Tag Archives: Northside Achievement Zone

John Kline in the Minneapolis Public Schools: Strange bedfellows?

Worlds are colliding–or aligning–in the Minneapolis Public Schools right now, as Republican Minnesota Congressman John Kline, chairman of the federal government’s Education and the Workforce Committee, is set to visit Nellie Stone Johnson Community School in north Minneapolis today. 

John Kline, education guru

Why would Kline–a Republican who represents a suburban and rural swath of southeastern Minnesota–be coming to Nellie Stone Johnson elementary school, today? 

It is not entirely clear who invited Kline to Minneapolis, but it seems he is coming at the request of the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), an Obama administration “Promise Neighborhood in north Minneapolis. Promise Neighborhoods were launched in 2010, with funding provided by the federal government, to establish, among other things, “cradle-to-career solutions of both educational programs and family and community supports, with great schools at the center.”

NAZ became a Promise Neighborhood in late 2011, with a five-year, $28 million dollar federal grant. Sources say that, today, NAZ is running short on funds and in need of a reauthorization of their status as a Promise Neighborhood, in order to get more federal grant money. (The federal government, in turn, has been reluctant to assess whether or not Promise Neighborhoods are functioning effectively.)

Hence Kline’s visit.

An email exchange between Nellie Stone Johnson principal Amy Luehmann and NAZ employee Pa Thao shows Luehmann asking Thao for information about Kline and his visit. Thao works under NAZ Executive Director Sondra Samuels, who is married to newly elected Minneapolis school board member Don Samuels, and had this to say about Kline’s visit:

I can give you my understanding of the purpose for the visit: Rep. John Kline serves the Burnsville area and serves in the U.S. House of Representatives. He chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce so he is the biggest player in Education Policy on the national level. Rep. Kline is fiscally conservative and sees Promise Neighborhoods as too expensive. On top of that, Promise Neighborhoods is an Obama project. With partisan politics, even Republicans who do support the work that Promise Neighborhoods will not confirm that they do. Kline is one of our biggest opponents. We’ve heard from several groups and partner orgs that they have been trying for a while to get him to visit their sites. So, we are very fortunate that he has agreed to visit us as we are outside of his district. This visit is hugely important. It could have potential to lead to additional federal funding. 

Emphasis added.

What is also “hugely important” here is that NAZ is hoping to become Nellie Stone Johnson’s “partner,” under the Minneapolis Public Schools’ new “Community Partnership Schools” plan.

Becoming Nellie Stone Johnson’s partner would clearly provide NAZ with a reason to exist, and a justification for receiving more federal funding. This could be good for NAZ, but will it also be good for the students and staff at Nellie Stone Johnson?

Let’s consider some aspects of the proposed NAZ/Nellie Stone Johnson partnership that should raise questions–especially for the Minneapolis school board members who will decide at their April 14 meeting whether or not to allow the partnership to go forward. 

To ponder:

  • First, consider this: Nellie Stone Johnson was a pioneering African American labor organizer in the early to mid 20th century in Minneapolis. She was also the first black person elected to office in Minneapolis. She was so distinguished that she has a school named after her. 

    Labor activist Nellie Stone Johnson
  • But, by agreeing to “partner” with NAZ, Nellie Stone Johnson school will be agreeing to replace (I hear pink slips have already been sent) many of its current unionized, support staff employees with NAZ’s own “scholar coaches.” Privatization alert: NAZ will be providing these “coaches” to Nellie Stone Johnson at no cost to the district. The NAZ coaches will also not be unionized employees. (Support staff employees in MPS are often the district’s greatest source of staff-level diversity). 
  • Serve Minnesota, which utilizes temporary AmeriCorps reading and math tutors, will also provide staff to Nellie Stone Johnson, in place of unionized, more permanent support staff members (AmeriCorps volunteers usually serve for one or two years). It is also not clear what expertise or background in child development and education that either Serve Minnesota or NAZ would bring to Nellie Stone Johnson students and staff members.
  • NAZ also has become the training ground for the TFA corps members who are part of the University of Minnesota’s new partnership with TFA. Will TFA recruits then be placed in Nellie Stone Johnson? This seems possible, as both Samuels and her husband, Don, have been vocal advocates for TFA in the past.
  • If NAZ does get more funding and is allowed to become Nellie Stone Johnson’s partner, why would they not use some of their funds to support MPS getting more licensed, permanent teachers of color–perhaps from the ranks of the support staff who are slated to lose their jobs should this partnership go through? Getting a teaching license can be prohibitively expensive in Minnesota.
  • Will Don Samuels recuse himself from the vote for this partnership, from which his wife and her organization stand to profit?

There is much more to the proposed Nellie Stone Johnson/NAZ partnership that should be fully considered–such as the plan’s reliance and insistence on more “data days” for staff members (versus access to excellent, developmentally appropriate resources for the school’s students and staff). Hopefully, school board members are putting serious thought into this and will not simply rubber stamp the “partnership” between NAZ and Nellie Stone Johnson. Anything less would be a serious dishonor to the legacy of the woman for whom the school is named.

And, hopefully, John Kline’s ideas for what constitutes a great school system are not the only thing that will matter.