In his State of the State speech yesterday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty threw a late-season slider to the education community by suggesting Minneapolis and St. Paul mayors should assume command of their respective school districts.

“I support giving mayors the accountability and full control, and I mean full control, of the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts,” the governor said the day before he left the state for a speech in New Hampshire.

The mayors were flummoxed by the suggestion. School leaders were either silent or scrambled for a response.

The subtext is simple: Pawlenty has no real desire to seek this outcome. He is setting up a phantom issue to distract from the real issue of horrendous education underfunding.

Mayors run the districts in Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City and Boston – all highly dysfunctional districts. While they have their faults, St. Paul and Minneapolis schools are nowhere the ones in these cities.

But even if they were, would a mayoral-appointed school board perform better than a freely elected school board or a superintendent named by the mayor? Would Minneapolis, with its weak mayor system, be better served with a school district run by the Minneapolis City Council?

The answer is no.

If Pawlenty were interested in supporting education in Minneapolis and St. Paul, he might start by giving the district enough money to run the districts. This chart by Minnesota 2020 fellow Jeff Van Wychen shows that the Twin Cities have had more than their share of state school aid cuts since 2003. School leaders without enough money to run schools generally have a difficult time keeping school quality at a maximum. The full chart can be found here.

No one need take Pawlenty’s suggestion seriously. The real issue about education now and for the foreseeable future is to get the proper and equitable amount of money to schools. That hasn’t happened under Pawlenty’s watch and it likely won’t happen this year.

This proposal is just a distraction.

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Governor Pawlenty’s final State of the State (SoS) address included a number of statements regarding taxes, spending, and Minnesota’s economic performance.  Some of the statements were factual and others—well—not so much.  The following examination of lines from the Governor’s speech will be limited to claims regarding taxes, government spending, and the economy.

“We’ve seen Minnesota GDP grow by more than 25% during my time in office.”

Presumably Pawlenty is referring to the period from 2002 to 2008 (the most current year for which state GDP data is available from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).  If so, the Governor was being modest; according to data on the BEA website, Minnesota GDP grew by 32% over this period.  However, this is four percent below national GDP growth.  On major indicators of economic performance—including GDP, income, and job growth—Minnesota has lagged behind the U.S. average during Pawlenty’s tenure.

“We have the 3^rd highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world.”

This is a repeat of a fallacy that the Governor used in last year’s SoS.  Based on information from the conservative Tax Foundation [PDF], the highest statutory corporate tax rate in at least three other states is above Minnesota’s highest rate.  It is difficult to see how Minnesota can be among the top three in the developed world if we are not even among the top 3 in the U.S.  Furthermore, statutory tax rates are not a good way to measure the corporate tax burden because it overlooks differences in corporate tax base, which varies dramatically across jurisdictions.  This issue was discussed in a January 2009 Minnesota 2020 analysis.

“Minnesota’s business tax climate is the 8^th worst in the nation.”

This sort of claim generally comes from anti-tax groups that examine business tax burdens while paying relatively little attention to the benefits that businesses derive from public investment.  Based on more holistic measures from the annual Development Report Card (DRC) for the States, Minnesota consistently ranks among the top 20 states in the nation in terms of both business vitality and development capacity.  The DRC focuses on actual outcomes, such as business and job growth, and not just inputs, such as taxes and other costs.

“It [the JOBZ program] is needed and it works.”

Pawlenty needs to read the JOBZ report [PDF] from the non-partisan Office of the Legislative Auditor.  As summarized by Minnesota Public Radio, the report concludes that “JOBZ has not met its goal of targeting areas that are considered economically distressed and in most need of assistance.  In addition, the program has subsidized some businesses that are competing with existing Minnesota companies for the same customers.  The report also raises questions about the true economic impact of JOBZ.”

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