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MEGAN JASPERSON: What is this animal right here that has the big feathers?

SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE]

MEGAN JASPERSON: You know that word.

DAN OLSON: 20 years ago, Osseo and many other schools didn't have classes for teaching basic language skills to non-English speakers. Now, Megan Jasperson and her colleagues teach 1,700 English language learner students. Osseo's ELL students come from all over the world. More than 40 languages are represented. Jasperson says the young people have a wide range of English literacy.

MEGAN JASPERSON: In this class alone, we have kids that range from under kindergarten level to beyond fourth grade level. And we have many students. Probably our highest level in our ELL population is about eighth grade, but yet they are forced or expected to achieve in a high school environment.

DAN OLSON: Officials expect the number of Osseo's ELL students to double in two years. The cost is relatively modest, only $2 million out of a more than $200 million district budget. Even so, Osseo is hard pressed in a time of budget cutting to cope with more ELL students. Osseo is Minnesota's fifth largest school district, 22,000 students. 50 years ago, it was a collection of small towns bounded by farm fields. The district now includes fast-growing suburban cities, such as Maple Grove along with the older, more established communities of Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center.

Every year for the past seven years, Osseo schools have faced a budget crunch. The shortfall this year is nearly $15 million. Why the annual budget blues? District officials say money from the state increased an average of nearly 2.5% over each of the past 10 years, roughly the overall rate of inflation but less than the rate of cost increases for critical expenses, such as salaries, health insurance, and transportation. Superintendent Chris Richardson says every sector of the district's operations is feeling the effects of cuts to erase the gap.

CHRIS RICHARDSON: Cuts at the central office level of about 32% of our budget, two cuts at the elementary and secondary level of about 10% of their budgets.

DAN OLSON: Like every district, Osseo's biggest expense is salaries. There are 3,400 Osseo teachers and staff. Richardson says erasing a multimillion dollar budget shortfall means firing workers.

CHRIS RICHARDSON: This year, we cut about 207 staff members from our district. That's on top of approximately 40 staff members that were cut the year before.

DAN OLSON: The result, Richardson says, will be class sizes as large as 40 kids in some rooms. A few courses have been cut. The extracurricular fee for students who want to play sports or participate in music is $170, rising to $180 next year. Richardson says the district may go back to voters this fall, asking to raise property taxes to pay for school operations. Last fall, voters rejected the rate hike. School district taxpayer, Rose Lilistal voted for the increase.

ROSE LILISTAL: Never have we not voted for a school bond referendum.

DAN OLSON: Rose Lilistal, her late husband, and four children moved into the Osseo school district 43 years ago. The kids are grown. Rose Lilistal lives in a comfortable but by no means ostentatious middle class home. She voted for the Osseo referendum because she assumed state takeover of some public school expenses would result in a bigger property tax break than she got. Lilistal says she doesn't know what she'll do this fall when the district asks for a tax increase that on her house could amount to $300 more a year.

ROSE LILISTAL: Even though I can, I'm still on a fixed income. I have a pension, and I have Social Security, and I have some investment income. But it really is the same year after year, except for the little dab that you get as far as Social Security increase. And then your health insurance goes like that and it's gone in a minute.

DAN OLSON: Osseo superintendent, Chris Richardson, understands. He faces the same realities. The district's transportation costs are up 3.5%, health insurance 17%. Around Minnesota, dozens of districts face budget problems. Van Mueller says the roots of Minnesota's education finance crisis go back to a tax payer mindset created many years ago.

VAN MUELLER: We're a decade or longer into a national fever that says, read my lips, no new taxes. Well, that's had a lot of impact on some people's-- many people's willingness to pay to support any kind of public services.

DAN OLSON: Van Mueller is University of Minnesota Emeritus professor of education policy. He says Minnesota's education finance system needs an overhaul. Resource-rich districts, such as twin cities suburbs with lots of expensive homes and a big business tax base, have less trouble coping with rising costs. The tax base isn't as deep in Osseo and other suburban districts. They have more middle class, lower middle class, and poor residents hard pressed to pay more in taxes. Mueller says the first step in deciding how much Minnesota should spend on education is to define what we want our public school students to know. Once we decide, he says, we can put a price on the cost of supplying the knowledge.

VAN MUELLER: When we define it, we cost it out, and then we figure out a delivery system to get the money out in differential ways to the school districts that need the resources.

DAN OLSON: Under Mueller's plan, more tax dollars go to districts where the need is greatest. A version of his idea is in place. Districts with greater needs get more money. But Mueller's plan goes further and creates a political minefield, taxpayers around the state sending money to schools with greater needs. Soon, Minnesota will hire a consultant to assess what the state is getting for its education spending. Representative Alice Seagren, a Bloomington Republican and chair of the Minnesota House K-12 education finance committee, says lawmakers want to know if the money is going to the right place.

ALICE SEAGREN: If we are spending money on truancy programs and nothing changes, maybe that'll be something that's highlighted to say, OK, we need to look at this differently. We don't need to keep spending more money on this. We need to change what we're doing before we spend additional. So I'm hoping as a policymaker that something will come out of it that will give me an opportunity to examine what we're doing.

DAN OLSON: Ideas are abound for holding the line on and getting the most out of the money spent on Minnesota's public education system. Reformers advocate wider use of charter or private schools, vouchers, and cyber learning. But their potential for cost savings and their ability to educate all kinds of children is hotly disputed. Osseo superintendent Chris Richardson says, the near term reality for Minnesota property taxpayers is many districts will be asking for more money to cope with the state's education finance crisis. Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio.