-elementary grades
- Teaching writing in middle and high schools
- Recommended graphic novels
- Is Lord of the Flies for real?
- Being a good listener when collaborating and negotiating
- How teams can get the most out of ChatGPT
- Dyslexia, phonics, Orton-Gillingham, and the literacy debate
- Coaching tips
- Empowering stories celebrating identity through apparel
- Leaders asking the right questions
- Well-placed compliments
- What's up with boys and men, and how can schools and parents help?
- Timothy Shanahan on small-group versus whole-class instruction
- Exploring the potential of ChatGPT in a Nevada high school
- The value of regular check-in meetings
- The connection between school climate and student achievement
- Graphic novels on sports
- Bret Domstrand, Lake Marion Elementary, Lakeville Area Schools
- Jennie Kelly, Principal, St. Michael-Albertville Middle School-East
- Katy Schuerman, Principal, Five Hawks Elementary Prior Lake
- Eric Nelson, Principal, Chatfield High School
- David Brooks on the moral magic of middle managers
- "Studenting" behaviors that are essential to college success
- Libraries as the heartbeat of schools
- Helping students get metacognitive about their mistakes
- History doesn't have to be boring
- Teaching both phonics and comprehension in the early grades
- A quiz on literary allusions
- Good comebacks when someone steps over the line
- A push for teaching logic in high schools
- Notable poetry books and verse novels
- How five classroom myths can be tweaked for positive impact
- Timothy Shanahan on directed (a.k.a. guided) reading
- In-the-moment feedback on students' writing
- Classroom walkthrough checklists - can we do better?
- Protocols for workplace e-mails
- Is a college degree worth it?
- Writing a letter from your future self
- What's the appropriate age for kids to read controversial classics?
- Picture books on accomplished women
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Management of the legislative calendar is complicated. The state constitution requires adjournment on or before May 20th. The state constitution has another limitation that is quietly becoming a factor of completing legislative work. The constitution limits the legislature to 120 days of floor sessions per biennium. As of today, the House and Senate are on legislative day #111. The question is whether the remaining 9 legislative days will be enough time to complete work on the volume of bills awaiting floor action.
For example, on Thursday, the House debated a bill on gun safes for 11 hours. As a result, several other scheduled bills were tabled.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the building, the Senate spent much of its floor time talking about Senator Mitchell’s recent arrest. Various attempts at limiting her voting rights were defeated.
The irony is that in the coming days, decisions will be made leaving some legislative initiatives behind, with the simple explanation that there just isn’t enough time.
The conference committee on Education Policy completed the majority of its work this week. Conference committees have evolved through the years to be one of the key centers of legislative power. Bills that pass both the House and Senate typically have some differences. When this occurs, the bill is sent to a special committee made up of both House and Senate members with the charge to resolve the differences.
A significant limitation on conference committee authority prohibits the inclusion of items that were not in either bill. This limitation is often stretched to breaking when the committee uses its authority to significantly modify provisions. Also, provisions can be dropped altogether if one side refuses to agree. The authors (and staff) are skillfully use the process. Bills often include items that can easily be traded for something else while controversial items that were not included in one bill can simply disappear. Again, it is easy to see how these committees play a major role in the final language of bills.
Conference committee work concludes with a “report” back to the House and Senate. On the floor, while it looks like any other bill it is treated quite differently. A conference committee report cannot be amended or changed on the floor. The vote is limited to yes or no. It is an all or nothing proposition. Members may see that a provision they worked on has now disappeared or something they had never seen before now included.
A good example of this process is the “10 minute pull out” provision included in the Senate bill. The Senate language required schools to make a record when a student was pulled out of class for 10 minutes or more. The language required a call to the parent each time this occurred. This provision was never heard in the House. The Education Policy conference committee modified the Senate provision, dropping the mandate. The new language removes the mandate, simply encouraging school districts to adopt a policy on “pull outs.” Sometimes the process works.
The Policy conference committee has completed its work. All that remains is to meet, review the final language and sign the report.
Typically, policy and finance are in the same bill. This year the two are separated resulting in the need for another conference committee. The House took up and passed the Education Finance bill Tuesday. The bill is relatively small, given that this is not a budget year. (Notwithstanding the size, the House debated the bill and a long list of amendments for 7 hours on Tuesday.). The House money is focused in two main areas—student teacher stipends and the READ Act supplementary funding. The Senate hasn’t passed its finance bill. That may happen as quickly as Monday. A conference committee will be assigned once the Senate passes its bill.
The end of session always brings legislative retirements. Several long serving members are leaving this year. (Some have already left.) The total number of departures is currently 17. (The House currently has two vacant seats) It is not unusual to have a surprise or two in the final days. So goodbyes are part of the process. Also, the House members must vacate their offices at the end of this month adding to the general chaos of the end of session. There is a sense of chaos in the air.
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This was supposed to be a short week at the capitol. In recognition of Passover, the legislature did not start until Wednesday afternoon. The schedule included typical floor sessions in the House and Senate together with the processing of bills through a few committees.
That plan changed dramatically with activities in the middle of the night in Detroit Lakes. As everyone knows by now, State Senator Nicole Mitchell (Woodbury) was arrested and charged with burglary for allegedly breaking into her stepmother’s home. The news of the matter spread like wildfire through the legislative community. The story leaked out in small pieces with reviews of the arrest report, 911 call transcripts, booking photos and public statements. It appears that a family dispute resulted in a colossal error in judgment. As with every major car crash, everyone slowed down to have a look with many unanswered questions.
The arrest significantly interrupted Senate business. The Democrats hold the slimmest of margins, one vote. During the floor session on Wednesday Senate Republicans moved to expedite an ethics complaint on the matter. The floor debate on the motion involved a discussion of ethics complaint procedures, due process, and removal from office. The President of the Senate, Bobby Joe Champion, skillfully led the body through the debate. Senators chose their words carefully as everyone tried to make sense of the events.
Understandably, Senator Mitchell was not present for the debate. The absence of one Democrat results in and equally divided body, with no majority. As a result, the vote on the motion to expedite the ethics complaint failed on a tie vote 33-33. (Motions require a majority to pass.) Basically, the complaint will be handled is normal or regular fashion. Ironically, nothing about ethic complaints is normal or regular. Other business scheduled for the day was postponed give the lack of a majority of Democrats. It was a short week, but this event made Senate business even shorter for the week.
The Ethics Committee (Rules and Administration Subcommittee on Ethical Conduct) is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, May 7th. The committee will begin the process of the ethics complaint at that time. Interestingly, a complaint submitted a year ago against one of the Republican Senators is also on the agenda for the meeting. The committee has four members, two republicans and two democrats. The President of the Senate, Bobbie Joe Champion is the chair, insuring order and decorum to be the rule of the day. All eyes will be on the proceeding.
No one can say what will happen here. However, it is highly doubtful there will be any resignation before the end of the session. If the Democrats lost a member, it would be extremely difficult to conduct necessary business in the final three weeks of the session. Senate rules do allow members to vote remotely, and this will probably be used. One thing is certain, politics and media will add fuel to this fire in the coming weeks.
The House business moved along as usual. The Education Finance bill passed through the Ways and Means Committee on Thursday. It will be heard on the House floor next Tuesday. The Education Policy Conference Committee met twice, adopting non-controversial provisions. The committee meeting scheduled for today, but that meeting was cancelled.
Three weeks are left in the session. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Today is the deadline for fiscal bills to be reported out of committee. As a result the week was dominated by committees completing their work. This of course included education finance. Public testimony in both the House and Senate committees included comments from four principals on behalf of MASSP and MESPA. They were part of 35 principals participating in Principals Day at the Capitol. The testifiers included:
The House and Senate bills are quite alike in many ways. The bills had a $43 million target, so options for funding were significantly limited. Most of the money is directed to the READ Act funding with a priority of paying for the time necessary for teachers to take required training. The bills also free up considerable funding for curriculum and intervention materials ($35 million) previously authorized by the legislature. This money is distributed on a per pupil basis ($39.91) with a minimum of $2,000.
Student Teachers: One interesting feature of the House bill is the funding for student teachers. The bill provides a $7 million appropriation to PELSB to make grants to teacher prep programs. The teacher prep programs are all in public colleges and universities.
Attendance: The legislature became interested in student attendance this year. The House bill establishes a pilot program for student attendance. The program will be established in nine participating school districts. The bill also establishes a legislative study group on student attendance and truancy. The bill appropriates $3.4 million for the pilot program.
Health Standards: The bill deletes the current statutory language authorizing locally adopted health standards. Instead the bill provides that current standards will apply until the end of the 2026-27 school year or the adoption of statewide health standards whichever comes sooner. The language requires several “expectations” for the standards include CPR, vaping, cannabis, sexually transmitted diseases and more. This will be quite the ride. Moving from local to statewide health standards is controversial.
Senate READ Act: The Senate bill provides $23.8 million for substitute teacher and stipend reimbursements. A list of other READ Act appropriations includes evidence-based reading instruction, paraprofessional training; and working groups.
The Problem: Few authors have been inclusive and engaging of stakeholders as Representative Heather Edelson. (The Senate Author is Senator Maye Quade.) A few weeks ago the authors were alerted that some of the curriculum was “culturally inappropriate” and included materials characterized as racist. The authors were deeply concerned about this and advised the stakeholders of the problem. Contacts were made with the providers and promises were made to review and revise the curriculum. In fact, the bill contains $1million for a contract to develop supplemental culturally responsive materials for evidence-based structured literacy curriculum. (OK, I did copy that sentence from the bill, but you get the idea.)
One of the key players in the implementation of the READ Act is the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota. (CAREI) It came as a surprise when one of the testifiers on Tuesday accused CAREI of “gross negligence” and suggested that all new funds for CAREI be stripped from the bill. By law, CAREI is partnered with MDE to approve literacy intervention models and is involved in the review and approval of curriculum models. The testifier, a 2nd grade teacher, stated: “CAREI and MDE let the students of Minnesota down.” She described the curriculum’s text as culturally destructive and that it contained “overtly racist imagery”. The testifier stated the material displayed “a lack of diverse authors, genders, abilities and families.” Stay tuned for more on this.
More Principal Testimony: On Wednesday Mindy Chevalier, Principal of Belle Plaine Senior High addressed the Senate Education Policy Committee. (Principal of the Year.) Mindy described the positive activities going on in her school. After her testimony, Chair Senator Cwodzinski described principals as “the unnoticed heroes of our schools”. Lynn Jennissen, St. Michael-Albertville Middle School West, testified as the Assistant Principal of the Year. Lynn did a great job representing the assistant principal point of view.
Wrapping Up: The legislature will observe its third break next week with no business until midday Wednesday the 24th. The Education finance bills have to complete the journey through a few more committees and will be off to the floor by the end of next week.
Time is ticking away on the legislative session. Adjournment is May 20th, one month away.
by Chase Mielke
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