Blind Spots and Bright Spots: A First Deadline Look at Minnesota’s 2026 Education Legislation

By Matt Shaver & Madie Spartz

The Minnesota Legislature is officially on its spring break, and last week marked the deadline for moving any policy-only legislation through necessary committee stops. Any bills with a price tag are still in play, so finance committees will continue to meet but policy committees in both bodies have wrapped up. This first major deadline provides an opportunity to take stock of what the Legislature has accomplished so far.

As predicted, this session has been bumpy, especially in the House, which is locked in a 67-67 DFL-GOP split. This means any legislation requires bipartisan support to move forward, and that bar is proving to be exceptionally high. For example: House Republicans threatened not to move any education bills forward unless the Governor opts into the new federal scholarship tax credit program. It’s a hot-button issue because of the program’s funding private school choice, and the Governor, who has unilateral authority to implement the program, responded with an emphatic “no.” This prompted some Republicans to immediately move to end the legislative session entirely.

Against this contentious backdrop, the House Education Policy Committee failed to move any major bills forward: no education policy omnibus bill, no Department of Education bill, and not even a broadly-supported agency bill from the Professional Educator Licensing & Standards Board (PELSB). Only a few small standalone bills advanced in the House—more on what those are below.

The Senate, on the other hand, is operating a bit more smoothly with the Education Policy Committee successfully passing an omnibus bill to the floor. Despite that progress, without a companion policy omnibus bill in the House, even the Senate’s work doesn’t have a clear path to becoming law.

What’s in the Senate Education Policy Omnibus Bill?

• Early literacy field experience. If passed into law, teacher candidates would have a revamped practicum opportunity in the early grades aligned with the Read Act. Teacher prep providers would be required to place teacher candidates in classrooms to deliver structured literacy instruction and receive actionable feedback from experienced educators to help them improve their teaching skills. In addition to giving teacher candidates critical practice in the science of reading, it would directly benefit students by putting more literacy support into classrooms and help Minnesota meet the goals of the Read Act. This is one of the few policies that’s also had movement in the House, giving it a stronger chance of making it across the finish line.
• Targeted updates to the Read Act. Always a work in progress until the very end of session, the Senate Read Act for this year includes some positive and negative changes. A positive change would require schools to inform all parents, not just parents of K-3 kids, when their kids aren’t reading at grade level. A negative change would create an opt-out process for literacy screeners for K-3 students if a parent and teacher agree it would not be beneficial to the student. EdAllies has been working to remove opt-out processes for 4-12 students, but instead, the Senate bill would expand opt-out options to earlier grades.
• Pathways for out-of-state Tier 2 teacher candidates. This year, EdAllies and out-of-state teacher preparation programs worked with PELSB to propose a commonsense change, allowing teachers enrolled in out-of-state teacher prep programs to obtain a Tier 2 teaching license, which enables these teachers to teach while working on their Tier 3 license. This is a critical policy as several licensure areas don’t have an in-state teacher prep option. While the Senate’s original proposal left out this language, they adopted an amendment to establish this pathway before advancing the bill.
• Changes to the K-3 suspension ban. In 2023, Minnesota ended suspensions for K-3 students, and, once again, 2026 proposals surfaced to roll back this important progress. After an initial proposal to allow a full day suspension for our youngest learners faced significant push-back, the committee adopted a compromise amendment. Under these changes, K-3 students could only be suspended for one day and only if they are responsible for substantial bodily harm, but explicitly not for damage to property or subjective behaviors like insubordination. It requires parent notification and specifies that the dismissal time must be used to plan for the student’s return to school. This proposal walks back progress that has kept Minnesota’s youngest learners in school, and if passed, will likely increase chronic absenteeism rates and reduce students’ social and emotional health and school engagement. At the same time, this proposal establishes dismissal restrictions that could eventually be expanded to all students and represents collaborative movement from a wide variety of stakeholders.
• Ongoing access to PSEO. While the bill originally contained provisions that would have reduced access to PSEO and placed a heavy burden on students to participate by creating a new process for vetting courses, advocates spoke out with concerns and these provisions were stripped from the final bill. Not only does PSEO increase high school graduation and college attendance, it also gives high school students the chance to earn college credit at no cost to them and is one of the few academic metrics in Minnesota that shows near-racial parity in participation rates: in 2024, students of color made up 35% of PSEO participants and 39% of students statewide. In a state with such large opportunity and achievement gaps in so many areas, it’s critical that we protect and elevate the academic programs that promote equal opportunity for marginalized students.
• A statewide cell phone ban policy. The Senate’s proposal would require schools to adopt a policy banning phones, smart watches, and smart glasses from school completely for grades K-8 and during class time for grades 9-12.

What About the House?

There isn’t a House Education Policy omnibus bill to compare with the Senate’s bill. That said, a few standalone education bills advanced through the House and could still become law.

• Early literacy field experience. This bipartisan bill largely mirrors what’s included in the Senate Omnibus bill and in a separate proposal from PELSB. While PELSB’s agency bill recently stalled in a House committee, early literacy experience has a much stronger chance of becoming law. Because it appears in multiple bills in both the House and the Senate, it has more momentum than policies that have advanced only in one chamber or in one bill.
• Dyslexia training for teachers. HF60 would require any teacher candidate or in-service teacher renewing their license to receive dyslexia training, including effective instruction for students with dyslexia and how dyslexia impacts the development of foundational reading skills. The bill’s Senate companion is also advancing as a standalone bill, making it a possible contender as one of only a few policies to make it to the governor’s desk.
• Protecting students from predatory grooming. This bill, with broad bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, aims to protect students from grooming by school employees. In addition to making grooming of a minor a felony offense, it would create more protections for students on field trips, ensure educators are trained on how to identify and report grooming, and extend the timeline for investigating alleged misconduct by school staff.

School Finance Policies to Watch

While it’s not a budget year and there’s a steep climb to finding common ground on a supplemental budget, a few education finance bills with an equity focus have gained traction.

• Reshaping Literacy Aid: A policy that would update how Minnesota distributes Literacy Aid, our state’s only funding stream dedicated to reading instruction, had a hearing in the Senate. In its current form, Literacy Aid is distributed based on test scores, counterintuitively sending more dollars to schools with fewer struggling readers. The new proposal would ensure that every student receives a base Literacy Aid amount, and low-income students, who are more likely to need additional reading support, get an additional funding boost. The bill has a House companion but hasn’t received a hearing in that body yet.
• Funding Low-Income Students: A bill concerning compensatory revenue—the dedicated funding stream for low-income students—received a hearing in the Senate. This policy proposes a temporary “hold harmless” (or freeze) on low-income student counts, which determine how much compensatory aid schools receive. Since Minnesota largely relies on enrollment in SNAP and Medicaid for these counts, recent federal cuts mean fewer students will qualify for aid even though their needs are unchanged. To prevent major funding drops, the bill provides short-term stability by funding schools at pre-disruption levels while the Legislature awaits longer-term recommendations from a task force on a new measure for accurately counting students in poverty.

Still in Limbo

Several policies that drew significant attention remain in limbo. Most notably, a bill to guarantee the right to an education regardless of a student’s immigration status still sits with the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee. After receiving some of the session’s first hearings and significant public attention in the wake of Operation Metro Surge, the bill is still alive, but with a difficult path ahead. It did not make it out of the House Education Policy Committee, so it would need further action from the Senate and reconsideration from the House.

Similarly, after a flurry of attention on attendance policy—including the financial effects of the 15-day student drop policy and multiple House hearings to establish an Interagency Council on Attendance—a path for meaningful action on this critical issues remains narrow.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be tracking progress and advocating for the Legislature to urgently address the key issues facing students. While political dynamics at the Capitol are fraught, our students deserve collaboration and student-centered action.