Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

The Best Public Schools, College, and Universities

mark dayton educationI will insist that some of my additional state funding be used to increase public school teachers' salaries. The average Minnesota teacher's salary is 3.3% below the national average. Good salaries are essential to attracting and retaining the best teachers possible, who are essential to the best public schools possible.

I will also insist that my additional funding go to lower class sizes. Too many elementary classes throughout Minnesota are overcrowded with 30 to 35 children. Too many high school classes have 40 to 50 students. Those class sizes are "leaving too many children behind."

I also want to provide full state funding for all-day kindergarten. Many states with per capita incomes well below Minnesota fund all-day kindergarten. We can afford to do it, and we cannot afford not to do it.

I will shift the emphasis on testing away from the current, destructive approach to one that diagnoses each student's learning needs and helps educators design individualized strategies to help every child improve. Then, standardized test scores "automatically" improve!

I will work to cut back tuition increases at our state colleges and universities, so that students and their parents can afford Minnesota educations; and put a stop to our "youth brain drain" to other states.

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