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Minnesotans have long taken pride in the quality of their public education system, but the state’s funding of the system in recent years has put quality — and, in some cases, existence — in jeopardy at many school districts, a new report says.

In fact, superintendents surveyed for the report were more blunt.

“Nearly 100 percent of school superintendents believe Minnesota’s education funding system is a failure.”

That is a line from the report released Wednesday by the think tank Minnesota 2020, a think tank founded by former state DFL lawmaker Matt Entenza.

The conclusion is based on three core points, it seems:

1) The state has not lived up to promised funding obligations that arose from a 2001 reform of K-12 funding and property taxes.

2) A wide majority of school districts have had to turn to local voters for operating levies, usually just to keep essential programs and services intact. Many plan to go back to voters again soon.

3) Many districts have already enacted serious budget cuts and are on the brink of doing so again. The report said that of the districts in which operating levies failed at the ballot in the past year, there will be an average of 7 teacher layoffs.

The report is not only a harsh assessment, but a call to action — Minnesota 2020 said lawmakers have to find a way to boost state funding this year, not later, or else already-tight budgets will snap in many places.

A lot of the blame for the funding situation is being directed at Gov. Tim Pawlenty, with Minnesota 2020 education expert John Fitzgerald and superintendents saying the governor hasn’t lived up to the 2001 promises. And, the governor’s insistence on no-new-taxes has simply transferred the fund-raising responsibility to superintendents and school districts: While the governor may not have signed new tax bills, he’s essentially still responsible for voter-approved operating levies because he left schools with no other choice.

In short, the report says, the governor passed the buck on what’s supposed to be a core state function. The new report cites the dashed hope of the 2001 reform plan, which was supposed to have brought statewide funding fairness.

“The quality of education would no longer be determined by the wealth of the district,” the report said. “Sadly, the state hasn’t kept its promise.

“Under Gov. Tim Pawlenty, state aid for schools has dropped, forcing school districts to again rely on voter-approved property tax hikes to pay for education,” the report said.

In 2001, the statewide average levy amount per student was $666, the report said. In 2006 it was $796. Superintendents say it will soon top $1,500.

Prior Lake-Savage Superintendent Tom Westerhaus called the funding situation “a train wreck,” the report said. “Referendums truly are horrible ways of funding schools. Superintendents have become the local ‘tax men’ because the state is unwilling to face up to its constitutional responsibility to fund education.”

“I think the numbers are huge,” Fitzgerald said. “Schools absolutely cannot function on what the state gives them.”

There’s an overwhelming rural feel to the survey: 74 percent of the superintendents identify themselves as from rural school districts, and 18 said they are from rural regional centers. That’s where the biggest hits, of course, on school finances have occurred — most rural districts in our area have asked voters to pass operating levies in recent years, and most have endured some sort of budget cuts.

“Our rural district does a very good job educating at-risk students who do not succeed in larger districts,” one superintendent said in the report. “If the funding system doesn’t change, this district is doomed and that is very unfortunate.”

The issue also has the effect of dividing communities as they wrestle with voting yes or no on operating levies, instead of uniting them behind their schools. And taken superintendents away from their main focus on education, Fitzgerald said.

“To keep the doors open, they have had to ask voters to raise their own taxes,” he said. “That means superintendents who are educators have had to spend a vast amount of time working with levy committees. And it means their job security depends not on their abilities as educators, but their abilities as fund-raisers.”

The Minnesota 2020 report hammers hard on Pawlenty for past performance and apparent future failures.

“Minnesota requires a leader who will roll back the onerous property tax levies and who will relieve schools of the financial burden that is ruining educational quality,” Fitzgerald writes in the report.

http://www.marshallindependent.com/opinion/articles.asp?articleID=19811