Episode 287- The Learning Curve

Community Solutions Podcast

www.commsolutionsmn.com- On their way out of session, the Minnesota Legislature passed an education omnibus bill. As you know, we hate omnibus bills. So much junk passes through in these things, and the Republicans are just as complicit as the Democrats. They could choose to stop this horrible practice with a unified "no" vote, but they refuse. Is education now fully funded? Instead, Republicans and Democrats are falling all over themselves to spend this money to serve their Education MN masters.

Not one word of this deals with academic outcomes, but has a whole lot of bad in it. $74.4 million was set aside for personnel aid and workforce development for student's mental health. $45.2 million was earmarked for school library aid. $37 million of our money was given for "Grow Your Own Teachers" grants. $430 million for a special education teacher pipeline. This is only the tip of the spending iceberg.

Don't forget the conservative policy changes. All schools have to drop their Native American mascots, unless every Minnesota tribe ok's it. Schools have to limit their use of suspension and expulsion. There's also a provision that prohibits schools from participating in the PSEO program if they require a faith statement to be admitted to the school. This is specifically an anti-Christian measure. Crown College and the University of Northwestern are suing the state, because this is purely unconstitutional. Way to legislate conservatively, Republicans.

We also discuss the recent Republican failure on the raising of the debt ceiling. It turned out that there was nothing gained, and the president was still saying that it wasn't good enough and that he'd just do it under the 14th amendment. There's no way that stands up to judicial scrutiny.

Have you checked out our Spotify playlist? At the beginning of each episode, Jason quotes some song lyrics that have to do with the subject matter of the podcast. Andrew never knows what they are, but now he can… and so can you! We’ve launched the Spotify playlist: “Community Solutions Music From the Podcast!” You can listen to Roundabout from Yes after listing to Episode 30 on Roundabouts… or kick back and enjoy a rocking playlist just for the thrill of it. We add a new song every week. Subscribe and enjoy!

Don’t forget that you can also subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify!