The 65 percent solution . . .

Senator Geoff Michel is an enthusiastic supporter of the so-called 65% solution which attempts to portray Edina schools--among many others in the state--as squandering money on non-essentials. In the House and Senate last week, Republicans offered proposals to require districts to spend at least 65% of their budgets directly in the classroom. Senator G says that "we need to have a healthy debate about how education dollars are spent."

If it is a healthy debate that Senator G is after, and this is such an important idea, it should have been floated long before a few days ahead of votes on the educational finance bills. This is an obvious attempt to poison the debate on education finance as Superintendent of Edina Schools Ken Dragseth suggests. In othe words, it is naked political chicanery.

One of Edina's State Representatives, Ron Erhardt, is suspicious of the idea, calling it another mandate.

An article on the 65% solution can be found in the Edina Sun Current here. (The article has been moved to the Sun Current's achive, but you can still see it by clinking the link and then selecting May 5 2005 as the issue and education as the subect.)