Changes to the Read Act, allowing military connected schools to add a Purple Star designation, and putting a ban on book bans are part of a conference committee report that appears to be all but official.

With a laundry list of differences, the education policy conference committee met Wednesday to walk-through the differences between the House and Senate bills.

State lawmakers have budgeted to provide more than $23 billion to schools in the current budget — a 10 percent bump over the prior budget.

Many districts have found that the deficit is much higher than usual -- for some, up to five million dollars

If Minnesota school districts were a naval fleet, Paul Bourgeois says they have been sinking from funding hits for years.

The education finance and policy agreement returned from conference committee has House DFLers ecstatic. “With this proposal, we make historic investments in our schools,” said Rep. Cheryl Youakim (DFL-Hopkins). “We’ve had over 20 years of underinvestment in our schools. And while we cannot change that overnight, or even in one biennium, this bill is an awesome start.”

In a recent survey, 87% of schools indicated the rapidly rising costs associated with education will lead to a budget shortfall this year.”

Because special education services are mandated, districts move money from other budget areas to cover the costs.

From meals to transportation, district officials say they're bracing for long-term financial pain.

The shortfalls are the result of “chronic underfunding” by the state.

MDE became suspicious about the large amount of money going to Feeding Our Future and its sites in 2020 and terminated one of those sites.

State shouldn’t throw money at new programs until there’s full reading proficiency for every student.