Rep. Jenifer Loon
Rep. Paul Thissen
The Republican-led state House last night passed a K-12 and higher education bill (84-46). Republican Representative Jenifer Loon says it’s a good bill that “does great things to alleviate teacher shortages, to help provide some needs to our schools in mental health health and other professional development and training.” But DFL Representative Paul Thissen (TEE-sen) says despite a $900 million dollar surplus, “this is the Republican idea of what we should be doing for the future of our state of Minnesota. Give big tax cuts to special interests and not make the investments in education and higher education that we need to make sure that our state is going to be prosperous in the future.” Republicans say the bill re-invests $56-million of k-12 cost savings back into programs that boost learning outcomes for students. The bill now heads to the Senate.