Increasing education funding is a topic of discussion every year at the Minnesota State Legislature. In January, Governor Tim Walz proposed a 4% increase to the basic education formula allowance within the K-12 general education revenue program, the "education formula" that determines the majority of funding school districts receive from…

Since 1993, at the regional level, the Minnesota Education Technology Networks (METN), a cooperative of regional networks, provides regional network development, support and leadership to Minnesota school districts. METN member cooperatives provide network coordination, procurement, and other support to help school districts acquire and manage…

Minnesota Statutes, section 125A.125, requires the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to annually report on the number of children experiencing homelessness served by the Part C Infant and Toddler Intervention system. The current report covers the 2020-21 school year. Data for this report came from the Minnesota Automated Reporting Student…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies or standards derive from SEL frameworks. In this report, the terms "SEL competencies" and "standards" are used interchangeably to refer to statements about "what students should know and be able to do," recognizing that states may use different terms such as…

Our contribution to this issue features a K12 school district + university partnership related to technology integration, and explores the connections between technology, teacher learning, creative risk taking, and failure. Austin Public Schools (APS) and the LT Media Lab (LTML) have been engaged in a research-practice partnership (RPP) for seven…

Providing teachers with data-driven feedback, aligned professional development and opportunities for advancement may help limit attrition, contribute to more effective teaching, and improve student learning. However, research shows that much of the professional development teachers currently receive does not improve either teacher or student…

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has been studying the four-day school week since 2015. Since then, the phenomenon of the four-day school week has spread into non-rural areas and interest appears to be growing. Given these apparent changes, the author wanted to know more about recent trends in the initiative. As districts continue…

This Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) school status report provides a summary of the current status of all schools implementing PBIS in Minnesota, including participation in the Minnesota Department of Education's training sequence, implementation fidelity assessment scores, and outcomes. In particular, this report highlights…

Equity is an important feature of state education finance formulas. This article examines one aspect of equity, the equalization of purchasing power that is associated with geographic location. We applied two methods to the 2013-2014 Minnesota school finance system to equalize the purchasing power of districts for that year. The level of imparity…

Education stakeholders have used descriptors of poverty and race as if they were synonymous. This 'synonymization' of identities is particularly evident for black and poor students. We define 'synonymization' as a policy threat that emerges when policymakers conflate two marginalized identities, resulting in policies that ostensibly, but not…

More than a quarter of US children have at least one immigrant parent, but researchers and policymakers often do not have adequate data on these children's experiences in school, with far-reaching implications for instruction, student support services, and policy. Proxy factors that are reported by school--such as being designated as an English…

Throughout history, a disproportionate number of learners have been tracked into terminal vocational programs based on their race, income, gender and disability, leading to jobs with uncertain promise of economic growth and prosperity. While the quality of Career Technical Education (CTE) programs has significantly improved since then, many…

This paper examines recent political debates surrounding data disaggregation in education policy in one US state, and analyses the discourses taken up by supporters and opponents of these policies. Analysis suggests how discourses move across time and space, and focuses on how these discourses are contextualized and entextualized in social media,…

Since Minnesota passed the first charter school law in 1991, charter schools have become one of the most prominent school reforms in the U.S. While charter schools educate a small portion of public school enrollments, their existence has prompted various responses from traditional public school (TPS) districts. This paper explores education…

This article examines transmotion in Anishinaabeg arts, which enrich and challenge Western orientation that behold the "world in purely material terms" leading to "the objectification, secularization, and scientification of the world" (Cajete, 2000, p. 53) to refute an essentialized understanding of Indigenous peoples and their…