A lot of Minnesota lawmakers agree on the need to recruit and retain teachers of color. There's a

A lot of Minnesota lawmakers agree on the need to recruit and retain teachers of color. There’s a lot less agreement on how much the state should spend on it.


A coalition calling for $80 million in new state funding for recruiting and retaining more teachers of color in Minnesota is disappointed in the the level of support lawmakers are offering this year to address the longstanding issue.

None of the initial budget proposals unveiled at the Capitol this session — in the DFL-controlled House, the GOP-controlled Senate or by Gov. Tim Walz — meets the lofty spending target supported by the Coalition for Increasing Teachers of Color and American Indian Teachers, a local group focused on “the lack of racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity” in Minnesota’s teaching ranks. The House DFL budget, HF 2400, gets closest, dedicating $37 million over the next two years to new and existing programs. Gov. Tim Walz included $16 million in his budget for 2020-21.

The Senate did not include any new funding for the programs outlined in SF 1012, the Senate version of the bill that includes the coalition’s priorities, the Increase Teachers of Color Act. The bill wasn’t heard in the Education Finance and Policy Committee. The Senate education spending bill, SF 7, however, provides the same level of funding for existing programs and increases spending on other initiatives that Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, chair of the committee, sees as related to the overall goal of increasing teacher diversity.

Nelson sponsored the 2017 bill that created new programs and expanded others to include teachers of color, which she’s cited to show that her support for addressing the shortage hasn’t wavered. But she also said she had constraints within the Senate’s proposed budget. “We need to have more teachers of color in our classrooms. I’ve continued to work on that,” she said. “Right now these are just positioning bills.”

Read more: https://www.minnpost.com/education/2019/04/a-lot-of-minnesota-lawmakers-agree-on-the-need-to-recruit-and-retain-teachers-of-color-theres-a-lot-less-agreement-on-how-much-the-state-should-spend-on-it/