ST. PAUL — Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled House want Minnesota’s teacher workforce to better reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity makeup of the state’s school districts and also increase spending toward early childhood learning and literacy programs.

The House Education Finance Committee on Tuesday began laying out their plans to boost education spending this year. The new money adds up to about $55 million more for education but Republicans say it won’t come from a $900 million budget surplus.

It’s among the first additional spending proposals to start coming together as lawmakers weigh the hefty surplus. Senate Democrats have yet to detail their plans to spend the extra money, but have also cited diversifying the state’s teacher workforce as top priorities in addition to hiring more school counselors and creating a statewide preschool program as top priorities.

The House proposal includes over $14 million in funding to get more teachers from a variety of backgrounds into classrooms while also providing for continuing education for current teachers. It also sets aside about $6 million for early childhood learning and literacy initiatives.

“It’s something like 96 percent (of the teacher workforce) is still white, and it’s not looking like our student population is,” said Rep. Jenifer Loon, who chairs the education committee.

According to the U.S. Census, Minnesota’s population in 2014 was just over 85 percent white with about 6 percent African-American and 5 percent Hispanic. The remainder are mixed race, Asian or Native American.

Gov. Mark Dayton scaled back his approach this year, but still proposed spending $25 million on a voluntary, statewide preschool program. That and some other initiatives pushed by the governor aren’t included in the House proposal, but Loon said there are several areas in which lawmakers found common ground with Dayton.

Their budget proposal includes almost $3 million to increase the number of sites implementing new behavioral support systems for students, $120,000 to expand access to GED testing and $69,000 to allow parents of deaf children to directly enroll their kids in a charter school. All three of those initiatives were included in the governor’s supplemental budget proposal unveiled last month.