Tag Archives: CDD

Minneapolis Public Schools’ CDD Plan is a Path to School Closures

Uncategorized, , , ,

December 1, 2020

At last, the purpose for the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Comprehensive District Design (CDD) plan is becoming clearer.

On December 1, the finance committee of the Minneapolis school board will hold a regularly scheduled meeting. Among the documents prepared for this meeting is an Executive Summary from Superintendent Ed Graff about the district’s pro-forma budget.

The pro forma budget documents are an overview of what Graff and his team are expecting MPS’s financial picture to look like in the next five years.

It’s not pretty.

Graff notes that MPS is “cautiously” assuming the CDD plan will be successful–but only after several years of enrollment declines, due in large part, one assumes, to the high level of disruption and uncertainty the CDD is expected to bring about.

Under the CDD, which is the district’s most current strategic plan, approximately two-thirds of all MPS students are slated to change schools, beginning in the fall of 2021.

The percentage is estimated to be higher than seventy percent for students of color. Teachers and administrators will also have to move en masse, although there has been no official communication yet about what that may look like or how that will impact academic programming.

On November 29, families received notice about which school their children will be automatically assigned to for the 2021-2022 school year–unless they utilize the district’s school choice feature, which is scheduled to open up on December 5, much later than originally stated.

Graff’s pro forma summary indicates that MPS expects enrollment to falter due to the changes brought on by the CDD until the 2025-2026 school year, when the district projects that it will “begin increasing its enrollment.”

Here’s the important point, though, per Graff’s note to board members:

File_-Pro-Forma-Executive-SummaryDownload

Our analysis finds that, regardless of whether the CDD succeeds, the district is burdened by an unsustainable fiscal structure and should urgently seek to identify and act on cost efficiencies to prevent entering statutory operating debt in the 2023-24 school year.

Here’s my theory: The CDD is a trojan horse, wrapped in the language of addressing racial equity but designed instead to usher in another round of austerity measures for MPS.

It is worth pointing out that the most vocal defenders of the CDD have been affiliated with the private Graves Foundation.

Parents have largely been left either in the dark regarding the upcoming changes (a parent I know of from a refugee community was astounded to learn that her four children will now be sent to three different schools under the CDD when they have been attending the same one) or left to battle one another on various Facebook pages.

I would wager that the CDD is little more than a consolidation tactic built on the principles of downsizing, economizing, and the management and reduction of costs, including teacher and staff salaries.

That’s how it started, anyway, and, as the famous quote goes, when someone, or something, shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

The CDD came to the Minneapolis schools through Dennis Cheesebrow, an organizational consultant who helped realign the St. Paul Public Schools in 2014 with an eye towards closing schools, minimizing choice, and improving the district’s shrinking bottom line.

The plan Cheesebrow helped craft for the St. Paul schools was built on the premise that all students, “no matter their zip code,” would be able to access a high quality (perhaps well-rounded, even) education in their own neighborhood.

That hasn’t happened, although it would be unfair to pin this solely on either Cheesebrow or district leaders in St. Paul.

Many public school districts are struggling to stay afloat amid rising costs and shrinking revenue, not to mention a damaging, bipartisan narrative that positions individual choice as the way out of America’s devastating racial and economic inequality.

Nevertheless, Cheesebrow’s design still stands as the basic framework for Minneapolis’s CDD plan. Under pushback, however, MPS repackaged the CDD into a more politically palatable racial equity plan, with some noble aspects to it.

Shuttling more students to the city’s storied but too-small North High School makes sense, as does the realignment of some transportation routes and other boundary shifts. Attempting to address race, privilege, and the various hurdles students and families face is also valid.

But framing the CDD as anything other than a top down, austerity driven realignment seems like a dangerous falsehood that may ultimately weaken MPS beyond repair.

This point was covered in an opinion piece from March, when three educators and parents of color–along with signees from various MPS sites–made the following point: “From the beginning, the Comprehensive District Design (CDD) was created without substantial input from students, families, principals, or educators.”

The piece, written by Asha Farah, Silvia Ibañez, and Ron Simmons, also argues that the CDD lacks both a solid academic plan (but instead tears apart existing programming) and a collaborative approach to dealing with issues, such as poverty and housing instability, that make MPS’ mission so challenging.

Now, given the pro forma summary offered by Graff, we can see that the CDD will not save MPS from having to close schools in the near future, as it’s hard to see what other cost-saving measure would help shore up the district’s finances.

Perhaps the district is too large, with too many partially filled schools, to operate effectively. If so, that should have been honestly explained to the public and not buried within the CDD.

The finance committee meeting begins at 5 p.m. on December 1 and can be viewed here.



Minneapolis Public Schools Final CDD Plan: Pandemic Proof?

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

March 26, 2020

What is it like to run a large public school district in a time of crisis? That’s a good question for Minneapolis Public Schools superintendent Ed Graff.

Here’s another question for Graff. What is it like to push a major district redesign plan through in the middle of a global pandemic?

Regarding the first question, Graff received high marks from the nine-member Minneapolis school board during a special business meeting on March 26. The virtual meeting began with board members offering their praise for Graff’s leadership during the Covid-19 shutdown of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

In particular, Graff and his team were acknowledged for quickly pulling together school nutrition and enrichment packet options for families suddenly cast adrift from their school communities.

Graff in turn announced further plans for meal packets to be distributed at various sites over the next few weeks. (Check the district’s website for details, including a distance learning plan that will be made public on March 27.)

During the March 26 meeting, Graff was also granted special powers that will last through the Covid-19 emergency. With the board’s approval, he can now make budgetary decisions, and so on, that relate explicitly to the coronavirus situation–without the board’s approval.

A second resolution also passed, authorizing the board to hold virtual meetings, if necessary, during this crisis. Public comment will still be gathered, but not in person. (Kerry Jo Felder was the lone no vote on this item.)

The how/when’where of this has yet to be fully explained or considered, according to school board chair Kim Ellison.

Here’s why that matters: the district is still planning to vote on its controversial redesign plan, known as the CDD, on April 28–come hell or the Covid-19 shutdown.

That meeting and vote will apparently still be held, whether or not the public can attend an open meeting and engage directly with board members. Feedback and input will still be collected, in a to-be-determined manner, but it will lack the impact (or chaos, perhaps) of recent face-to-face interactions between and among the public and the board.

And so the CDD is likely to become a reality, with board members Ali, Arneson, Caprini, Ellison, Inz and Pauly expected to vote in favor of it. Representatives Felder, Jourdain, and Walser are likely no votes.

Final CDD Available March 27

The long-awaited final version of the CDD will be released to the public on March 27, although the board and some members of the media have had a copy of it since at least March 24.

I have reviewed the document (thanks to a public data request) and will say that it doesn’t stray too far from the five-option model released by MPS in January, although it does contain major boundary changes for many district schools.

There is also very little financial information contained within it, except for a projected five year capital improvement plan worth somewhere north of $224 million.

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways outlined in February, for example, are the same. Programming will be concentrated at North, Edison, and Roosevelt high schools, including an agriculture program at Edison.

K-8s On the Chopping Block

Other hot-button issues include K-8s and dual-immersion programming, and those in defense of both models may not be very pleased with the final CDD proposal.

Popular K-8 magnet programming at Hmong International Academy, Marcy Open School, Seward Montessori School, and Barton Open School will be eliminated, with each of these schools reverting to a K-5 model. (Hmong International is more of a community school with a Hmong language and culture focus; that emphasis will not change under the CDD.)

Folwell Performing Arts, another K-8 magnet now, will also become a community K-5 site.

There will be two new citywide K-8 magnet schools created–one at Jefferson near Uptown and another at Sullivan school in Seward. Jefferson’s Global Studies and Humanities focus sounds (on paper anyway) as if it will be similar to the popular IB programming that is eliminated in the CDD.

Sullivan will have a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) emphasis. Franklin Middle School will also be a citywide STEAM magnet. There are no K-8 community schools in the CDD proposal.

Green Central Community School will become a K-5 Spanish dual-immersion magnet, while Windom (currently an immersion program) is slated to become a community K-5 site.

No Separate Immersion Middle School

Immersion advocates hoping for a standalone middle school option–which MPS indicated could be housed at Jefferson–will instead have to be content with a 6-8 immersion strand program placed within Andersen Community Middle School in south Minneapolis.

Sheridan and Emerson schools will retain their K-5 immersion school focus, while no programming of this type appears to be headed to north Minneapolis, despite board member Kerry Jo Felder’s frequent requests for a northside location.

Bethune and Hall–two elementary schools in north Minneapolis–will be K-5 magnets, for art and STEM (STEAM without the art) respectively. Seward will be the district’s only Montessori option, with a K-5 citywide magnet model.

There is no clear indication as to how all of these new citywide magnets will be handled, from an enrollment, recruitment or transportation perspective.

Got Time to Propose a Specialty School?

A provision for “specialty schools” remains, although the timeline spelled out in the CDD will likely raise a few eyebrows. Global pandemic be damned, any school community wishing to become a specialty school (sort of a magnet school, sans any extra funding or transportation) will need to submit a final proposal by November of this year.

There will be much more to pore over, from March 27 until the scheduled board vote on April 28. Many will find much to admire about the CDD, including the bolstering of North High School with students from an expanded attendance zone that stretches into Kenwood and Uptown.

There is also a lot of language about capstone projects for STEAM school attendees, for example, as well as an admirable–and desperately needed–emphasis on recruiting and retaining more teachers of color.

These positive steps or goals may be weighed down by the sheer level of disruption the CDD promises to deliver, however, which one can guess at despite the lack of enrollment numbers included in the presentation.

There is the promise of a bunch of new schools being created all at once, alongside a major overhaul of MPS student placement and HR policies.

Many communities, in all corners of the city, may be surprised at the level of upheaval they will be asked to endure along the way to securing a “well-rounded” education for their kids.

Super Chickens Don’t Succeed

When the document becomes public, pay close attention to how teachers are discussed. The CDD in fact closely echoes the market-based education reform narrative around “high quality teachers,” as if they are chess pieces rather than human beings. (What makes someone a high quality teacher? Who should define this?)

Strong teachers are attracted to, and help build and maintain, strong schools. They are drawn to and inspired by schools with healthy climates and inspirational leaders. They thrive when they are allowed to be vulnerable without fear of retribution.

This is about culture and community, not the myth of the super chicken (look it up!).

MPS is about to embark on an incredibly ambitious mission. It is one that the CDD’s lead author, MPS administrator Eric Moore, referred to recently as being rooted in a theory of disruption and deconstruction, with the goal of rebuilding a more equitable system from the ground up.

It is a theory, he acknowledged, that has “never worked” yet.

Will it now?

Pandemic No Threat to Minneapolis Public Schools’ Reorganization Plans

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

March 17, 2020

Just when it seemed the Covid-19 scare might lower the temperature of all things connected to the Minneapolis Public Schools and its controversial Comprehensive District Design (CDD) plans, Superintendent Ed Graff and school board chair Kim Ellison released a statement outlining their intention to keep pushing the CDD forward.

The district’s schools are closed now, along with those across the state, and are not scheduled to reopen until April 6 at the earliest. It is also possible that physical school buildings will not reopen this school year, with teaching and learning conducted online instead.

Still, the statement released by Graff and Ellison indicates that the school board will be asked to vote on the CDD at an April 28 meeting, with May 12 suggested as a second option in case the first meeting gets canceled.

This amounts to barely a blip in the previously noted timeline for a board vote on the CDD and does not appear to make any real provision for the loss of public input on the plan.

Consider this bullet point from the statement released today:

If a prolonged health emergency persists, the April 28 and May 12 board meetings may use electronic meeting protocols to ensure business can continue

This sounds as if the board is prepared to vote on the CDD whether or not the public can be there, in person, to observe or weigh in with comments.

Perhaps this would not be a problem if the board was being asked to vote on a relatively insignificant matter. But the CDD is built around a theory of disruption–one which district administrator Eric Moore said, on February 26, has never before been successfully implemented–that will impact every student and staff member, to some degree.

Here’s why, briefly:

  • The CDD promises to reconfigure many existing schools by the year 2021, sending thousands of students and teachers to new school sites
  • New magnet schools are being proposed, with no identified roll-out plan, while existing ones are slated to be dismantled
  • Students, largely from north Minneapolis, who are currently bused out of their own neighborhood to community schools elsewhere stand to be uprooted and put in newly reconfigured schools with new staffing teams
  • Teachers, support staff and building administrators have reportedly been told that their jobs are up in the air, meaning no one knows for sure–under the CDD–where they will end up working

While some community members are rooting for these changes, many have lingering concerns over who will be displaced and how, exactly, a projected $4.6 million in transportation savings will be enough to bolster struggling schools–especially in light of what MPS says is a projected $19 million budget shortfall.

In other words, can transportation savings alone make up for the district’s shrinking bottom line?

Politics 101: A Crisis Can Force Change

Aside from the financial piece, many parents and educators from across the city have raised questions about the plan. For evidence of this, look no further than either the February 11 school board meeting, which included impassioned input from a range of parents, or to the highly animated meeting that took place on March 10.

Moving forward with the pre-Covid-19 timeline could be an obvious way to hurry to the finish line and minimize further input, since the CDD has been in the works since at least 2018–when Graff was advised by a consultant to ignore community feedback.

But it could just as easily cost MPS what little public trust and support it does have, by appearing to callously push through a major reorganization plan while families are consumed by fears over job and income losses, not to mention health concerns and the overall stress of suddenly having kids home for weeks and possibly months on end.

Of course, there is also the issue of the current budget cuts rolling across the district. Cuts to the high schools are hovering at or above the $1 million mark, meaning a reduction in programming and staffing cuts–whether or not the CDD goes through.

Frankly, the funding crisis raises the question of whether the district is in solid enough shape to take on a massive overhaul, where schools with strong community support (including schools such as Green Central, Lucy Laney, and Andersen K-8 that serve majority non-white populations) are slated to be dismantled and shaken up–perhaps leading to further enrollment and budgetary losses.

Whose Schools?

This brings to mind a particularly troubling anecdote. On March 10, community members from Green Central school in south Minneapolis showed up at the district’s Davis Center headquarters, in advance of the night’s regularly scheduled school board meeting.

They had reportedly planned to address the board with concerns over the CDD during the public comment period, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Unfortunately, another group–members of the mostly pro-CDD Advancing Equity Coalition–had nabbed most of the first slots allotted to the public.

March 10 protesters

This coalition, which has ties to organizations that promote and fund charter schools (primarily the Minneapolis Foundation), is clearly well-organized and politically savvy. Before the meeting started, they left glossy literature outlining their support for the CDD on every chair in the Davis Center board room.

(There was a rival rally held outside the Davis Center on March 10, by another organized group–loosely known as Kids First–that is managed and minimally funded, to my knowledge, by district parents with PR chops.)

The Green Central families couldn’t wait for their chance to address the board, however, as their bus had to leave by 6:30 p.m., and so they left without having their voices heard.

Given the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, wouldn’t it be wiser for MPS to indicate care and compassion–as it has through the distribution of food and schoolwork to families in need–by slowing down the CDD timeline and ensuring true community input?

Protesters outside Davis Center

Comprehensive District Design or Community-Led Schools?

Uncategorized, , , ,

Guest post by David Boehnke

On February 5, I spent five hours learning about the Minneapolis Public Schools’ new “Comprehensive District Design,” first at a community forum led by a group of MPS teachers at North Commons Park, and then at the district’s own “listening session” at Bethune Elementary School, a short walk away. 

The meetings couldn’t have been more different.

The first, led by a pair of black teachers running for union office, was an open conversation. Different concerns, experiences, and opinions came together, people learned things and left more connected and informed, although many were still stressed by the district’s lack of authentic engagement with community members.

The MPS listening session at Bethune did involve listening, but it was the district doing the talking. After a lengthy presentation of technical administrative changes, audience questions were written on note cards. A few were then asked and answered by a diverse display of district higher ups.

The format generated skepticism and confusion. Why was so much work being done to prevent the hundreds there from giving real feedback or talking to each other? 

As is often the case, the most interesting parts were side conversations in the hallway – and the picket outside. A group of Educational Support Professionals (ESPs) greeted us as we entered, asking if we would come to their next union contract negotiations.

Apparently there are over a hundred Davis Center people who make over 100,000 a year, while the ESPs, a unit far more diverse than teachers (although those on the picket line were mostly white) who also work directly with students, can’t afford to live on one job. 

In 2017, MPS students made signs to welcome refugees and immigrants

So why is there a need for the Comprehensive District Design plan and what does it do?

First, it’s been said that the district is financially unstable due to changing demographics and families leaving – 80% of whom are people of color. Second, there are legal concerns: with potential lawsuits if schools are more than 86% people of color – although this does not apply to white students. There are also difficulties involved with having so many schools where more than 80% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch. 

These legal concerns of concentrated race and poverty are also identified by the district as the core causes of MPS’ intense racial inequities – and their primary solution, according to CDD documents, is to increase integration, along with some teacher training.

The district’s plan also prioritizes reducing transportation costs by making most schools attended by people who live by them “community schools,” while moving magnets to the center of the city, making 14,000 students change schools in the process.

MPS administrators say this will stop parents from leaving the district, allow more money to be invested in academics, and prevent school closings and other dire financial consequences. 

Yet the materials and presentation hosted by the district at Bethune were confusing. The district speaks of “five plans” while really only having one, with minor variations. Parent surveys which assisted plan creation seem to have been creatively reinterpreted, with concerns for safety of students in schools rewritten as concerns about walking to school, for example.

And while it is admirable to try to find structural barriers to racist outcomes, to reduce transit times, and to shift the cost of integration from students of color to white students, it is questionable that this plan does that. 

For example, according to MPS, 70% of the 14,000 students who will have to change schools are students of color, more than their percentage in the district as a whole. And that’s a tremendous number of students – and staff – to move around.

So, it seems we want the same things but it’s hard to trust MPS’ current approach.  

In fact, what one comes to realize then, after wading through confusing language and barriers to conversation is that the District doesn’t know how to do the racial equity work it says it wants to do – and they don’t trust families, communities, or educators to make that happen, either. One worries that their urgency to make change fast is to cover over that fact, rather than create a real process with those whose lives will be impacted by their decisions.  

This could explain why all their changes seem to be up in $100,000-a-year land, far from our students and communities.

If community schools were a magic bullet to solve enrollment and teacher diversity, we’d see that in such schools in our district now.

If families of color were treated with respect already, they probably wouldn’t be leaving.

If the district cared about having more teachers of color and culturally relevant curriculum, they would have more teachers of color after fifteen years of working on the problem, and they would have ethnic studies everywhere substantively, not symbolically.

If true engagement was the plan, MPS would have community conversations, not elaborate events to collect comment cards. They would empower the bottom-up knowledge of the thousands of families of color, in partnership with educators and white parents, to set school boundaries, determine curriculum, create community, maybe even create an “inclusion revolution.”

Because after all,  there are people doing marvelous work in the district, but this plan doesn’t seem to protect them. In fact it seems like this is yet another cycle of the district systematically disrupting and pushing out people for doing the work they say they want done. 

Some of this showed up in the meeting hosted by teachers at North Commons Park. A teacher talked about a Social Emotional Learning Conference they planned and how the District attended because they didn’t know how to do that work on their own.

Parents spoke of facing increasing roadblocks from both a Northside school and the district’s central office regarding safety concerns with their child . A staff person expressed frustration about daily racism in the Davis Center and in schools. Southside parents came wanting to hear thinking from other parts of the city as well as continuity for the diverse schools they love for their children. 

Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) members expressed concerns with the union’s lack of a planned response to this District Design, as well as its “official inability” to address racist targeting by administration or other union members.

There were also discussions of why teachers of color leave schools and how to retain them, and of wanting to not have two internal hiring processes prior to external hires in order to hire new teachers of color before other districts do so.

This overlaps with concerns of many union people about attacks on seniority, which is something that many corporate-funded groups support. That said, in this context it was less about attacking the union and more about asking what it would actually take to get the type of staffing we need in our schools.

But the marvelous part of real conversation is that it generates new ideas and opens options. It reveals similar desires from parents on the north and south side, families and staff. That all of us want to have more control over our schools and many of us truly want to combat racism. That our lived experiences – combined – show us that so much more is possible in our schools, even if it has to be against the top down, non-transparent ways of the district, and sadly often the union as well. 

We do need a vision for schools worth fighting for. We need our schools to work for our communities. We need communities to be at the table, not as bodies to be counted but as people with local knowledge who are necessary to create good schools – and preferably as a mass movement that makes such involvement a requirement of any major change, like the one proposed in the CDD. 

As we left I was reminded that North High School is open only because community forced the issue. And that the current superintendent is only there due to community pressure against a racist curriculum and corporate takeover. That these are our schools, and School Board members are supposed to represent us.

The world is run by those who show up and take strategic action. What does the future hold? What will the community do this time?   

The district is going to reveal its finalized CDD plan at the March 24 school board meeting with a vote expected at the board’s April 14 meeting. 

David Boehnke is a Northside teacher and resident currently focused on working with prisoners to change the prison system. He has been working for racial and social justice in schools since he was a teenager, and for a decade in MPS. Comments or critiques welcome at dboehnke@gmail.com.

Minneapolis Public Schools Redesign Plans Marred by Inaccurate Information

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

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.)

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is jitu.jpg
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