[Mpls] Massive school reshuffling proposed

[Terrell Brown]

The Jennings proposal is on the school district website at:
http://www.mpls.k12.mn.us/news/pdf/school_summary.pdf


--- FNA Roberta Englund wrote:

> Minneapolis Schools are in a chaos created by a historical series of
> bad
> decisions that it appears residents have permitted. Perhaps it is
> time
> for Minneapolis to follow the lead of other cities, assume direct
> responsibility for the public schools and remove at least one layer
> of bureaucratic shelter from a broken system.      

[TB] I'm not convinced that all of the decisions were bad at the time. 
You need to make decisions based on the best information available at
the time.  Only a few years ago, I'm not sure anyone would have
expected the number of students who would have the ability to transfer
out of the district due to the desegregation agreement that the State
of MN signed along with the Mpls district and a number of suburban
districts.

I'm not sure what is meant by "decisions that it appears residents have
permitted" unless it is electing the board members.  The Board is
responsible for running the school system.  I think they are trying to
do what is best.

How efficient is it to have school buildings with fewer than 20
classrooms and how many programs can be offered in the smaller
buildings?  If we by fall we will have lost 6,000 students in the last
3 years, thats 240 classrooms if we average 25 per classroom.   With
that many empty classrooms, how do we not close some schools?


Interesting question about moving responsibility for schools to the
city.  Anyone have any info about how that has actually worked out
elsewhere?  I think I can see making the Mayor's office part of the
management of the school system, I'm not sure why the City Council
would be expected to do a better job than the School Board.  I do know
that in Hawaii, all schools are state schools and they haven't been
very successful in having good public schools.  I don't think that
having another group just take over is the solution.

Superintendent Johnson often talked about the difference in achievement
level of students who frequently transferred schools from those that
stayed in the same school and the higher achievement of those that
actually attended (that's a surprise isn't it?).  How does any
management of a school district address those issues?



Terrell Brown
Loring Park

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