Monthly Archives: January 2020

Minneapolis Public Schools Redesign Plans Marred by Inaccurate Information

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January 27, 2020

On January 24, the Minneapolis Public Schools sent an email to parents and community members with the following subject line: Comprehensive District Design Digest: Everything you need to know!

The cheery exclamation point did little to calm fears, however, regarding the district’s comprehensive design proposal (known as the CDD).

For one thing, the email sent to MPS families and staff included a summary of the five options now contained in the district proposal, but there was no link provided to the actual document so that people could read through it themselves.

A parent requested the link on Facebook from a district employee, and it was then provided, but this does not seem like an effective way to build trust in MPS’s potentially massively disruptive plans.

Incomplete Information

The proposal, thus far, is outlined in a PowerPoint document that will be discussed at the school board’s January 28 Committee of the Whole meeting and at the district-sponsored listening sessions that will be held over the next several weeks.

This approach–selectively releasing explosive information just days before public engagement sessions are slated to begin–seems designed to further stoke panic, division, and discord between parents and various school communities, with little sense of how to actually bring people together for the common good.

And the plan itself is laced with incomplete or inaccurate information, which is also sowing mistrust and fear in some corners of the district.

MPS Seems Bent on Slandering K-8 Schools

The CDD proposal released on January 24 continues an attempt to prove that K-8 schools are somehow worse for students than standalone middle schools. In so doing, the proposal offers a shoddy side-by-side comparison of unnamed (but easily identified) district schools.

Slides 45-46 seem to pit Barton Open K-8 against Justice Page Middle School. Barton is listed as “School A: K-8” and Page is “School B: 6-8.” A list of what each school ostensibly offers, in terms of enrichment and support, then follows.

But the list under School A: K-8 (Barton) is selectively narrow and purposefully incomplete, in order to drive home MPS’s pitch that K-8s are inadequate. This is slide 46:

Barton does offer team sports (though fewer in recent years, thanks to district-level budget cuts), though, and health in grades 5-8, not just in 7 and 8. Phy Ed also happens for every kid, K-8, and not just in 8th grade.

Barton offers art, too, and many other specialized elective course offerings, including Film Studies and a semester-long deep dive into the Holocaust and its connections to current events.

The dance class Barton offers as an elective is built around students as creators, since the class culminates in a show of dances choreographed by students. In recent years, there have been powerful works done that reflect students’ interest in Black Lives Matter and gun violence, for example.

The school also has a robust after-school debate league, and has recently fielded English, Spanish and Somali-speaking teams.

Good School vs. Bad School = A Problematic Framing

Barton does not have AVID (a separate programming model built around providing more support and smaller class sizes for students in need) but it does offer in-school classes for students who need homework help and so on–all on an absolutely bare bones budget, of course.

It may also offer something else, thanks to its smaller size: an opportunity for closer connection among teachers, staff, and students. This connection might foster stronger relationships, which is also a form of essential support. (Nicole Naftziger, MPS parent at a community K-8, has done a thorough job of debunking claims–often using MPS’s own data–that 6-8 schools are better for all students.)

But the CDD proposal seems designed to tell a purposefully inaccurate story.

Electives Are Not Offered to All

Justice Page is “School B” in the above slide, and it does appear to boast an impressive number of elective classes. But upon closer inspection, these course offerings are most available to the students who are already successful–as least as far as standardized test scores go.

That’s because the course offerings sheet available on the Justice Page website, which guides students through the enrichment classes available to them, includes the following caveats:

ELL students, in other words, are presumably isolated from the rest of their peers and not allowed to participate in enrichment courses with native or proficient English speakers.

And kids who perhaps don’t test well or who are somehow below grade-level in math or reading (the two most tested subjects) will also miss out on at least one enrichment class, and be shuttled into a remedial class–even though there is good pedagogical support for not doing this.

Should MPS Understand Its Own Schools Better?

While I don’t presume to know all of the reasons Page has structured their course offerings this way (it may be what the staff feels is most helpful for students), it certainly challenges the narrative that all kids will receive a “well-rounded education,” as MPS claims, at large, standalone middle schools.

My critique here, however, is not directed at Page, nor should this be read as a simplistic defense of Barton. My own kids have gone to Barton but my youngest will go to Page if K-8s are eliminated in MPS, and I deeply believe there are no “perfect” schools, including Barton.

Every school is a complex mix of success stories and sometimes deep-seated obstacles. Barton is no different, although it does–like Justice Page–benefit from the kind of stability and community support that should be cultivated at all MPS sites.

Rather, I am using an example concerning two schools that are in my neighborhood to poke holes in the incomplete and factually inaccurate marketing plan/proposal MPS released on January 24.

Beware the Red Herring

If we are to accept the idea that large-scale disruptions are urgently needed–now–in order to save money and better serve MPS’s most marginalized communities, then we need factual information that can be vetted and verified.

We can’t build a better MPS on half-truths and skimpy marketing plans.

Communities in north, northeast and the south/central neighborhoods have experienced the most disruption and upheaval in recent history. North High School was recommended for closure by district officials in 2010; it is still in the process of trying to rebuild its community.

Some people also maintain that the Central neighborhood has never gotten over the closure of its high school in the 1980s. From a website run by Augsburg College historians:

Central High School was the heart of the Southside African-American community for most of the twentieth century. Despite protests, the Minneapolis Public Schools decided to close the building in 1982. It was demolished soon thereafter (except for the gymnasium, which remains). The school was also critical in the life of Prince Rogers Nelson, who attended high school here from 1972-1976. 

The essential question, then, is what MPS can do collectively to support schools across the city, especially since closures are almost certain to follow–even though the January 24 CDD proposal states such decisions will be made after the board votes on a plan.

Community-Led Change

Disruption and the creeping Charlie-like spread of neoliberal, market-based education reform ideas are exactly what has been done, repeatedly, in Minneapolis and other large districts. (Just take a look at the proliferation of charter schools in north and northeast Minneapolis, in particular.)

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Jitu Brown

What hasn’t been tried–as a school board member acknowledged recently–is a grassroots, community-led approach to strengthening existing schools within MPS. This is a strategy supported by many racial and education justice activists, including Jitu Brown of Journey for Justice and the leaders of the Schott Foundation based in Boston.

Will it really work to push through school closures, dramatic boundary changes (some of which I think hold promise, including the move to send Kenwood area kids to Anwatin and North High), teacher and staff upheavals, and so on? Where will this put the district in five years?

And, amid MPS’s faulty claims that standalone middle schools are somehow better for students, the Minneapolis City Planning Commission appears to have given the green light to yet another K-8 charter school in northeast Minneapolis, Metro Tech Academy.

“We don’t have failing schools—as a public we’ve been failed.”

—Jitu Brown

Minneapolis Public Schools Stands to Lose Up to 1/3 of Families with Redesign Plan

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January 13, 2020

Jaws dropped at Minneapolis’s Bryant Square park on January 11 when citywide school board member Kim Ellison made a quiet yet stunning comment to the parents gathered before her for an informational meeting.

The meeting was largely comprised of parents from Barton (K-8 Open magnet school) and Windom (K-5 Spanish Dual-Immersion school). They had called the meeting to express their questions and concerns regarding the Minneapolis Public Schools emerging Comprehensive District Design (CDD) plan.

School board members Bob Walser and Ira Jourdain were in attendance alongside Ellison. The meeting was recorded, with board members’ approval, and has been shared on Facebook groups, including the Minneapolis Public Schools Parents page.

Towards the end of the nearly two-hour meeting, a parent asked how many families MPS expected to lose should the CDD plan (in its current form) get voted in by the school board.

Ellison’s answer? One-third. That high number drew stunned reactions from those seated closest to her, and later sparked a ripple of panic through parent organizing groups.

Losing up to one-third of all Minneapolis kids would be simply devastating for the city’s public school district.

Ellison later clarified that, to her knowledge, some MPS staff expect that one-third of all families with school-age kids living in Minneapolis (but not necessarily attending MPS) will be unhappy with the final CDD proposal presented to the board.

Whether or not this displeasure would cause them to leave MPS altogether is anyone’s guess, it seems.

But here’s a question: Who stands to benefit, should the board proceed with voting on a plan that up to one-third of all families in Minneapolis may not like?

One-third of all Minneapolis kids adds up to one-half of the district’s current enrollment, or somewhere around 17,000 students. State and city-based funding streams equal roughly $8,000 per pupil, in general education dollars. (Students in need get more money, thanks to Minnesota’s equitable funding model.)

Losing even a portion of those families who may be upset with the CDD proposal would amount to millions in lost funding for a district (MPS) that is already struggling to stay solvent.

Who, then, stands to benefit if a plan gets pushed through with minimal public support?

One answer could lie with the charter schools supported by private, philanthropic outfits such as the Graves Foundation.

The Graves Foundation is based in Minneapolis and run by Bill Graves, son of entrepreneur John Graves. Former Teach for America corps member and staffer Kyrra Rankine now works for the Graves Foundation as Director of Partnerships and Initiatives.

Rankine has been a vocal presence at Minneapolis school board meetings of late, and is one of three people who appear to be the leaders of an advocacy group known as the Advancing Equity Coalition.

Bill Graves

Public tax records show that Rankine earns close to $100,000 in compensation from the Graves Foundation (as of 2017; 2018 returns have yet to be posted). The group’s website also lists the Advancing Equity Coalition as one of the projects it supports.

Through this advocacy group and her salaried position at the Graves Foundation, Rankine seems to be working hard to control the public narrative around MPS’s district redesign–and to silence those who may disagree with it.

In fact, at the December 10 school board meeting, Rankine spoke during the public comment period. In her three minute turn at the podium, she roundly chastised the parents in the room whose presence she disapproved of.

In a sweeping take down of the “white folks” with whom Rankine (who is also white) disagrees, she admonished them for a range of things, from claiming (falsely, in her opinion) to care about diversity to only showing up when their own kid’s school was in danger of either closing or being moved.

In the video from the meeting, her disdain is glaringly evident. (The link here goes to MPS’ video streaming site. Rankine appears around the 1:40 mark for the December 10, 2019 meeting.)

Other notable Rankine appearances before the school board include the October 7, 2019 meeting, where she directly addresses the nine member board and criticizes those who don’t measure up to her definition of being hard at work on behalf of students.

Then, before warning the board that “2020 is coming,” perhaps in an allusion to the fact that several seats will be up for election this year, Rankine argues that students can–and should–leave MPS if they feel their needs are not being met by the district.

And where would they go? Perhaps to the ever-increasing roster of mostly segregated, mostly marginally successful charter schools that are privately run but publicly funded–from the same limited pot of money that goes to public school districts.

The lucky charters, with ties to wealthy organizations like the Graves Foundation, also receive additional streams of funding, seemingly with little accountability or oversight. (District schools also often rely on grants for programming support, especially in this era of compromised public funding.)

The Graves Foundation also doles out cash to a small group of elite local education reform organizations. That list includes:

  • Teach for America
  • Minnesota Comeback (which has since merged with another recipient of Graves Foundation money, Great MN Schools)
  • Students for Education Reform (whose employee, Kenneth Eban, is also part of the Advancing Equity Coalition)
  • Ed Allies (pro-school choice lobbying group headed by another Teach for America alum, Daniel Sellers)
  • Educators for Excellence (another group with Teach for America ties)

To be fair, the Graves Foundation has also given money to the Minneapolis Public Schools and a host of other notable causes, including In the Heart of the Beast puppet theater and the Minnesota Literacy Council.

But here’s the thing. One-time grants for pet projects or preferred charter school and reform groups are more like feel-good drops in the bucket than evidence of real systems change.

Many people, most notably Anand Giridharadas, have pointed out in fact that philanthropy is no substitute for an actual sharing of wealth, nor should it be confused with a sustainable investment in the public good.

It is likely much easier to lecture others about equity from a plush foundation’s perch than from, say, an overcrowded public school classroom, where half–if not more–of the students may be experiencing some kind of trauma (wrought by institutional racism and inequality, perhaps) at any one time.

Teachers and school support staff likely don’t have time to weigh in on what is equitable and what is not regarding MPS, nor have they reportedly been asked by the district to do so.

Parents and other community members have also stated, as they did at the January 11 meeting Ellison and others attended, that they have not been asked for their insights regarding how to help the district better serve all families.

And some of the families speaking the loudest on January 11 were people of color, many of whom expressed a strong connection to their child’s school.

One mother even told the crowd about how she had changed her work schedule so that her children could continue to attend Barton, and several said they like the K-8 model because it means their children can be together. (K-8 schools have been left off of the district’s most recent redesign models.)

Native Spanish speakers with kids at Windom also spoke out, often with evident emotion, about how much they want this school to remain open in some capacity, although they fear it has been slated for closure.

These people represent a captive audience for the Minneapolis schools. They already like their kids’ school, although I did not hear anyone say any school in the district was perfect or somehow beyond reproach.

Alienating them, or allowing some well-funded outfits to try to silence their voices, just doesn’t seem like a good idea.

The push for equity that has been tacked onto what likely started as a cost-savings plan designed to simplify transit routes is admirable. But who gets to define what is or is not equitable? And who will be left behind if the district pushes through a plan that may alienate thousands of students and families?

A three-option CDD proposal is expected to be publicly released on January 24, with discussion to follow at the school board’s January 28 Committee of the Whole meeting.

Minneapolis Public Schools: Surrounded by K-8 Charter Options

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January 6, 2020

If the Minneapolis Public Schools succeeds in turning the district into K-5 and 6-8 schools only, as its current Comprehensive District Design proposal strongly suggests, it will become surrounded by a sea of K-8 options within and just outside its boundaries.

Of the one hundred sixty-four charter schools currently in operation in Minnesota, half are at least K-6 schools. Most are exclusively K-8. Many more are K-12, and of course this has something to do with the need and desire to retain students for as long as possible, for funding and programmatic reasons.

In Minneapolis alone, there are thirteen K-8 charter schools. Many attract non-white populations, despite the claim that students of color either do not do well in K-8s or that families of color are not seeking them. (Watch the Minneapolis school board’s December 12, 2019 Committee of the Whole meeting for a discussion of this.)

If higher standardized test scores are the measure of equity and success–which I would dispute wholeheartedly–then parents from all walks of life appear to be disregarding this when choosing K-8s. In a list of area K-8 schools provided below, I include test score and demographic data that illustrates this very point.

Most K-8s in and around Minneapolis in fact have MCA test score results that are lower than or equal to MPS sites with similar student demographics.

Of all the charter schools in Minneapolis, Yinghua Academy in Northeast has the highest percentage of students with grade-level (or above) math and reading MCA scores. This is not hard to imagine because test scores most closely match students’ socioeconomic status (or, as MPS administrator Eric Moore said recently, “test scores follow students”), and just ten percent of Yinghua Academy students live in poverty.

But scores notched at Yinghua are still lower than those at the district’s Lake Harriet School in southwest Minneapolis, which is a K-8 dual campus site where only 7 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch.

It is very difficult to compare these schools to one another, simply on paper. And, of course, MCA test scores do a terrible job of telling the far more complex story of any school. But it does beg the question of what criteria families are using to select schools for their kids.

Does MPS have this information?

If parents, and especially parents from marginalized communities, are not choosing K-8s because they can promise higher standardized test scores, why are they choosing them? What about this model is attracting thousands of kids who, perhaps, would otherwise be attending a Minneapolis public school?

The answer may lie in the fact that public education has become a choice-based marketplace, dominated by increasingly segregated, privately managed but publicly funded schools that are as subject to fraud and failure as any traditional public school.

And what will happen if MPS further reduces or altogether eliminates its K-8 sites, under the clearly mistaken assumption that K-5s and stand-alone middle schools are either better for students or more appealing to families?

K-8 and K-6 Charter Schools in Minneapolis (including demographic and test score data obtained from the Minnesota Department of Education)

Best Academy in north Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 756
  • 98.1% Black or African-American; 88% Free and Reduced Lunch (FRL)
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 25.4%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 32.1%
  • Authorizer: Audubon Center of the North Woods (*authorizers receive thousands per year, per charter school, in taxpayer dollars to oversee school quality)

Bdote Learning Center in south Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 101
  • 81.2% American Indian or Alaska Native; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 2%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 0%
  • Bdote offers context for its lower scores here, through an language immersion lens
  • Authorizer: Innovative Quality Schools

Brightwater Elementary, north Minneapolis. Pre K-6. Preschool is private (tuition-based), K-6 is a charter school.

  • Student enrollment: 160
  • Nearly evenly split between White and Black or African-American students, with smaller percentages of other groups; 53% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 20.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 35.4%
  • Authorizer: Audubon Center of the North Woods

Cedar Riverside Community School, south Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 140
  • 92.9% Black or African-American; 7.1% Hispanic or Latino; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 20.8%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 33.3%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Friendship Academy of the Arts, south Minneapolis. “Due to family and community demand, FAA has expanded to  a K-8 school.”

  • Student enrollment: 168
  • 98.2% Black or African-American; 73% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 51.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 52.8%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Hennepin Schools, south Minneapolis. K-8, dual campus.

  • Student enrollment: 268
  • 94.8% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 44.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 40.5%
  • Based on the sample schedule listed online, students are in school from 8:30-4:35 with one 15 minute recess
  • Authorizer: Friends of Education

KIPP North Star, north Minneapolis. K-8. KIPP has a “strategic plan to grow to four schools by 2024.”

  • Student enrollment: 203
  • 97% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 19%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 26.4%
  • Authorizer: Volunteers of America

Mastery School, north Minneapolis. K-6.

  • Student enrollment: 230
  • 94.3% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 23.2%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 31.2%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

New City School, northeast Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 306
  • 56.9% White, 22.9% Black or African-American; 32% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 49.5%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 63.5%
  • Authorizer: Novation Education Opportunities

Northeast College Prep, northeast Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 319
  • 68% Black or African-American, 16% White; 90% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 41.8%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 39.7%
  • Authorizer: Student Achievement Minnesota LLC

Skyline Math and Science Academy, south Minneapolis. K-6.

  • This is school has yet to open.
  • Authorizer: Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools

Sojourner Truth Academy, north Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 389
  • 74.6% Black or African-American; 18.5% Hispanic or Latino; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 13.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 13.3%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Southside Family Charter School, south Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 116
  • 39.7% White; 21.6% Two or More Races; 47% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 47.3%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 60.8%
  • Authorizer: Volunteers of America

Spero Academy, northeast Minneapolis. K-6.

  • Student enrollment: 127
  • 55.9% White, 15.7% Black or African-American; 40% FRL
  • Almost 100 percent of students qualify for special education services
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 34.3%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 35.7%
  • Authorizer: University of St. Thomas

Stonebridge World School, south Minneapolis. K-6.

  • Student enrollment: 287
  • 64.8% Black or African-American; 22% Hispanic or Latino; 84% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 16.4%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 25.3%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Twin Cities International Schools, north Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 1,021
  • 99.9% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 41%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 43.3%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Universal Academy, south Minneapolis. Pre K-8

  • Student enrollment: 403
  • 97.3 Black or African-American; 86% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 24.4%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 30.5%
  • Authorizer: Novation Education Opportunities

Yinghua Academy, northeast Minneapolis. K-8 Dual Immersion (Mandarin).

  • Student enrollment: 822
  • 53% White; 30.9% Asian; 10% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 84.5%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 74.2%
  • Authorizer: Friends of Education

And here is a quick look at a few of the non- K-5s near Minneapolis:

Loveworks Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, Golden Valley. K-8. *frequent recipient of philanthropic funds despite notably low results

  • Student enrollment: 159
  • 94.3% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 6.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 15.4%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities.

Nasha Shkola, Brooklyn Park. K-8. Focused on the “unique needs” of Slavic and Russian immigrant students, as well as those interested in learning Russian.

  • Student enrollment: 99
  • 94.9% White; 70% FRL
  • Percent of students with math MCA scores: 65.6%
  • Percent of students with reading MCA scores: 47.5%
  • Authorizer: Innovative Quality Schools

Noble Academy, Brooklyn Park. Pre K-12. A growing charter school that recently expanded to include grades 9-12, with a special focus on Hmong language and culture.

  • Student enrollment: 1, 029
  • 86.9% Asian, 11.3% Black or African-American; 52% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 59.8%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 49.1%
  • Authorizer: Audubon Center of the North Woods

In January, MPS will begin holding information sessions regarding its Comprehensive District Design, with a final proposal expected in March. Thus far, the only versions of this redesign shown to the public have included nothing but separate K-5 and 6-8 schools. 

We must ask why this is, when the evidence clearly shows that all types of families are actively choosing the K-8 model. This points to another problem with the proposed redesign: the lack of ground-level staff and community input.