More schools and students will be negatively impacted if Gov. Tim Walz’s proposed education cuts for the next biennium get incorporated into the Minnesota Legislature’s state budget. (I previously wrote here how the governor’s budget proposal eliminates funding for nonpublic school students.)
After big spending in 2023, the state now faces a $6 billion deficit. Instead of proposing cuts to burdensome education mandates not tied to academic achievement, Gov. Walz wants to reduce funding for a public school model that already gets less money than traditional public districts ($0.80 on the dollar to what a traditional public school receives).
Special education services, Q Comp
Under Walz’s budget proposal, reimbursement for special education services at public charter schools would be reduced. Because charter schools cannot levy local education dollars, this proposal not only risks significant financial burden — given the widening of already existing special education funding gaps — but also makes it harder for the schools to effectively meet their students’ needs.
Walz’s proposal also ends the Q Comp/Alternative Teacher Compensation program, which charter schools have used to fill in the funding gap for their staff.
According to a recent comprehensive national study of charter and traditional public schools by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), Minnesota charter schools had learning gains in reading that were statistically significantly larger than the traditional public school students. Additionally, charter schools consistently rank in the top public schools in the state.
Not every charter school performs well in the state, and there have been poorly run ones shut down as a result (the same accountability should be applied consistently across the public school system). But the charter school movement has brought a broad range of innovation and flexibility to the education ecosystem, which is why tens of thousands of Minnesota students attend these learning settings and why hundreds of others are on waiting lists to get in.
Gov. Walz can find other areas to cut to help balance the budget. These line items don’t need to be part of it.