While national politics may have played a role in shaking up the partisan composition of the Minnesota state legislature in November, the fundamental policy issues driving the Election 2006 agenda of state political leaders seem far less distinguishable between parties: taxes, transportation, and education are deemed crucial problems by both sides of the aisle.
For some policy issues, officeholders can demonstrate tangible legislative progress to their constituents by simply delivering enacted legislation. If roads are crumbling, construction projects can be funded and voters will see their roads get fixed. When there is a public clamoring that property taxes are too high, the legislators can fight for tax refunds – a physical check cut by the State to temporarily pad the voters’ pocketbook.
Education policy, however, is a different kettle of fish. Although programs are continually debated, modified, and funded, education has remained a perennial top-tier issue for Minnesota state government to address for more than a decade. Education has polled in double-digits in each of the last six surveys since 1994 measuring the most important problem facing the State according to the Minnesota Poll, and has topped all other issues in each of the last three surveys (11% in 2000, 19% in 2005, and 22% in July 2006).
This public desire to improve the state education system is gaining momentum over the years in part, perhaps, because the ability to point to statewide success through measurable outputs is much more nebulous (and controversial) than with other policies. Nebulous, indeed, because the education system today is also seen to be responsible for (or the cure to solve) any number of societal ills (e.g., juvenile substance abuse, moral decline, crassness) that cannot readily be captured in even the most controversial of education performance measures.
To further complicate the legislative process in this policy area, officeholders are faced with contradictory messages from the public: 1) the generalized pressure from the electorate that education is a top problem, 2) polls that show three-fifths to two-thirds of the public believe the quality of education in the state and one’s own district is excellent or pretty good (SurveyUSA 2005, MN Poll 2003), and 3) polls that indicate approximately half of Minnesotans believe public schools actually waste the state money they do receive (MN Poll, 2003).
Despite the elusive definition of what is wrong with public education, how it can be fixed, and how we will know when it is fixed, there is little doubt a whole array of education reforms – from early childhood, to K-12, to higher education – will be launched in the new legislative session.