From pleas for funding to an onslaught of new testing, Minnesota's next governor will be deep into K-12 issues during the next four years.

The four major-party candidates head into the November election with a huge budget deficit ahead and many school districts still complaining over what they consider to be past state funding inadequacies.

Annual testing of students in grades 3-8 -- a federal requirement -- will take effect in 2005-06. That may mean final action at last on the Profile of Learning, the system of state standards key to Minnesota's testing plan.

And while each candidate can claim ties to public schools, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling may find them being asked to back plans offering increased state help to families for private-school purposes.

Each candidate, however, opposes vouchers.

Financial issues have monopolized the K-12 debate of late. Scores of districts have asked local taxpayers for additional funding in the past two years and an education umbrella group -- the Alliance for Student Achievement -- is advocating 3 percent annual state per-pupil formula increases.

The four candidates have said they understand the pressures facing districts and have pledged help to some degree.

But Republican Tim Pawlenty wonders whether the question of how well students are doing has been lost amid the protests of fiscally minded education groups. An Alliance for Student Achievement candidates forum last month, he said, devoted too little time to achievement issues.

"You might as well call it the Alliance for Money," he said.

Money and taxes

Each candidate knows the value of public education.

DFLer Roger Moe and the Independence Party's Tim Penny attended small rural schools. Three of Penny's four children are public high school graduates; his youngest attends Waseca High School. Moe taught high school math in Ada, Minn., for six years.

"At the end of my public career there will be no greater compliment to me than from former students saying, 'Mr. Moe, you were a good teacher,' " Moe said last week.

Ken Pentel, the Green Party candidate, attended elementary, junior and senior high schools in Hopkins, a district he says was "top-notch."

To Pawlenty, "education was the key ticket to opportunity," he said. He graduated from South St. Paul High School after his mother died and his father was laid off.

Of the four candidates, Pawlenty faces the toughest test finding new money for schools, having signed a no-new-taxes pledge at a time when the state anticipates a 2004-05 shortfall of anywhere from $1.6 billion to $3.2 billion.

But he has told educators that he knows school costs are rising and that he would try his best to provide an inflation increase in the basic per-pupil funding formula. Pawlenty has noted repeatedly that he backed his school district's excess-levy request last year -- to his own party's displeasure.

Pentel and Moe have said they support the 3 percent inflation increase sought by the Alliance for Student Achievement, which includes the state's teachers union and metro and rural interests.

Moe said his administration's priority is "an education system that is second to none," and he would be prepared to raise taxes if necessary.

Penny's goal would be to help stabilize both the state's budget and those of local districts. He has revived an idea to expand the state sales tax, a move he said should have been part of the tax-reform package approved by the Legislature and Gov. Jesse Ventura in 2001.

Sales tax proceeds would have helped fund the state's takeover of basic education costs, proponents say.

Penny has made no promises regarding the 3 percent funding goal, but he said he wants the state to assume the cost of special-education services. Districts now must shift hundreds of millions of dollars from general classrooms to cover federally mandated special-education programs.

He also has suggested that districts be allowed to raise some taxes locally without voter approval. Cities and counties can do it, Penny said. The idea still is conceptual, he said, and limits would have to be set, but he believes it could give districts added flexibility.

The idea is backed by the Association of Metropolitan School Districts.

Hopkins Superintendent Mike Kremer said districts need some form of inflationary guarantee. Hopkins will have to cut as much as $2.3 million from its 2003-04 budget, he said, if the Legislature doesn't deliver a funding increase during its next session.

Kremer said that a variation of Penny's idea could be to give districts the power to levy for inflationary costs -- without voter approval -- if the state were unable to provide the increase that year.

Penny's three opponents, however, have criticized the levy idea, with Moe saying it could create even greater disparities among districts. He also said he didn't want the state to be taken off the hook for funding obligations.

Profile to choice

For four years, the Republican-led House has called for elimination or replacement of the Profile of Learning, a set of graduation standards designed to make students show they can apply what they have learned.

The Ventura administration, however, and the Senate, led by Moe, instead have pushed for Profile "fixes." The stalemate continued this year with House negotiators refusing to give state education officials rulemaking authority to enact changes.

Adding urgency to the debate is the federal government's requirement that states set standards and develop annual tests aligned to them. In Minnesota that system of standards is the Profile, and the tests tied to it the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments.

Asked whether it was too late for Minnesota to start over, Pawlenty, who led this year's House repeal effort, disagreed, saying he is prepared to dump the Profile in 2003 and replace it with new and more rigorous standards.

The state, however, still has yet to comply with testing provisions under a 1994 federal law, securing a waiver until January 2004 to do so.

Pawlenty's opponents want the Profile to be revamped.

"How long has this program been up? Three or four years?" Pentel said last week. "Let's calm down for a second and see what we can get going."

Last summer a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a Cleveland voucher program inspired hope among school choice advocates for expanded options in Minnesota.

Instead of vouchers, proponents said, an alternate plan may be to expand the state's refundable education tax credit, which now covers textbooks, tutoring and other costs, to include private-school tuition.

The tax credit initially provided dollar-for-dollar refunds of up to $1,000 per child and $2,000 per family. Legislation passed in 2001, however, reduced that amount to 75 cents for each dollar spent.

Pawlenty said he supports expanding private-school access for students who are poor, disabled or failing in public schools. He had no specific plan in mind, he said, but he liked the idea of expanding tax credits or of offering tax incentives to people who contribute to school scholarship funds.

As for vouchers, Pawlenty said: "I'm not here to dismantle the public school system."

A tax-credit expansion got a cool response elsewhere.

Pentel said private schools were too expensive for most low-income families. Offering tax credits, he said, is like "throwing a 20-foot rope into a 50-foot hole."

Moe had a "general reluctance" to move any further on education tax credits, including any proposal to extend them to school tuition costs.

Penny said he would not propose expanding the credit to private-school tuition. But if presented to him for approval?

"I would not propose it. I would discourage it," he said. "I want to put the focus on those tools and policies that do the most to achieve results in our public education system."

-- Anthony Lonetree is at alonetree@startribune.com .