Essay
Bill HF0242
Bill HF0242 should be passed. “All children have a fundamental right to a quality public education.” Do you agree with this statement? The current bill revoles around the statement, all children have a fundamental right to an adequate public education. This paper will discuss three reasons you should vote to pass the bill HF0242. First is the impact of adding quality education instead of adequate. Second is the involvement of the state. Third is taking out the need to do it through a uniform system.
First and foremost, currently our bill states all children should have a right to adequate education. This is partially because our funding is enough only to provide an adequate education to the majority of public schools. This is due to the fact that the funding is currently through taxes of the neighborhood by the school, also known as property taxes In other words, often a poor neighborhood means a poor school. However no family is content in giving their kids an adequate education while some have better and even excellent educations. This small change in the current bill will be impactful for reducing gaps in education.
Second is adding the statement, it's the paramount duty of the state to ensure this education. Again this is impactful because currently it's not only relying on the state but the school board and on the economic status of the schools neighborhood. This leads to increased gaps in resources, testing scores and eventually further gaps in economic status.
Lastly the new bill would take out the current description of schooling being a uniform system. There's few that wouldn't be of benefit too. School is not a one size fits all thing. It is not built around students and community but the ones who fund and make the system. Altering the bill in this way would re orientate the focus around the students' families and communities. Different people have different needs and this change could help to meet them.
However when diving deeper into the bill, it's important to take note of the counter bill. I say this because I no longer support the bill. I personally recommend voting no. Although parts of the bill would truly make public school better as a result of voting yes, overall it will be a loss for education. A quote from rockefeller the founder of public education saying “I don't want a nation full of thinkers, I want a nation full of workers” In addition to that there's another saying “In general the advantage of education is to better fit man's life for work” As this paper stated previously, currently property taxes heavily fund public schools, this bill would make it a duty of the state to determine this among other things. Meaning if the state deemed it necessary to have a quality of education higher than property taxes could provide, it would create real potential in creating a loophole. Due to that it would allow outside funding or even make it necessary. Knowing this and considering that the main group pushing to pass this bill “our children minnesota” refuses to disclose their funders, it makes you wonder if this is another funder trying to fit schools to what benefit them. Essentially it enables the possibility to privatize public schools. This is precisely why organizations like education minnesota are not in support of this bill. One way it was put by the Minnesota reformer is that “the page amendment is a trojan horse to destroy public schools.
In conclusion, if we were to pass this bill the status of public education would increase and would possibly become less uniform and more individualized to fit students and families. However lastly, it also would give the power to the state to define what quality education means and how it may happen. Making it possible to create loopholes and instead make schools better fit funders.