[Mpls] Pratt School: Position Paper on Possible Closing

[Michael Atherton]

Dan McGuire wrote:

> Thanks to Steve Cross for posting the position paper on Pratt 
> School.  If this work was repeated all over Minneapolis, closing 
> schools would not be an issue.  The Pratt community has created 
> a model that should be shared far beyond their borders.

Dorie Rae Gallagher wrote:

> Pratt School does have a model to be proud of for other schools 
> to close by ..but,  is closing schools something to be proud of? 
> Pratt sounds like they have followed the rules for being a viable 
> functional school. Hard times, puff you are gone? There is money 
> out there...look at the condos being built and the river's edge...
> they can't keep starving schools and libraries. Someday, there 
> will be pay back time for stupidity,  of course, if one is too 
> ignorant to know any better or to ask questions...I guess not.

The "Public School Task Force" has only one good argument:
They want a school that their children can walk to.  Their other
arguments are shallow, incomplete, or misleading.  For instance,

   " Tuttle nevertheless is on the other side of a 
   +500-acre industrial area replete with large industrial 
   structures, complexes of railroad tracks and hazardous waste 
   sites."

Three times a week my wife and/or I drive our two children 
over this route to daycare.  There is nothing dangerous or 
inconvenient about it.  The drive to Tuttle takes less than 10 
minutes by car.

   " In 2002-03, Pratt ranked as one of the highest 
   performing schools in the state with a Quality 
   Performance Index of 4.6, the highest in the city.  The
   scores of the third graders at Pratt were the highest 
   in the entire state in English, and the second highest 
   in Math."  

These scores were based on the skewed demographics of one
third grade class and only White and Asian students took
the tests.

PPERRIA unwisely invested $1,500,000 in a project with no
written contract.  When another $500,000+ was committed to
this project two years ago, School Board Member Judy
Framer warned that given the current budget problems 
it was not possible to guarantee that the school would
be kept open.  Residents approved the reallocation
of funds anyway.

If Prospect Park residents what a school that their 
children can walk to, they have the option of creating
a Public School controlled by parents and teachers, not
the MPS.  It just involves a lot of work on the part
of parents.

I don't see how "Public School Task Force" can claim
that it supports the Public Schools while at the same time
that they threaten to vex the District by not sending 
their children to Tuttle.

If you want a "custom" personally designed school tailored
to your own particular needs and desires State Law already
provides a recourse: public charter schools.  I don't think
that it is reasonable to expect the District to accommodate
100 students when they have more than 12,000 others to
care for.

Michael Atherton
Prospect Park