Rob Levine is a photographer and public school advocate in Minneapolis. In this post, he describes the role of the Minneapolis Foundation in funding a vast expansion of charter schools, which are overwhelmingly non-union. The Minneapolis Foundation has been a fixture in civic life since 1915, funding good works that benefit the entire city. The foundation currently dispenses $125 million.
Levine writes:
So when and why, exactly, did the Minneapolis Foundation start trying to kill the Minneapolis Public Schools?
For a dozen years the foundation and its philanthropic allies have focused their money and influence on creating a public school system based on free-market “choice.” The reasons for this are twofold. First, the foundation weakens one of the last unionized sectors in the country, public school teachers; in this case, the same ones who are currently striking for higher wages, smaller class sizes, and increased mental health support. Second, it exposes the billions Minnesota spends annually on public education to private-sector profiteers.
To achieve those goals, the foundation would first flood the city with continuously opening and closing charter schools. Then they would lead a movement to create and fund a raft of dodgy nonprofits to vilify teachers.
Charter Schools: A Minnesota-born Experiment
In fact, if not for the Minneapolis Foundation, there would be no such thing as charter schools. According to Zero Chance of Passage, a book on the start of charter schools by former Minnesota State Senator Ember Reichgott Junge, author of the nation’s first charter school law, they were dreamed up at a gathering thrown by the foundation in 1988 at Madden’s Resort in central Minnesota. The posh conference was attended by a “distinguished group of business, education, and civic leaders from around the Twin Cities,” Junge writes.
Although charters today look little like those envisioned by the original proposals, the ideology of the movement still governs: Public schools have to compete for public dollars. Today, of the 180 operating charter schools in the state, five have unionized faculty.
At the time of their creation, many promises were made about the charter school experiment. At first they were to be lab schools, nontraditional learning centers where new education models are tested. Then, proponents said their presence was supposed to make regular public schools better. Then they turned into, essentially, a full-fledged second public school system. The results of the experiment show that charter schools do not get better results on standardized tests, they increase segregation, they put regular public school districts under permanent financial and enrollment pressure, and they have grown a cadre of schools with no teachers’ unions.
Oh, and they fail a lot. By 2008, 16 years after the first charter school in the nation opened in St. Paul, charter schools had yet to gain a significant foothold in the state, and many had already closed for various, predictable problems, such as self-dealing, lack of adequate curriculum, various financial improprieties, and even lack of a building. The classroom environment amounted to “total bedlam,” one student said in a 2005 City Pages story.
In a system predicated as a market, there was no market. In response, the Walton Family Foundation (the Walmart heirs) began funding in 2010, with a lot of help from local foundations, an organization called Charter School Partners, which would funnel the Waltons’ money into charter school startup grants to local entrepreneurs. For charter schools, startup is everything, because, once up and running, the state pretty much pays the bills…
In 2017, one year after [former mayor] Rybak took charge of the Minneapolis Foundation, there were already more than 14,000 students in charter schools in the city, and the district itself enrolled about 35,000 students. If you plan to create 30,000 new charter school seats in a district that enrolls 35,000 students you clearly intend to destroy that district.
Please open the link and read about the allies and money combined to eliminate public schools in Minneapolis.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I live in Minneapolis, and my kids graduated from a traditional public school. But I also personally know many people who send their kids to charter schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul. All of them preferred to send their kids to the neighborhood public schools, but the behavior and academic problems there are at unacceptable levels. Their kids are growing up RIGHT NOW – they don’t have the luxury of waiting for the traditional public schools to improve. So those parents are doing what affluent parents have done forever: they are exercising school choice.
Well yeah when you place schools in a state of permanent austerity and fiscal crisis there will be problems https://www.edhivemn.com/story.php?storyID=6
Public schools educate all the kids including the children with special needs and behavior problems while the charter or private schools have far less problem or special needs kids. And the public schools often have crowded classrooms which is another big challenge.
The parents Karen describe (she may be lying) likely also vote for Koch-funded candidates. The Milwaukee Independent posted an important expose, 4-10-2022, “A Party Built on Fascism: when 63 Republicans take Putin’s side…”
I did a quick listing of the families I personally know in Minneapolis and St. Paul who send their kids to charter schools. Ten of those families are black, two are white. None of them votes Republican from what they’ve expressed of their political views. There are several thousand other parents like them in Minneapolis and St. Paul; the very liberal Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper has published many articles confirming this fact. Linda must believe that the Kochs support Democratic politicians in Minnesota, or is it the Catholics who force parents to send their kids to charter schools?
Minneapolis has an extraordinary number of highly segregated charters. Strange for a “liberal” state.
The vast majority of Ravitch blog readers have read Diane’s books so, they understand the situational dynamics that result in charter school enrollment. Karen uses the Limbaugh argumentation technique- anecdotal evidence used to hide and misrepresent truth.
You are incapable of anything other than ad hominem attack. Surveys of charter school parents confirm the anecdotal information: parents choose charter schools because they are dissatisfied with the traditional public schools. Many years ago Diane Ravitch sent her own kids to private schools because she viewed them as superior to the traditional public schools in her area. Nothing she has written since then has changed that reality.
I believe in choice. If you want to send your children to a religious school or a private school, that’s your choice. But don’t expect taxpayers to pay for your private choice. Public schools belong to the public. Like the police and fire department, public parks and beaches. If you don’t like the local police, do you expect the public to pay for a private security guard for you?
PS: I am Graduate of the Houston public schools. Two of my grandchildren went to religious schools (their parents paid for it) and two went to NYC public schools. The latter two got an excellent public education
“the very liberal Minneapolis Star Tribune” – geez that’s a Republican talking point from like 30 years ago. Now it’s owned by a billionaire pseudo fascist
Karen,
Charter schools are the legalized theft of community assets.
I change a few words of Ms. Ravitch to make a point here:
“I believe in choice. If you want to have an abortion, that’s your choice. But don’t expect taxpayers to pay for your private choice.”
So you agree that exercising choices on schools and abortion should depend on your ability to pay?
The choice to go to a privately owned school is not the same thing as the choice to go to school or not. The abortion “choice” is the choice to get an abortion or not, which is not the same thing as the choice to use a privately owned health insurance company to pay for it. It shouldn’t be called pro-choice; it should be called pro-rights. It shouldn’t be called school choice; it should be called privatization.
Karen Wood,
Did you do a quick listing of all the kids who were dumped from charters?
Or are those the families you don’t know because you have decided they aren’t good enough for charters or for your friendship?
What happens to those kids? Or don’t you care?
If billionaires that are using their wealth to undermine public schools paid for scholarships at good private schools for under served groups, poor students would receive real benefit. With all the politicking and lobbying to move public money into unaccountable private pockets, public schools are either ignored or unfairly vilified. So-called choice has been corrupted by the profit motive. Charters often deliver low value service to increase profits, particularly when they become large charter chains.
Here we have a commenter who repeats the same tired, straw man argument that charter school entrepreneurs always make, blaming the problem of privatization on public schools (and teachers) instead of blaming privatization. Yes, there are parents who send their children to charter schools.
So what?
There are also parents who buy their children laptops with access to psychologically addictive video games and often pornographic social media, buy them high sugar and sodium content drinks in recycled bottles that bleed dangerously large amounts of micro-plastics into their bodies, and buy them devastatingly unhealthy fast food. Does that mean it’s appropriate to blame library books, drinking fountains, and home cooking? Of course not. We don’t blame consumers for making the choices they make, we blame industries for creating those poor choices. Don’t blame parents for picking charter schools and don’t blame public schools; blame charter schools for leading the parents astray from integration and a better, more democratic world.
Public school defenders who don’t know that the Catholic Church has had great success in privatization legislation, should. In Indiana, Catholics publicly take credit for the initiation and passage of school choice legislation. In Ky., media report that the EdChoice VP is also the associate director of the Kentucky Catholic Conference. In some states, the state Catholic Conferences cohost school choice rallies with the Koch’s AFP.
Auxiliary Bishop Cozzens of St. Paul and Minneapolis is the subject of an article posted at the Catholic Spirit site, 5-28-2021, “Bishop Cozzens adds voice to school choice efforts.”
Ryan Girdusky, the founder of the 1776 PAC which funds school board candidates opposed to CRT, has an interview posted at Pat Buchanan’s site. All Americans who value separation of church and state should read it. Another article that public school defenders should read is posted at the Scielo site (3-3-2021), “The new official contents of sex education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs.” The research is much broader than the title indicates. Mayor Ryback sent his kids to an Episcopal private school.
The intent of the richest 0.1% who fund the right wing agenda for privatization (btw- Melinda Gates attended Catholic schools) has been described as Christians over non-Christians, whites over blacks, straights over gays and men over women (Melinda came late to realization about the loss of women’s rights/opportunities and claims she now loses sleep over it).
The conservative Catholic majority on SCOTUS exempted religious schools from civil rights employment law in 2020 and in another decision forces taxpayers to fund religious schools.
Catholic organizations are the U.S.’ 3rd largest employer.
Public schools were created as a quality alternative to legacy admission schools. The rich promote colonialism.
Jefferson said, in every country, in every age, the priest aligns with the despot. 63% of white Catholics who attend church regularly voted for Trump in 2020.
Taxpayers were betrayed by their representatives who made Catholic organizations the 3rd largest U.S. employer. One in 6 hospitals are Catholic. Research shows they provide no more indigent care than other private hospitals.
Pope Francis warned us about the weaponized right wing in his church. As example, Catholic Vote praises Hungary’s Orban.
Koch who has a cozy relationship with D.C.-located Catholic University of America and Georgetown Catholic University is the subject of recent research by Popular Information which focused on who is harming Ukraine and supporting Russia.
Ilya Shapiro made infamous for his lesser, black female comment was in the Koch network before Georgetown Law hired him.
Putin gave the assets of the Russian people to oligarchs. Plutocrats in the U.S. who are driven by greed, plot to have Republicans and neoliberals turn over community assets to education oligarchs.
If commenter, Karen, has morals, they are limited in scope.