A New Hope

EdWatch reports that on May 2, the "House Ways and Means Committee adopted a significant amendment to the House Education Omnibus bill that made important course corrections. As a result, the House has a strong position in conference committee with the Senate. Many thanks especially go to Reps. Barb Sykora, Sondra Erickson, Karen Klinzing, and Mark Buesgens for their important work.

"Mental health screening was removed from the House bill, for example, and references to Early Learning Indicators (the controversial curriculum standards developed initially under Christine Jax of the Ventura administration) were removed. Building on Representative Sykora's excellent language from a few years ago, even stronger protections against coerced drugging and new, important protections against coerced mental health screening were added to the House bill. Remember to thank these legislators."

Meanwhile, the Star Tribune reports on Governor Pawlenty's pessimism about the Legislature's ability to wrap up their business in time to avoid a special session:

"Are they going to get all their work done by Monday? No." Months of warnings that he would veto a tax increase were ignored, Pawlenty said, prompting him to ask, "How dumb can they be?"

EDUCATION