Minnesota’s school funding crisis has moved past the point of being a nagging problem; it is a full-blown emergency, finally made impossible to ignore by painful cuts across the state.

For too long, the default approach at the Capitol has been to apply short-term, stop-gap solutions, effectively trying to patch a sinking boat with duct tape.

Our per-pupil formula is inequitable and inadequate.

Special education funding doesn’t come close to meeting student needs.

And the special funding meant to help students who need it most often doesn’t reach them. One major program is supposed to send more money to schools with more students from low-income families, but it doesn’t accurately count the students it’s intended to serve. Another funding program is meant to help kids learn to read, but it actually sends more funding to schools where kids already read well, and less to schools with more struggling readers.

There’s no getting past the political reality: this is not a budget year, and Minnesota’s divided political dynamic at the Capitol makes major funding reform a heavy lift. But even in a non-budget year when no one can seem to get along, there are steps we can and must take now to acknowledge the crisis and begin the essential work of building a system that actually serves our students.

What can we do right now?

First, make sure our system to fund students from low-income families doesn’t fall into crisis from inaction. A task force is meeting this year to develop a blueprint for rebuilding the system, whereby schools receive additional funding to serve students living in poverty, but their work won’t be done in time to prevent a drop in funding due to inaccurate data on student poverty. For years, we’ve relied on imperfect measures to count students living in poverty –first there were meal forms, now SNAP and Medicaid enrollment — but now that the federal government has slashed key programs, our systems are flying in the dark. While we develop a long-term fix — for example, a formula like New Mexico’s, where they use income tax data instead of unreliable forms or diminished federal safety net programs — we need to pass a one-year temporary funding policy that holds schools harmless, so they don’t fall off a funding cliff because of bad data and poor policy implementation.

Second, legislators need to reconsider a planned $250 million cut to special education. Last year, they established a Blue Ribbon Commission on Special Education tasked with finding “inefficiencies” or else millions in special education funding and services would be cut. Certainly, our special education system has room to improve, but when we know we’re still miles away from meeting the needs of kids with disabilities, any savings found through more efficient delivery of services need to be reinvested and built upon. We can’t use frustration with bureaucracy as an excuse to cut services to the students who need them most.

Third, we can begin the intentional process of improving Minnesota’s many targeted funding streams — starting with Literacy Aid — where there is urgency to act. Currently, schools receive extra funding to support literacy, but it is doled out in a counterintuitive way. It is the only funding stream in Minnesota tied directly to test scores, giving more funding to schools with higher marks. The incentive-based model has not improved reading scores, and by keeping it in place, we are undermining the goals of the Read Act to ensure all students are reading at grade level.

While legislators have spent the last few years debating better models, a fix is essential now. The state is rolling out a new version of its reading standards, which means proficiency data can’t be compared to prior years, and the growth-based measure used to dole out funds is called into question.

Finally, we need to make sure schools don’t lose funding in the wake of Operation Metro Surge. Schools across the state saw students stay home out of fear at the peak of the surge, and in some cases, they were out of school for long enough that state law required them to be dropped from the rolls — a move with funding consequences for schools even if the students were still receiving support from school staff. Common sense dictates that school budgets should not be cut in the face of crisis, and it doesn’t even take a new state law to fix it, just action from the Minnesota Department of Education to grant exemptions to the “15-day drop” requirement under their current authority.

These basic, feasible steps can and should be accomplished before the current legislative session ends — though they are only the beginning.

Current and future Minnesota students depend on policymakers acting with the urgency this crisis demands.

This op-ed originally published by the Minnsota Reformer. Josh Crosson is executive director of EdAllies, an education advocacy group focused on the most underserved students.