Minnesota Education Finance System is Unconstitutional

Minnesota's K-12 accountability system rests primarily on two mechanisms: school choice and public reporting. The theory is that if parents can choose among schools, districts will compete for students and that competition will drive improvement. And if test scores and graduation rates are published publicly, embarrassment and community pressure will motivate underperforming districts to do better. Neither mechanism has worked as intended. To deliver an adequate education meeting state standards Minnesota must adopt a new robust supportive accountability system.

Minnesota' K-12 Education System Needs Robust Accountability The Accountability Gap | jvonkorff.com Post 6 of 8 • Minnesota Education Finance Reform This is the sixth post in an eight-pa...

Some states use Evidence Based Funding (EBF) to correlate K-12 funding to the cost of delivering effective educational practices. Minnesota does not. This is the fifth post in an eight-part series on reforming Minnesota's dysfunctional K–12 education finance system, based on the Research Appendix drafted for the 2025 MDE Task Force on Education Finance.

Money is Necessary, But Not Sufficient: Evidence Based Practices Evidence-Based Practices: Money Is Necessary But Not Sufficient | jvonkorff.com Post 5 of 8 • Minnesota Education Finance Reform ...

The Minnesota Supreme Court has held that the legislature has an obligation to provide districts with enough funding to afford each student with an adequate education that meets all state standards. Why then has the legislature and the Governor refused to complete an evidence based study of how much funding is required to comply with the Constitution. Part 3 of an 8 part series on Minnesota's broken school finance system.

The Case for Adequate Cost-Based Education Funding in Minnesota The Case for Adequate, Cost-Based Funding | jvonkorff.com Post 3 of 8 • Minnesota Education Finance Reform This is the third ...

This is the second post in an eight-part series on reforming Minnesota's K–12 education finance system. The series is based on the Research Appendix drafted for the 2025 MDE Task Force on Education Finance

Twenty Years of Unheeded Warnings: Leaving Children Behind Twenty Years of Unheeded Warnings | jvonkorff.com Post 2 of 8 • Minnesota Education Finance Reform This is the second post in...

Minnesota's Education Funding Must be Reformed. Part 1 of an 8 Part Series drawn from the research prepared by the Minnesota Department of Education's 2025 K-12 Funding Task Force

Minnesota's Education Funding Must be Reformed: A Series Minnesota's Education Funding Crisis: A Series | jvonkorff.com Series Introduction • Post 1 of 8 Minnesota Is Failing Its Most V...

https://www.cbpp.org/blog/as-budgets-tighten-some-state-lawmakers-reconsider-costly-private-school-vouchers

As Budgets Tighten, Some State Lawmakers Reconsider Costly Private School Vouchers In the face of historic cuts to federal support for states, some state lawmakers are considering shifting spending priorities away from school voucher programs.

A just released expert report in the Cruz Guzman case documents Minneapolis and St. Paul's Unconstitutional Failure to Provide an Adequate Education. While offered in opposition to the plaintiffs’ case, (by the Higher Ground charter school) it actually provides overwhelming support for the conclusion that Minnesota is violating the constitutional mandate established by the Supreme Court’s decision in Skeen requiring the state to provide Minnesota students with an adequate education that meets all state standards.

Expert Report in Cruz Guzman case documents MSP and St. Paul's Unconstitutional Failure to Provide an Adequate Education The ten year old Cruz Guzman case is at a stage where parties must reveal their expert opinions. The plaintiffs in Cruz Guzman claim tha...

It is becoming increasingly clear that neither political party in the legislature, nor this Governor, have the vision to implement Minnesota's constitutional command that the legislature establish and maintain a thorough and efficient system of public education. Reform requires adequate funding for districts with significant populations of students with higher needs, but that funding must be paired with accountability for implement effective practices and efficient use of that funding. It is also becoming clear that achieving that objective will require a constitutional suit to implement the Skeen decision by pairing both adequate funding and centralized accountability for maintaining balanced budgets with that adequate funding.

Minnesota schools again face budget deficits and cuts. Look up your district’s shortfall. Some school districts are grappling with deficits even after voters agreed last November to back new taxes for schools.

While integration school integration is a worthy end in itself, without adequate funding, integration schemes are unlikely to fulfill Minnesota’s constitutional requirement of delivering an adequate education. In Segregation and School Funding: How States Reinforce Inequality and What to Do about It “Bruce D. Baker, and Matthew P. Di Carlo, Ph.D., describe convincing research and experience-based-evidence that neither integration alone, nor increased funding alone, will deliver the adequate education to which Minnesota integration and school finance advocates aspire.

Lessons from Baker and DiCarlo: Combine Adequate Funding with Integration JVonkorff on Education has been advocating that to deliver a constitutionally required adequate education to students of color, lower income...

Baker and Di Carlo’s excellent new book calls for integrating schools and providing full-dollar cost funding for students of color, lower income students and English language learners, Integration alone will not deliver an adequate education; nor will sufficient funding. Their research and wealth of experience supports a unified strategy to reform our public schools to deliver an adequate education that meets all state standards.

Baker and DiCarlo's New Book Calls for a Unified Strategy to Combine Funding Reform and School Integration JvonKorff on Education has been urging that Minnesota must fix its broken school funding system to provide enough funding to provide studen...