GOP sour on Pawlenty’s school plan

03/11/2006

Governor wants 70% of districts’ spending to stay in classrooms

BY BILL SALISBURY
Pioneer Press

A day after using his State of the State address to promote a plan to require school districts to spend at least 70 percent of their money in the classroom, Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Friday acknowledged that he expects the Legislature to reject it.

The Republican governor said he doesn’t have the votes to get his top education initiative through the Republican-controlled House.

House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, confirmed Pawlenty’s assessment. “We know the votes aren’t there,” he said.

“House Republicans didn’t even wait 24 hours to declare the governor’s plan as DOA,” said Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Brian Melendez.

Pawlenty blamed the education establishment, especially teachers unions, for the likely defeat.

“I think that’s another measure of the lack of innovativeness by those who have such a grip on our educational establishment,’’ he said.

He had contended his plan would shift millions of dollars from school bureaucracies to instruction.

Critics, including Republicans on the House Education Committee, had argued it would undermine the authority of local school boards to run their districts. Detractors also argued the benchmark was arbitrary and did not include areas that are important to learning, such as counseling and school media centers.

Under the governor’s proposed formula, 67 of the state’s 343 school districts already surpass the 70 percent mark. Districts on average spend 69.2 percent of total expenditures in the classroom.

During his State of the State address to the Legislature on Thursday, Pawlenty was interrupted by applause after he said, “Let’s require that at least 70 percent of school funding actually reaches the classroom.” But the applause apparently masked a lack of support for the idea.

Even though the measure appears headed for defeat, House Majority Leader Erik Paulsen, R-Eden Prairie, said the House would vote on it this spring. He said he would give the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Karen Klinzing, R-Woodbury, time to persuade her colleagues to change their minds and support the bill before taking the vote.