We all have seen increases in education mandates for years but still see our teachers frustrated with the current bureaucracies. Teachers understand what their issues are and the difficulties they deal with day after day. It’s time to reform education to provide stable, equitable funding for schools and provide our teachers the tools to succeed. The school administration and school boards are frustrated by the top down direction from the state and inconsistent funding. They have an enormous job trying to make a budget decision with too many rules and funding uncertainty. Small schools with less than 1,000 students face tough decisions on funding. Normally they have the same overhead costs with buildings but lower student numbers to bring in the per-pupil funding.

I think we can all agree that more decisions should be made by local school officials than by state bureaucrats. Because of the overspending for years on everything but education we now have a massive debt to fix in our state. That’s what happens when the state Legislature feels that the answer to every problem is to spend more money. You will always have a limited amount of money because the needs are always higher than the revenue. Even if you were to raise taxes on everyone, you would still not cure all the needs. It is time to reform government so that the revenue we do get is used wisely. I’m sure most of you can name many government programs run poorly. We need to look at ways to get better result for our money. It’s time to eliminate ineffective programs that tie the hands of local schools and redirect the money to basic funding that gives schools more say over how the dollar is spent.

The education plan now under consideration in St. Paul helps close the Greater Minnesota funding gap and raises the basic per-pupil funding state-wide by $86 in years 2012-13 and $40 in 2014. Want to find out more about school reforms underway in St. Paul?

Rep. Rich Murray will be having a town hall meeting on Tuesday, April 19 at 4 p.m. at Brookside Education Center. Everyone is welcome!

Clayton Petersen

Albert Lea