Minneapolis blogger Sarah Lahm carefully read the “Master Plan” for Minneapolis, which goes into detail about the city of the future, and discovered that the master plan does not include any schools!
This could not have been an oversight. Schools are part of every community where there are families.
She writes:
“Minneapolis 2040 is a visioning document, designed to offer a planned-for picture of what the city will look like over the next 22 years (as part of the Met Council’s Thrive 2040 project). It has been in development since before 2014, and is now in the last stages of community input. By the end of 2018, the Minneapolis City Council will vote on the 2040 plan and the vision of Minneapolis it provides. After that, assuming the plan is accepted by the Council, it will be put into action via updates to the city’s zoning laws.
“The zoning laws will dictate how, exactly, Minneapolis will morph into the city depicted in the 2040 draft. (Zoning issues tend to really get people’s goat.) The vision is for a city with business nodes in multi-use neighborhoods, full of green space, access to transit, bike lanes, high density housing and…no schools, it would seem. A glance through the guiding principles and priorities behind the Minneapolis 2040 draft reveal virtually no mention of the city’s public education system, or education in general.
“The six guiding values for the Minneapolis 2040 will hopefully lead to “An inspiring City growing in equity, health, and opportunity,” according to a 2018 City Planning Commission press release. Those six values center around growth (boosting Minneapolis’s population and its tax base); livability (safe, green, healthy neighborhoods with access to amenities); economic competitiveness (including private/public sector innovation); health; equity and racial justice; and “good government.”
“These six values are expanded upon by a list of fourteen priorities, as identified by the Minneapolis City Council. The priorities offer more information about the values guiding the 2040 plan, but again make very little mention of public education and what role, if any, schools will play in this future version of Minneapolis.
“The emphasis seems to be more on turning Minneapolis into a “city without children,” in the words of writer Benjamin Schwarz. (He attributes this push to a “bevy of trend-conscious city planners, opportunistic real-estate developers, municipal officials eager to grow their cities’ tax bases, and entrepreneurial urban gurus that ballyhoo the national renaissance of what inevitably gets described as the Vibrant Urban Neighborhood.”)
“After the six guiding values and the fourteen priorities comes the ninety-seven (97!) goals of the 2040 draft plan. There is one goal that specifically touches on the importance of investing in children from birth to age 5, but beyond that…nothing.”
A city without children? A city without schools?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No, they’ll have a voucher program where each parent is given a (low value) voucher to choose a school.
The only government role will be to distribute funds- a subsidy really, since the cost of the school will exceed the low value voucher. Markets will take care of the rest.
This will work out great and be extremely equitable. Like food trucks and Uber are equitable.
That’s what the folks at the US Department of Education tell us, anyway. I see a few holes in this theory but as you know ed reformers are building the plane while they are flying it, so what’s a few crashes?
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It’s incredible that the city of Minneapolis did not include collaboration with educators and public schools as part of its overall plan. The City of Minneapolis is separate from the local district, (unlike, for example, NY, Chicago and Boston) The city government does not authorize charter public schools, unlike a few other cities. However, wise city leaders make collaboration with schools a priority.
In St. Paul, we’re blessed with a young, energetic mayor, Mayor Melvin Carter III, who took office in January, 2018. He’s a St Paul Public Schools and Historically Black College graduate, the first African Am mayor elected in St Paul. Like Minneapolis, public schools are not part of the city government.
Nevertheless, During his campaign, Mayor Carter stressed that education and youth would be one of his top priorities. So far he has followed up by
a. Urging that St. Paul make a priority of increasing the number of St .Paul youth who have earned some form of post secondary certificate.
b. Following up with a committee and various subcommittees to discuss and implement ways to significantly increase the number of St. Paul youth who earn some form of post secondary certificate or degree. Representatives of many community groups and both district and charters are included on this committee.
c. Signing an agreement to share data with the county and district public schools (this is somewhat controversial. Some people are concerned about retaining privacy.
Bottom line, city of Minneapolis, you need to revise your plan. St .Paul, please keep going.
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The item you mention about data-sharing is INCREDIBLY dangerous. You all have to fight that with everything you’ve got. The plan is to create a profit center using poverty-mining via impact investing. https://emilytalmage.com/2016/01/17/united-way-to-parents-give-us-your-gold/
Please see my other comment about Human Capital Performance Bonds and Twin CitiesRISE! below.
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Alison,
Nathan is not our friend.
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Not sure who tutucker is but virtually every day public school teachers email or send texts asking for help and thanking JoAnn (the wonderful woman, 33 year+ SPPS teacher, now retired) and me for our help in advocating with and for them.
Same for public school families.
Regardless of your views on chartering, if any of the issues discussed in the Pioneer Press column posted in this thread interest you, please let me know. Glad to work with you or one or more of those issues.
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Mr. Nathan, please help me and other readers understand why, as a pivotal figure and public face of charter schools/privatization in the Twin Cities, we should not see your above statement as misdirection at best, and crocodile tears, at worst?
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You can take it any way you want. All 3 of our children attended and graduated from the St Paul Public Schools, where I was, in addition to being a teacher and administrator, a PTA president. All 5 of our grandchildren are attending St. Paul Public Schools this fall.
The St. Paul mayor’s staff has asked me to join one of the sub-committees I mentioned, and I’m honored to do so.
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No one on this blog who is familiar with charter lover Joe Nathan should be surprised by what he says. Apparently, he was satisfied with being quoted the other day in the 7 year old article Diane posted here about how segregated Minneapolis charters are, which also described some St Paul charters (and recent articles say the segregstion continues): https://dianeravitch.net/2018/06/04/john-hechinger-are-americas-most-segregated-charter-schools-in-minneapolis/ ). So it sounds like choosing segregation is a feature, not a bug for him, as is typical for racists.
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Here’s a column published recently in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, written by a St Paul district high school student and me. He and I serve as appointed members to the district’s budget committee. It outlines several priorities that he and I are working on:
https://www.twincities.com/author/anaa-jibicho-and-joe-nathan/
We suggested a headline of “Priorities to help prepare students for the future” They did not use it. But we were glad it was published.
Care about workforce? Follow this law
By ANAA JIBICHO AND JOE NATHAN |
May 18, 2018 at 12:33 am
Though we represent different cultures and different generations, we agree with the Pioneer Press about the importance of helping students prepare for the future (“Work on the workforce,” May 13). However, we think this involves workforce development and more.
First, schools should follow a state law that says that beginning in the 2013-14 school year, starting in the ninth grade, students must develop a post-high-school plan that will “be reviewed and revised at least annually by the student, the student’s parent or guardian and the school or district …”
One of us surveyed more than 40 Minnesota districts to see how this law was being implemented. A few districts actively involve families in this plan. Many aren’t. We also talked with more than 100 parents around the state, 90 percent of whom have never heard of this.
Furthermore, a 2017 St. Paul Public Schools survey of more than 2,000 high school seniors found that less than half recalled creating a plan.
Joyce Epstein, family involvement expert at Johns Hopkins University studied K-8 family involvement. She concluded that the best predictor of parent/family involvement wasn’t the income, race or marital status of the family. The best predictor was what the school did to encourage family involvement.
One of us worked at a K-12 district school where every student, with their family, developed an annual plan in August. Reviewing/refining the plan was a graduation requirement. That’s not the only way to do this. But planning is valuable and required by state law.
Second, districts and charters should make increasing faculty diversity a top priority. One of us is African American, attended St. Paul Public Schools for more than a decade, and hasn’t had a single African American teacher. One of us helped write a 1999 study pointing out that educators of color were dramatically under-represented
Research shows that a diverse teaching staff benefits all students. They help all students see that “the sky’s the limit.” Studies also show that non-black teachers have lower expectations than a black teacher when evaluating the same student.
Some districts and charters are making progress attracting and retaining American Indian and teachers of color. We can and should learn from them.
Third, encouraging students to take Postsecondary Options and/or other dual credit options should be a priority. Research shows huge benefits for all students from participating in some form of dual credit, whether in academics or applied career/technical fields. The benefits, according to extensive research, are especially large for low-income students, and potential first-generation college/university students.
It’s not just about saving thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars, though that’s important. It’s also about learning what colleges and universities expect, and how they operate.
One of us takes PSEO courses, which have been extremely valuable. Only about one-third of the 25 traditional districts and charters we surveyed have adopted a policy, required by the 2017 Legislature, that says schools must provide computer/internet access for online PSEO students. We urge adoption and distribution of this information to students and families.
Currently less than half of eligible Minnesota high school students participate in dual credit. But with encouragement and assistance, 75 percent to 80 percent of students in some high schools do. They’re great models.
Finally, preparing for the future means learning to be active, constructive citizens. Our experience and research show great value in participating in service learning, art and music programs. In fact, research from the ACT testing program shows several extracurricular programs are even better predictors of adult success than high test scores.
These strategies will help close gaps and produce progress. Shouldn’t they be priorities?
Anaa Jibicho has been selected to be a non-voting student representative to the St. Paul School Board. He’s finishing his junior year at Washington Technology Magnet School and taking PSEO courses at the University of Minnesota. Joe Nathan has been a Minnesota public school teacher, administrator and PTA president. He directs the Center for School Change.
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So you can toot your own horn, but I saw nothing about the value of students learning in integrated schools or support specifically for initiatives that promote desegregation.
This is a serious concern for genuine Progressives today, who recognize that we are now living in a very divided country that has been experiencing frequent attempts to normalize hatred towards minorities and other under-represented groups, including racism passing under the guise of “nationalism” from the WH on down. Continued student learning isolated in segregated groups and lack of exposure to diversity in schools are likely to foster stereotyping, increase intolerance and exacerbate the divide.
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It’s always interesting to see comments from people who don’t give their names, and don’t share where they live, work, whether they have children and if so, whether their children attended integrated urban schools.
I agree that it’s valuable for youngsters to learn about people from different backgrounds. our children attended racially and economically integrated district public schools in St. Paul, k-12.
But thousands of other families in Minnesota decide to send their children to district public schools that are 90% or more white, with very small percentages of low income students. Do you see much push to end this opportunity?
Given this, I support the opportunity for low income and moderate income families to select racially and economically integrated non-sectarian schools or schools in which they are the majority. Incidentally, St. Paul Public Schools wisely offers this option with the Phalen Lake Hmong Magnet, a very popular school, and the American Indian Magnet (though a number of American Indian families have expressed frustration that they can’t get their youngsters into the school).
Do you think it’s ok for whites to have the ability to select 90% or more white public schools like those in affluent suburbs, or exurbs, but that it’s not ok for low moderate income families of color to have options that are 90% or more people from their own communities?
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Joe, that’s called segregation.
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Some low income and people of color call it “empowerment”to give them the opportunity to select non-sectarian public schools, open to all, that celebrate and honor their heritage, as well as the heritage of others in this country.
And of course, there is the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which states in Article 26 that “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Do you reject the UN Declaration of Human Rights?
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We are governed by the US Supreme Court, not the United Nations. Decades of research have demonstrated the importance of a racially integrated education.
Glad to see you come right out and state your support for racial and ethnic segregation.
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Diane – so the national group that you helped create is actively working to eliminate the opportunity for wealthy white families to “segregate” themselves in school districts that are mostly white and mostly affluent?
Are you opposing the efforts of some of these districts to take low income and people of color to court who try to find ways to have their youngsters attend these districts?
Also, do you reject the “effective school” research?
https://www.lakeforest.edu/library/archives/effective-schools/EffectiveSchoolsResearchbase.php
“EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS RESEARCH BASE
“The Effective Schools model of school reform is based on more than thirty years of research conducted nationally and internationally. This research identified schools in which students were mastering the curriculum at a higher rate and to a higher level than would he predicted based on students’ family background, gender, and racial and ethnic identification. In addition, these schools showed steady increases in achievement over time, and the achievement gap between students from low socioeconomic and high socioeconomic backgrounds narrowed. These unusually effective schools were found to possess a set of common characteristics, called “correlates.” The correlates have been shown to be as essential for equitable effectiveness today as they were thirty years ago and thus are building blocks used in the Effective Schools model.”
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Joe,
If you read my book “Reign of Error,” you will find a summary of Research showing the benefits of integrated education.
Yes, the Network for Public Education is opposed to segregation, especially when it is artificial, as is the case in Minneapolis, where you could easily create integrated schools but choose not. Read my book “Reign of Error” to learn about the research showing the great lifelong benefits of integrated education. You use a twisted logic: if there are all-white schools, then there should be all-Black, all-Hispanic, all-Hmong, etc. schools. If you had been on the Supreme Court in 1954, we would still be living with de June segregation. Joe Nathan, segregationist.
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Yup, I read your book. What specifically are you doing to eliminate the option for wealthy whites to choose to live in affluent suburbs which serve virtually no students of color or low income families?
Incidentally, some of us helped create a state law allowing cross district public school choice. This enables inner city kids to attend suburban district & chartered public schools.
It also allows suburban youngsters to come into the city, helping create more racially and socially economic diversity in city district & chartered public schools.
Are you opposed to programs that allow cross district public school choice?
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Still waiting for your response to the question about whether you think a teacher who acknowledged sending a picture of his private parts to another public school should be a public school teacher.
I agree with a number of St Paul Public School teachers that he should not be allowed to continue teaching.
As to the Supreme Court Brown v. Board decision, would you say that it accomplished its goal? Having helped create a number of racially and socially integrated public schools, (district & charter), I think there’s a lot more that the Supreme Court could and should have done.
What are you and your organization doing to eliminate or reduce the number of suburban or exurban public schools that are virtually all white?
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Joe,
Of course I think a teacher who sends sexually explicit photos should be fired.
My organization has one full-time staff and a small budget. We don’t have the money to file lawsuits.
Your organization is funded by Gates and manu other big foundations. What are you doing to oppose segregation anywhere, including the charter schools you support? Why don’t you encourage charters in the Twin Cities to desegregate instead of changing the subject to suburban schools in wealthy communities? Have you ever heard the expression, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
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Glad to hear we agree about firing the teacher.
Our organization has not been funded any national foundations for many years. We’re also a very small organization with no $ for law suits. And I personally don’t have the $ for example, to endow a program at a college.
Our organization is working now with a number of coalitions to do the things described in this “op ed” column. This includes working with both district & chartered public schools, educators, students & families.
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Given the interest expressed here in Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools, I thought this story in today’s St Paul Pioneer Press might interest some readers.
Here are the first two paragraphs of this story:
“Four St. Paul Public Schools teachers say they fear for their jobs after reporting a colleague for numerous incidents of sexual harassment.
Teacher Bruce Goodwin was suspended for two days in November 2015 after admitting he sent a female co-worker at Ben Mays Elementary a photo of his penis with the caption, “Make it grow please,” according to a discipline letter the district released in response to a Pioneer Press records request.”
Diane, and others who read and post here, would you agree that a person who did what this teacher acknowledges he did should NOT be working in a public school?
For what it’s worth, within the last 24 hours another SPPS teacher has asked for help in dealing with a SPPS administrators who allegedly has harassed her.
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I think it’s interesting that someone who calls themselves an educator has no comprehension of how risky it is for teachers to express their personal views and politics today, especially those of us who have no union protections.
And yes, I have a problem with someone, especially an educator, who is just fine with de facto segregation even though that places our country at great risk of further racial, religious and economic divide, as well as increases in hate crimes.
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Dear Reteach 4 America, I can tell you are very concerned with segregation. It is imperative that those who care about public education understand that the goal in the next decade is to have NO bricks and mortar schools and replace them with learning on devices (primarily, for profit extraction and data-profiling) and some community based programs / ELOs. Given that most of the United States lives in highly-segregated communities, that transformation will only heighten the existing disparities. I live in Philadelphia. After the Starbucks incident here, I reflected on what had happened and what the implications were for black and brown people under the proposed learning ecosystem model. I wrote about it here: https://wrenchinthegears.com/2018/04/24/navigating-whiteness-could-anywhere-anytime-learning-endanger-black-and-brown-students/
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This reminded me of a story in the local Pensacola, FL, newspaper. The headline reads,”Run Your City like a Corporation.” One wealthy citizen is investing in improving the city, and an outside consultant has been hired to guide the city council. The city has already started to gentrify some of the downtown blocks, and they are looking to expand. Pensacola has a large, poor black population. Some of these neighborhoods are near the downtown where there are lots of older bungalows and Craftsman style houses. The consultant was brought in to teach the locals how to think of their city as a “corporation,” He compared living in a city to being a shareholder in a corporation. “Each piece of property is an investment in our portfolio that either builds or drains or collective wealth.” It seems that everything should be treated like a corporation according to business types. The only thing that matters is return on investment, people, children or families.
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I meant to say: The only thing that matter is return on investment, not people, children or families.
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Minnesota is a midwestern state. Similar to Indiana, in many respects. I have no way to predict what will occur by 2040. I believe that the people of Minnesota, will establish a proper mechanism to provide for proper education to their young citizens. This delivery may consist of publicly-operated schools, and/or alternate school systems. Technology will undoubtedly play a major role.
“We live in a world, in which the only constant is change” – Heraclitus.
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The plan is NOT charters, but ultimately learning ecosystems. No bricks and mortar schools, but instead learning alone being profiled via devices with “the city as your classroom.” Of course that is a “smart” city, one of police-state surveillance.
I have done considerable research of late and it tracks back to former senior economic researcher for the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Arthur Rolnick who is a collaborater with James Heckman and Robert Dugger on impact investing in early childhood education. They are behind the ReadyNation Global Business Summit on Early Childhood in New York in November.
See the work Rolnick did with former General Mills VP turned human capital manager Stephen Goldsmith developing the concept of Human Capital Performance Bonds. Heckman is now collaborating with Angela Duckworth to develop personality assessments tied to economic projections that will link up with pay for performance program not just in education, but all human services. https://wrenchinthegears.com/2018/06/01/making-childhood-pay-arthur-rolnick-steven-rothschild-and-readynation/
This has been planned out for years.
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Sickening.
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Reteach, if you are in fact a teacher, thanks for being a teacher. It’s a noble, undervalued profession.
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I am absolutely a teacher, as implied by my screen name. And I feel very fortunate to have gone to a diverse neighborhood urban high school myself, because I believe that contributed to my appreciation of diversity and prepared me for living and working with many kinds of people whose backgrounds differ from my own.
I have taught in diverse urban schools and I have also worked in de facto segregated African American and Hispanic inner city public schools, where white teachers are the only white people that many students of color have ever known. In my experience, it’s the kids in the diverse schools who have the advantage, despite family income.
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