Posted Online 3/9/04

by Joe Nathan

Tragic developments in Minneapolis hold important lessons for school districts all over the state.

Thousands of Minnesotans are leaving school districts for home schooling, charter public schools and private schools. While there are marvelous district public schools all over Minnesota, Minneapolis mistakes are also being made in some suburbs and rural communities.

1. What reward do school boards place on progress and excellence, at building and classroom levels? Several years ago our Center surveyed the last 20 state teachers of the year. We found, to our shock, that 3 of the last 20 had been laid off due to low seniority!

In Minneapolis, it appears that excellent results with students don’t mean much – at least not to Interim Superintendent David Jennings. He’s proposed closing Pratt, a small school where last year 100% of third graders passed the state’s reading and math tests. Since 1999, the percentage of Cooper's 3rd graders who score at grade level on Minnesota's mathematics tests has gone from 26% to 75%, and from 27% to 60% in reading. These are dramatic gains for a school serving a high percentage of low-income, limited English-speaking students, as Cooper does. Schools like Pratt and Cooper probably should not be closed or merged, as current proposals suggest. Merger means loss of the school's identify, focus, and often, separating faculty who worked well with students and families.

Instead, since the district has extra space, the school board should house two or more schools in one building. A growing number of districts are doing this.

Minneapolis also should seek organizations willing to share space, and help pay for heat, light, etc. as is happening around the country. This helps youngsters and families, and makes effective use of taxes.

School boards should ask themselves: what are the rewards for excellent teachers and schools in our district?

2. Consider real economies. Last school year, Minneapolis bused about 35 North Side Somali Americans to an outstanding program at Sanford Middle School. The principal visited Africa to learn more about Somalis, and hired respected Somalis to help teach students and faculty. Results improved.

But this year, the district declined to spend about $10,000 to bus Somali students from the North Side, where there was no comparable middle school, to Sanford. So about 35 of these students went to a charter school offering a similar program. The district lost more than $200,000 when they left.

3. Learn from community members. The single most frequent concern I hear from parents is that administrators won’t listen. Every parent idea can’t be adopted. But sometimes districts don’t listen carefully enough. For example, take the Minneapolis school Bottineau's site council, which asked last May to add third grade to their K-2 school. Bottineau draws some students from suburbs.

But district officials didn't respond until late December. They said "no." Taking seven months to respond is unacceptable. Rejecting this thoughtful suggestion seems unwise.

Minneapolis has big problems. But wise school boards can learn from some of their mistakes.

Joe Nathan is director of the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. He can be reached at jnathan@hhh.umn.edu.