By Erik Noonan

Every Minnesotan kid deserves a school they can safely reach, a class small enough that their teacher knows them, and something worth staying for after the last bell. Minnesotans in every corner of the state share that value. The Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota is formally endorsing the constitutional amendment on this November’s ballot to increase funding to every public school district through the Permanent School Fund, and we urge every voter to mark “Yes.”

What the amendment does

Since statehood, Minnesota has set aside public land to support its schools. Revenue from timber, minerals, and leases on 2.5 million acres of School Trust Lands flows into the Permanent School Fund, which pays out to every district, charter school, and tribal school on a per-pupil basis. The amendment replaces the fund’s current interest-and-dividend payout with an annual distribution of 4.5% of the fund’s three-year average value, starting July 1, 2027.

It raises no taxes and takes nothing from the state’s general fund. It passed the Minnesota House unanimously and drew bipartisan support in the Senate. Estimates put the increase at about $27 to $33 more per pupil each year, roughly 40% to 50% above what schools receive now, and districts decide how to spend it.

Supporters are clear that this won’t close every budget gap. It won’t. A 2025 state law also sets up a $250 million cut to special education funding over the two-year budget starting July 2027 unless lawmakers find other savings or repeal it. But this money is permanent, flexible, and lands in every district in the state, and in a year of hard budget choices that counts.

In Minnesota, a constitutional amendment needs a majority of everyone who votes in the election, not just those who answer the question. Leaving it blank counts the same as voting no.

Why a bike organization cares about school budgets

Health starts where we live, learn, work, and play. For kids, school is where a huge share of that happens, and the trip there and back is part of it. When budgets tighten, the things that make a school reachable and livable are often first on the chopping block: bus routes, crossing guards, bike and pedestrian safety education, after-school programs. Then the neighborhood school itself ends up on a consolidation list.

Keeping schools in neighborhoods

In 1969, nearly half of American K–8 students walked or biked to school. By 2009, about one in eight did. Researcher Noreen McDonald found that growing distance between home and school explains roughly half of that decline, and called on policymakers to keep schools inside neighborhoods. Every neighborhood school that closes for budget reasons puts more kids in the back seat of a car stuck in an ever longer drop off line.

Active kids learn better

The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine reviewed the research on children’s physical activity and school performance. Its committee concluded the evidence supports expecting that getting kids the recommended hour a day of moderate or vigorous activity may improve their academic performance. The same report recommended school siting policies that keep schools within neighborhoods, along with safe routes for walking and biking. A ride to school won’t cover that hour alone, but it’s a daily dose of activity that takes no time away from class.

Getting there safely

Safe routes work when someone has the time and resources to build them. After New York City implemented Safe Routes to School improvements, school-age pedestrian injuries during school travel hours fell 44% in the neighborhoods that got them, with no comparable drop elsewhere. That work depends on district staff, data, and partnerships, which is exactly the capacity that vanishes in a cut year.

Not every kid can walk or bike, especially in rural Minnesota, and the school bus is part of the same network. A national study of kindergartners found bus riders were less likely to be chronically absent than classmates who got to school other ways.

Class sizes that help kids succeed

Tennessee’s Project STAR randomly assigned young students to small classes of 13–17 or regular classes of 22–25, and researchers followed them into adulthood. Kids in small classes were more likely to go to college, and the effect was more than twice as large for Black students.

Room to stay after the bell

Clubs, teams, and activities, from band to school mountain bike teams, keep kids connected to school. When districts push those costs onto families, the kids who lose out are predictable. A national poll found students from households earning under $100,000 sit out extracurriculars at twice the rate of their higher-income peers. When the question of if a child has an adult to drive them to or from extracurriculars determines if they get to participate or not, we all lose. 

The research on school funding is clear

One of the most rigorous long-term studies we have, by economists Kirabo Jackson, Rucker Johnson, and Claudia Persico, followed children into adulthood after court-ordered school funding increases. A 10% per-pupil increase sustained across all 12 years of school led to more completed education, about 7% higher adult wages, and lower adult poverty. The effects were much larger for children from low-income families, and the money showed up as smaller classes, better teacher pay, and longer school years.

This amendment is not a 10% increase. But it is a durable step in the direction the evidence points.

A matter of justice

The kids with the most at stake are the ones our school and transportation systems have shortchanged the longest. Students from low-income families are more likely to walk or bike to school, and the research above shows that low-income kids and Black students gain the most from well-funded schools and smaller classes. Rural kids depend on bus routes that get longer every time a building closes. Funding public schools is a question of justice, not charity.

Vote Yes

BikeMN works every day for streets where a kid can bike to school, and for communities where that school is still standing when they get there. The Permanent School Fund amendment helps keep it that way. Absentee voting, by mail or in person, is open now, and early voting begins October 16. Look up your sample ballot on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website, find the amendment, and vote Yes.

Minnesota is a national leader in forward-thinking transportation policy — and that didn’t happen by chance. For over 18 years, BikeMN has been at the table, fight after fight, shaping a future where biking, walking, and rolling is safe, accessible, and valued. That work is funded by members like you. Join as a sustaining supporter today at bikemn.org/join — $5 or $10 a month helps ensure Minnesota stays ahead. We all move forward together.

Research cited

• Jackson, C. K., Johnson, R. C., & Persico, C. (2016). The effects of school spending on educational and economic outcomes: Evidence from school finance reforms. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(1), 157–218.
• Dynarski, S., Hyman, J., & Schanzenbach, D. W. (2013). Experimental evidence on the effect of childhood investments on postsecondary attainment and degree completion. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 32(4), 692–717.
• DiMaggio, C., & Li, G. (2013). Effectiveness of a Safe Routes to School program in preventing school-aged pedestrian injury. Pediatrics, 131(2), 290–296.
• McDonald, N. C. (2007). Active transportation to school: Trends among U.S. schoolchildren, 1969–2001. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 32(6), 509–516.
• National Center for Safe Routes to School (2011). How Children Get to School: School Travel Patterns from 1969 to 2009.
• Gottfried, M. A. (2017). Linking getting to school with going to school. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
• C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health (2019). Pay-to-participate: Impact on school activities. Vol. 33, Issue 5.
• Institute of Medicine (2013). Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.