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.

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.