The state’s teachers union, a top ally of and donor to Minnesota Democrats, who now control the whole of state government, said it wants a $5 billion chunk of the budget surplus.
Minnesota Management and Budget announced in an economic forecast this week that state lawmakers will have a projected $17.6 billion surplus to work with when crafting a budget for the 2024-2025 biennium next session. That’s up from an estimated $9.2 billion surplus projected in February.
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Students in Ohio’s largest school district will begin classes Wednesday remotely after teachers rejected a final contract offer and voted to strike late Sunday night.
Columbus Education Association teachers were on the picket line at several school buildings Monday morning, the first day teachers were scheduled to report, after 94% of its members voted to strike for the first time since 1975.
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The Rhode Island mother who turned to public records law to learn what the school district was teaching her daughter is now a defendant in a lawsuit by the state and local teachers union.
The Rhode Island and South Kingstown chapters of the National Education Association sued Nicole Solas and the school district this week to stop the latter from releasing records sought by Solas, including curriculum and policies related to critical race theory, antiracism, gender theory and children’s sexuality.
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A Minneapolis teachers union has filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Minneapolis Public Schools because of the district’s plan to return to in-person learning next month.
The Minneapolis Board of Education voted 6-2 last week in favor of a phased-in return to in-person learning for K-5 students across the month of February. According to the plan, classes will be cancelled from Feb.1-5 to “allow staff to get ready to welcome back students back into buildings,” meaning teachers and staff are required to return to work on Feb. 1.
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The biggest teachers’ union in Utah has offered its endorsement of incumbent Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox after his administration vetoed a special education bill that the union opposed.
The bill in question was House Bill 332, introduced by state representative Mike Schultz (R-Utah). The main purpose of the bill was to provide greater funding to special needs programs across the state, and sought to do so by creating a new individual/corporate tax credit that would provide the funding for a new scholarship program for such students. This not only would provide more assistance for the roughly 80,000 students in the state classified as special needs, but would do so from a new source of revenue rather than diverting any more funds from the currently existing education budget.
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