Education lawmakers to converge on the Range Tuesday for crucial hearing

This is a reminder that the Minnesota House of Representatives committees on K-12 finance and policy will be holding a session to discuss the state of education at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 26 in the Nashwauk-Keewatin High School gym. Local State Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township) is on the committee and helped organize the visit. (Disclosure: I am Tom’s campaign manager).

This hearing is a rare opportunity for decision makers to see and hear the conditions in Iron Range schools and school districts first hand. We’ve got good schools here, but our education system has been in a state of managed decline for more than two decades. The future is not pretty unless leaders figure out a way to combine increased funding, balanced budgets and results. Our rural Iron Range districts have huge legacy costs and face special challenges, though I would categorize this as a statewide problem.
The default response to this hearing will be a collective ho-hum. That’s why the case needs to be made that our time for putting off the problem is running out. District after district, starting on the Range, extending through farm country and ending with the big exurban districts, is going to hit the wall under our current property tax-based education funding system.

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