Proposed increase in public school funding will be on the ballot in November

A coalition of DFL and Republican lawmakers joined with a group of educators at the State Capitol Tuesday to push for more funding through the state’s “permanent school fund.”

For some smaller school districts, it might just mean a few thousand extra dollars, but for larger school districts it could mean hundreds of thousands of additional dollars.

“Let’s get out and spread the word and vote yes,” Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, said at a news conference on Tuesday. “We know this isn’t going to solve all the funding issues in Minnesota. But at least this is a really good way to begin to find those additional dollars that are going to go into our schools.”

The permanent school trust fund was created when Minnesota became a state in 1858 after the federal government donated millions of acres of land to states west of the Mississippi. Minnesota decided to dire...