[Mpls] SW schools escape closure - reaction?

[Michael Atherton]

On February 13, 2004 I wrote:

"I will be fascinated to see if a 'small politically
connected clique' is going to be able leverage keeping 
open a small neighborhood school of 80 children while 
other larger schools all over the city are being closed 
in the name of efficiency.  You might think, 'No way!,' 
but you have to realize that this is Prospect Park;
home to the current and previous city council members, 
as well as a current school board member, AND a lot of 
angry politically active White folks."

Well, it has indeed been fascinating to see the politics
of this play out.  What I didn't anticipate is that it
wouldn't be just Prospect Park that was able to keep their
school open, but also the other White folks in South. 
So who loses?  The politically unconnected in North, mostly
Black folks and as well as all the other children in the city 
who will have to share even more thinly stretched recourses.

This wouldn't have been all that interesting if these hadn't 
been schools in DFL dominated communities.  After all, we 
expect Republicans to manipulate the political process to 
represent the "haves" over the "have nots."  I have always 
pooh-poohed the concept of White Privilege, but now I realize 
that I simply have to live in the right neighborhood and things 
happen. And, if you're unfortunate enough to be unable to afford 
to live in these neighborhoods, then things don't.  Most 
interesting to me is that the majority of the people involved 
in this process consider themselves to be "progressive" liberals. 
Unfortunately, their progressive politics only seems to apply to 
causes beyond their own personal self interests.

So Mr. Brant, how about a breakdown on school closings based
on neighborhoods' median incomes?  After all, I could be way
off in Right field.

Michael Atherton
Prospect Park