New data shows more than half of MN students still don’t meet basic grade-level reading, math standards

Much of the new record education spending is going to 65 new, mostly ‘woke’ mandates.

More than half of Minnesota public school students still don’t meet basic proficiency in reading or math, according to newly released 2024 statewide assessment results by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE).

The majority of Minnesota students take the MCAs — the reading test is administered in grades 3-8 and grade 10 and the math test in grades 3-8 and grade 11. The number of students taking the tests in spring 2024 remained high, coming in at 95.6 percent participation for reading and 93.9 percent for math. According to the Minnesota Department of Education, students who do not take the test are excluded from the assessment testing results (so, MCA proficiency is not skewed by student opt outs).

As measured by the 2024 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs), 50.3 percent of tested students do not meet grade-level reading standards and 54.7 percent do not meet grade-level math standards.

During the 2023 legislative session, a new historic education spending budget of $23.2 billion was approved for the next two years, including $2.26 billion in new funding.

Turns out, despite spending increases, that $2.26 billion in “new” state aid doesn’t go very far when it comes with lots of strings.

Much of that “new” funding, according to the Minnesota School Boards Association, the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, and others estimating back in February, “up to half the $2.2 billion had already been earmarked for as many as 65 new mandates,” such as requiring schools to stock menstrual products in bathrooms. Not to mention the costs that will accompany all the new ethnic studies requirements.

Sources: Center of the American Experiment, Star Tribune