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Educators: Funding uncertain for Pawlenty’s proposals
10/9/2008 12:00 AM

Jeff Cagle, Owatonna People's Press

OWATONNA — Area superintendents reacted to Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposed education initiatives Wednesday, saying the problem with the governor’s proposals is that there may not be any money to back them up.

The governor on Tuesday laid out a number of initiatives for the 2009 legislative session with education as one of his main priorities. But in light of a projected $1 billion deficit in January, Pawlenty wouldn’t promise any funding commitments.

Some of the governor’s initiatives include tougher standards for college students seeking to be teachers; tying teacher raises to improvement in student performance; and expanded training programs for school principals and summer math and reading programs for eighth-graders.

Area superintendents such as Gary Hanson of Medford were left wondering whether these are more mandates without additional funding.

“There are a lot of things you could buy into, that have good justification,” Hanson said. “But I also know that we may be pricing ourselves right out of the market that you’re trying to upgrade teaching and administrative staff.”

Owatonna Superintendent Tom Tapper is anticipating that new funding may come if the Legislature agrees to some of the initiatives, some of which have been introduced in the past and have not been successful.

“I’m not sure how they would be successful this time around when they haven’t been in the past,” Tapper said.

Blooming Prairie Superintendent Barry Olson called Pawlenty’s initiatives meaningless. Olson said, among other things, that teacher effectiveness isn’t the problem in today’s educational system. The problem, he said, is there is no funding, causing class sizes to reach 35 and even 40 students.

“In my opinion, in order to ask our teachers to improve the skills they already have..., there’s going to have to be some sort of enhancement of teacher salaries,” Olson said. “There’s just no money available for that.”

All three school districts have fallen on hard times. Educators say there isn’t enough state funding coming in, prompting them to cut funding in the classroom.

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