In her newsletter post “Dear Minneapolis Public Schools: It’s Not Me, It’s You,” Molly Mogren Katt compares the relationship between parents and Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) to dating someone who is “bad with money– always complaining about being broke while making tons of careless financial choices. Their past is full of burned bridges. And they start telling you about the handful of times they’ve blown up their life, chasing some half-baked, hairbrained scheme.”
Katt’s take is humorous, but many parents find the situation anything but funny. On September 15, MPS presented three possible paths for School Transformation, and many parents felt all three were out of step with what families need. Each option closes schools. Parents say the proposals arrived with little warning after a development process they found opaque. Some were concerned enough to come together and write their own counterproposal.
According to Katt, parents are “excavating this plan as we go.” The plan runs 118 pages, and she says it does not put the effects of school closures front and center: how much money closures would save, or how many families would be affected. The deeper problem is trust. Katt says district leaders have worn down the community’s confidence through a series of poor decisions, including the 2020 Comprehensive District Design, which she likens to “district-wide Boggle.” That plan aimed to increase diversity and equity across the district, but despite the upheaval it caused many families, there are few signs it reached those goals.
The new Transformation proposals also set lofty goals:
“MPS School Transformation is a districtwide effort to reimagine a district where every student thrives – academically, socially and emotionally – through a holistic, culturally sustaining education that engages and prepares contributing citizens.”
Before anything else, a culturally sustaining education needs to produce students with reading and math skills at state standards. Today, fewer than half of MPS students do. It may be that we are asking too much of our schools and offering too many options. Families can choose among community schools, magnet schools, charter schools, culturally focused schools, open enrollment in another district, and homeschooling. As Katt puts it, “It’s like when you go to a restaurant and there’s . . . like 80 pages of the menu and you’re like, first of all, how can you make all this food?”
Parents want MPS to succeed. Many volunteer, help with school fundraisers, and serve on committees. They are invested in getting this next stage right, yet the latest proposals have left many of them anxious. Katt is calling for a pause so parents can better understand what the proposals are meant to achieve. She also believes the school board members elected this November are the right people to cast the final votes, since they will be responsible for carrying out the decision and living with its results.
MPS now enrolls about 29,000 students in a system built to serve 43,000. There are different theories about where those students have gone, though many have likely left for private schools and the suburbs. This moment feels like a turning point for whether the district can hold on to its students and grow again.
State races are spending millions to get our attention, but local races often have a bigger impact on our daily lives. That is one of the reasons we created Better Minneapolis. To see what is on your ballot, visit the Minnesota Secretary of State’s sample ballot tool, or find candidate information from the League of Women Voters at Vote411.org.
Here in South Minneapolis, there are two school board races on the ballot:
School Board Member, At Large (vote for two): Michael Baskins, Collin Beachy, Christin Crabtree, and Stephanie Johnson
School Board Member, District 5: Molly Chase and Becca Dryden
Stop by the MPLS Votes booth at Open Streets Hennepin on Sunday, October 11, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. I’ll be handing out voting information and talking with people about local politics. There is plenty to talk about!
