Education

Military recruiters and Minneapolis schools

Filed under: Education

In 2006, in the midst of his successful run for a seat on the Minneapolis Board of Education, a concerned delegate pointed Chris Stewart to a little known provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that makes some federal funding to school districts contingent on access to military recruiters.

"I didn't know then what a reasonable response would be," Stewart says. "But I just knew there had to be something that addressed or challenged it in one way or another."

In recent weeks letters have been landing in the mailboxes of every principal in the Minneapolis School District notifying them of new restrictions on military recruiters--the result of a Stewart drafted resolution that passed unanimously in March.

The resolution restricts recruiters to career centers and requires them to give two weeks notice before making a visit. Seattle, Berkeley and Santa Cruz have passed their own resolutions. Some of those sought to ban the military altogether. Stewart says the Minneapolis restrictions are the "Minnesota nice version."

"It doesn't seek to ban or overly chastise the military," Stewart notes. After some complaints about recruiters cornering kids in hallways and cafeterias, Stewart says the resolution seeks to make sure they act within a "protected space."

"I don't want my kid being evangelized about militarism just because he walks through the hall or into a lunchroom--especially when we are teaching him something vastly different at home. If you are a person who is proud of your family's military service, it is perfectly acceptable for you to find the recruiters in the career center."

Craig Vana, an Associate Superintendent for Minneapolis schools says when he served as a Minneapolis principle, he would give access to "maybe 100 recruiters a year" with between 30 and 40 at a time at career fairs."

Vana says he can recall "very few recruiters behaving inappropriately or crossing lines" but acknowledges the importance of controlling access and "making it very clear what steps to follow to make the appropriate arrangements.

Students of the Minneapolis district, are you out there? What experiences have you had with recruiters?

Military families with kids in the Minneapolis schools: your thoughts?

Here is the full text of the resolution:

RESOLUTION ON RECRUITER ACCESS TO STUDENTS

WHEREAS, the U.S. Military expends approximately $1.4 billion annually (FY 2006) in recruiting efforts; and

WHEREAS, the military has access to student directory information unless the student’s parent has chosen to opt out as mandated by Section 9528 of the “No Child Left Behind Act” (NCLB) which access is provided by the District under threat of loss of federal funding for schools; and

WHEREAS, to continue its core mission of providing a free and effective education for local youth, Minneapolis Special District No. 1 cannot sustain itself without adequate federal funds; and

WHEREAS, questions about the extent of access by military recruiters to students during the school day on school premises can be addressed through the standards in the District’s visitors policy; and

WHEREAS, the Minneapolis School Board is charged with giving guidance as to policy implementation; and

WHEREAS, it is in the best interests of Minneapolis Public School students to receive information about all post-secondary options available to them; and

WHEREAS, it is in the best interests of Minneapolis Public Schools students to be exposed to a variety of viewpoints on controversial issues which may affect their education or welfare; and

WHEREAS, community based organizations may be valuable sources for information on military service;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED: That the Minneapolis Special District No. 1 Board of Education directs the Superintendent and staff to allow access to high school students by organizations which provide information about all aspects of military service if approved as a community partner organization through the District approval process.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that military and other recruiters may interact with students only in school approved locations such as high school College & Career Centers.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, to establish a standard procedure for campus access, all recruiters requesting campus access shall submit a request in writing on official letterhead at least 2 weeks in advance and that notice of their presence will be available to students and the public at least 1 week in advance on either a school web site or designated location for such announcements in the school.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: When high schools permit military recruiters to speak with students regarding military career opportunities, the school must provide equal access for organizations that wish to counsel alternatives to, or provide additional information about, military service. If literature encouraging military service is displayed for students to read or pick up, groups counseling alternatives to military service may similarly display their literature.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That to assure privacy protection for students, entities receiving private student directory information will sign a statement identifying the specific use of the information and certifying that use of the information conforms with all city, state and federal laws regarding privacy and is non-discriminatory.

[Signed]
Lydia Lee
February 26th, 2008
Board of Education Chairperson

[Signed]
Sharon Henry-Blythe
February 26th, 2008
Board of Education Clerk

Posted by Jeff Severns Guntzel at April 21, 2008 3:34 PM | Comments (0)

 

U of M: Worldwide leader in ethanol debunking

Filed under: Education

Time has a great story debunking the clean energy myth. Several studies at the University of Minnesota are cited to show the impact of widespread Ethanol demand.

One of the studies revealed that we're digging ourselves a 400-year-hole with ethanol:

A study by University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman concluded that it will take more than 400 years of biodiesel use to "pay back" the carbon emitted by directly clearing peat lands to grow palm oil; clearing grasslands to grow corn for ethanol has a payback period of 93 years. The result is that biofuels increase demand for crops, which boosts prices, which drives agricultural expansion, which eats forests.

The U of M also established that converting food into fuel is leaving more people hungry:

Four years ago, two University of Minnesota researchers predicted the ranks of the hungry would drop to 625 million by 2025; last year, after adjusting for the inflationary effects of biofuels, they increased their prediction to 1.2 billion.

Posted by Kevin Hoffman at April 6, 2008 1:49 PM | Comments (9)

 

Denied in Edina

Filed under: Education

Steve Groen, the superintendent of Edina’s Calvin Christian School, felt pretty good heading into the Edina City Council meeting last night. A month earlier, the council had voted unanimously to consider issuing his school $1.5 million in non-profit revenue bonds to go toward expanding the school’s library and classrooms. Tonight was the big vote and there was reason to feel confident.

But there was one thing standing in the way of the coveted funds: the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

In a letter sent to councilmembers last week Tuesday, the ACLU of Minnesota implored the council to reject the proposal on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.

“The constitutional test for whether [such a] revenue bond financing violates the Establishment Clause is a three prong test,” wrote Teresa Nelson. “Whether the pass through bond program advances a clear, governmental, secular interest; whether the program’s primary effect is to advance or inhibit religion; and wherther the program presents the perception of endorsement of religion to the reasonable observer. We believe that the proposed revenue bond financing for the Calvin Christian School would fail that test.”

During the public hearing preceding the vote, Steve Fenlon—a nonprofit tax-exempt finance specialist hired by Calvinist Christian—made the case for the K-8 school by naming a slew of other religious schools that had received revenue bonds.

“In the past five years, it’s become a more popular financing tool for these institutions,” he said.

Three local residents went before the council to voice their opposition to the proposal.

“I think it’s terribly inappropriate for the city to get involved with funding religious study,” said Jonathan Gross, who lives near the school. “By their own admission, there is no separation from educational curriculum and religious instruction.”

(The school’s webpage states: “From the sciences to the arts, from the classroom to the playground, every part of the Calvin experience is built on biblical principles and focused on equipping young disciples of Christ for leadership and service.”)

Unconvinced the funds would finance secular-only aspects or that the addition would create more jobs, the council rejected the resolution.

“I see no way to distinguish between the secular and sectarian,” said Republican-turned-DFLer Mayor James Hovland, who announced he’s running for Congress in Minnesota’s 3rd District last month. “I join my colleagues for their reasons expressed in rejecting this motion.”

The only “yea” came from Scot Housh, who is making a bid to replace Hovland as mayor.

After the vote, Superintendent Groen and his cohorts gathered in the hallway to lick their wounds.

“I’ve done hundreds of these things and this is the first one I’ve seen that’s been turned down,” said a dejected Fenlon.

Calvin Christian officials say the renovation—which has been ongoing since December—will continue as planned.

“We’ll either go back to the city and ask them to reconsider or find some other means of payment,” said Jim De Young, the school’s Development Director.

Posted by Matt Snyders at March 4, 2008 3:17 PM | Comments (3)

 

Twin Cities Can Read Good

Filed under: Education

Minneapolis has reclaimed its ranking as "America's Most Literate City" -- and St. Paul has jumped from 11th to 3rd.

Residents of St. Paul "show evidence of stable or increased literate behaviors, be it reading newspapers or magazines, going online, library use, or buying books from a local bookstore," according to researcher Jack Miller. In this, St. Paul bucks a disturbing nationwide trend -- it's the only city nationwide where Sunday newspaper circulation has increased per capita.

The rankings are based on several metrics within six categories, including "newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources." Last year's literacy champion, Seattle, slipped to second.

Verily, I think I speak for all us learned and sagacious denizens of these dual metropolises when I say: Suck it, Seattle. I hereby challenge Seattle Weekly's talented and debonair web editor, Chris Kornelis, to a read-off. Alternative weeklies at 10 paces.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at December 27, 2007 3:10 PM | Comments (3)

 

Black like you

Filed under: Education

The Strib and others carry reports today about six Hamline University football players who have been suspended for dressing in blackface for Halloween. John Strausbaugh's extremely interesting 2006 book Black Like You, scrutinizes the history and role of blackface in American life. One curious fact that Strausbaugh points out is that the use of blackface has become surprisingly common in the last decade--especially on college campuses.

Indeed a quick Nexis search of the terms "blackface," "controversy" and "college or university" yields 188 stories in the last five years. This Halloween, for instance, four white students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign sparked controversy when they painted their faces brown to imitate the Jamaican national bobsled team, while four Colorado College hockey players (including two Minnesotans) were suspended after donning blackface to imitate the characters on "Family Matters." In January students at Clemson University marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day by hosting a "Ghetto Fabulous" party featuring white students in blackface swilling 40s and sporting fake teeth grills. In 2005 it was students at Stetson University raising eyebrows when they painted their faces black in imitation of the school's basketball squad.

Posted by Paul Demko at November 5, 2007 1:20 PM | Comments (4)

 

Anti-Levy Mercenary on the Loose in Robbinsdale

Filed under: Education

Minnesotans in 99 school districts will vote Tuesday on $229 million dollars in school levy money. The Robbinsdale district keeps popping up in the news because of organized opposition to its levy, fueled in part by Paul Dorr--an Iowa-based consultant and a sort of mercenary who hires himself out to defeat exactly the kind of levy Robbinsdale is trying to pass. City Pages took a close look at Dorr in 2005--turns out Molly Priesmeyer's profile was quite prescient.

When we looked at Dorr's work and history in 2005, he was engaged in a battle to defeat a school bond referendum in the small Minnesota town of Lyle.

From The Gospel According to Paul Dorr:

In the weeks leading up to the vote, the people of Lyle had heard Dorr's name bandied about everywhere. They knew that Dorr had been the key figure in defeating school bond referendums throughout Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Minnesota. They knew that in less than two years, Dorr had worked in six other school districts in southern Minnesota, and that in April he was battling to snuff out the bond issue in Lyle and an $18.9 million referendum in Blooming Prairie.

They'd come across more colorful details about him, too. They had heard rumors about him selling Y2K goods. They'd heard that he once accused an Iowa judge of promoting bestiality because she was part owner of a Budweiser distributorship in northwest Iowa. His evidence was an ad featuring a talking chimp who flirts with a woman. (It ended up that it wasn't the judge, but her sister-in-law of the same name who owned the distributorship). All of these stories about Dorr turned out to be true.

Dorr was clear about his mission in 2005, and our profile ends with this proclamation: "My solution for Christians: Stop fueling tax consumption wherever we lawfully can and abandon their 'schools.' Let them devour themselves without us. We have a future to build."

Posted by Jeff Severns Guntzel at November 5, 2007 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

 

Tutu's "anti-Semitic" speech

Filed under: Education

As we report in this week's issue, University of St. Thomas administrators derailed plans of hosting Archbishop Desmond Tutu next spring amidst concerns that his past criticisms of Israel veered into anti-Semitic territory.

Critics point to one speech in particular--"Occupation is Oppression" delivered 2002 in Boston--as evidence of Tutu's anti-Semitism. Below is a transcript of the speech. (Courtesy of Julie Swiler of the Jewish Community Relations Council) Was Tutu out of line? Share your thoughts in the comment box.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Keynote address on April 13, 2002, Old South Church, Boston, MA - USA
Friends of Sabeel North America’s Conference: “Ending the Occupation”
Transcription Prepared by Allison B. Hodgkins, Friends of Sabeel – New England
Keynote Address by Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “Occupation is Oppression”

Thank you very, very much. Thank you again for the very warm words of introduction. Thank you for how much you have cared for us. When you were presiding Bishop, you showed so much solidarity with is in our travail. You supported us you supported sanctions even when it was unpopular in your Church. Thank you. And thank you Naim. Thank you for remaining so passionate and committed under quite devastating circumstances. Now, if you will forgive me if I forget and think that in fact I am, I am supposed to be preaching (laughter) and then behave like the preacher who went on for a very long time in his sermon and after a long, long sermon he said: “What more can I say?” (laughter) And, somebody in the back said: “AMEN!” (applause, laughter)

It is a very great privilege to have been asked to come here. And, I mean, I want you to be able to affirm yourselves. I know now that you are a very shy people – very reserved. But, you know were free in South Africa today because of people like yourselves. People who sometimes - when it really looked like you were trying to freeze over hell – who went on going on. And here are – free! Free because there were people who cared. Who cared even when it looked totally impossible. And so, I want to thank you for that, but thank you also specially for being here. Thank you. Thank you, because you see God weeping over what God sees in the Middle East and other places and says: “Gee Wiz! What ever got into me to create that lot?” (laughter) And then God sees you. God looks down and God smiles and says: “Hey, Don’t they justify the risk that I took?” And, God says: “Thank you – Thank you for, for, for proving me right.” Because you see, actually God has no one except ourselves – absolutely no one. And, God is extraordinary because God is omnipotent and you know what it means omnipotent- all powerful - but, God is also utterly impotent. God does not dispatch lighting bolts to remove tyrants as we might have hoped he could. God waits for you, for you, for you, for you. Because God says: “You are my partner, and I am as weak as the weakest of my partners.”

That’s just, that’s just a small, little preamble. But I would like, actually to say thank you God for me. Thank you God that you made me – me, to celebrate who you are. Because, you see for God, you are the best thing that God ever created. You, you: a masterpiece in the making. And so, how about giving yourselves – hey you – Why, lets give ourselves a warm cheer! I mean, come on! (applause) I, I, I did that once with a lot – a few young people, 2,000 young people. I said lets celebrate who we are and lets give ourselves a warm hand, and, and they did quite a decent thing. And then I said: “how about giving God a standing ovation” and they nearly took the roof off. And without thinking, near the end, I said: “thank you!” (laughter)

I would actually have preferred that the title … the title here is ‘Occupation is Oppression.’ Now, I would like for us to have changed that and said – give peace a chance – for peace is possible. You see, we are bearers of hope for God’s children in the Holy Land. For God’s people the Israeli Jews, and God’s people the Palestinian Arabs. We want to say to them: our hearts go out to all who have suffered as a result of the violence of suicide bombers and the violence of military incursions and reprisals and express our deepest sympathies to all who have been injured and bereaved in the horrendous events of recent times. We want to say to all involved in the events of these past days –

Peace is possible. Israeli Jew, Palestinian Arab can live amicably side by side in a secure peace. And, as Cannon Ateek kept underscoring, a secure peace built on justice and equity. These two peoples are God’s chosen and beloved, looking in their face back to a common ancestor Abraham and confessing belief in the one creator God of salaam and shalom.

I give thanks for all that I have received as a Christian from the teachings of God’s people the Jews. When we were opposing the vicious system of apartheid, which claimed that what invested people with worth was a biological irrelevance – skin color – we turned to the Jewish Torah, which asserted that what gave people their infinite worth was the fact that they were created in the image of God. Thus, on this score, Apartheid was unbiblical, evil without remainder and therefore, unchristian. And when our people groaned by virtue of the burden of racist oppression, we invoked the God who addressed Moses in the burning bush, we told our people that our God had heard their cry, had seen their anguish, and knew their suffering, and would come down, this great God of exodus, this liberator God as in the past to deliver us as God had delivered Israel from bondage. We told them that God was notoriously biased in favor of those without clout; the poor, the weak, the hungry, the voiceless, as God had shown when God intervened through the Prophet Nathan against King David on behalf of Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband. Or, as God intervened through Elijah on behalf of Naboth, against King Ahab and Jezebel when they confiscated Naboth’s vineyard and caused Naboth to be killed. And, this God never abandoned us. For when we were thrown into the fiery furnace of tribulation and suffering caused by Apartheid, this God would be there with us as Emanuel – ‘God with us.’ Just as God had been there with Daniel and his companions. That this God rejected worship, which did not change the lives and conduct of the worshippers. To make them care especially for the widow, the orphan and the alien. Those in most societies who are among the most vulnerable and least influential. That this God preferred obedience to sacrifice, to doing the truth, to showing mercy rather than sacrifice, making justice flow like a river, walking humbly with God. And this God called on God’s people always to remember, to remember that they had been aliens and slaves and this memory would galvanize them and inspire them to be in their turn compassionate and generous with the alien in their midst.

We would invoke the Jewish scriptures that have asserted that this was God’s world and despite all appearances to the contrary, God was in charge. That this was, therefore, a moral universe. There was no way in which might would ever be right. That injustice, lies, oppression could never have the last word in the universe of this God. That oppressors and dictators and those who flouted the laws of this moral universe would, in the end, bite the dust.

And in our struggle against Apartheid, some of the most outstanding stalwarts were Jews: the Helen Suzmans, the Joe Slovos, the Alvie Saches. As in this country in the Civil Rights movement, Jews almost instinctively, as a matter or course, had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the discriminated against, of the voiceless ones fighting injustice, oppression and evil and given their religious traditions, their history. I have continued to feel strongly with the Jews. I with many other Nobel Peace Laureates. I, after taking counsel with the then Bishop of Jerusalem, am a member of the Board of the Shimon Peres peace center in Tel Aviv. I am a patron of the Holocaust center in Capetown. I believe that Israel has a right to secure borders, internationally recognized, in a land assured of territorial integrity and with acknowledged sovereignty as an independent country. That the Arab nations made a bad mistake in refusing to recognize the existence of sovereign Israel and in pledging to work for her destruction.

It was a short sighted policy that led to Israel’s nervousness, her high state of alert and military preparedness to guarantee her continued existence. This was understandable. What was no so understandable, what was not justifiable was what Israel did to another people to guarantee her existence. I have been very deeply distressed in all my visits to the Holy Land, how so much of what was taking place there reminded me so much of what used to happen to us Blacks in Apartheid South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at the road blocks and recall what used to happen to us in our motherland, when arrogant, young white police officers would hector, and bully us, and demean us when we ran the gauntlet of their unpredictable whims – whether they would let you through or not. When they seemed to derive so much fun out of our sullen humiliation. I have seen such scenes, or heard of them, being played out in the Holy Land. The rough and discourteous demands for IDs from the Palestinians were so uncannily reminiscent of the infamous pass law raids of the vicious Apartheid regime.

We saw on those visits, or read about things that did not happen even in Apartheid South Africa. The demolition of homes because of a suspicion that one or other family member was a terrorist. And so, all paid a price in these acts of collective punishment. Seemingly being repeated more recently in the attacks on Arab refugee camps. We don’t know the exact truth because the Israelis won’t let the media in. What are they hiding? But perhaps, more seriously, why is their no outcry in this country at the censorship of their media. For you see, what now is going to happen is that you will frequently be being shown the harrowing images of what suicide bombers have done, which is something we all condemn unequivocally. But you see, you don’t see what those tanks are doing to the homes of just ordinary people.

On one of my visits to the Holy Land, I drove one Sunday to a Church Service with the Anglican Bishop. We went past Ramallah. I could hear the tears in his voice as he pointed to the Jewish settlements and I thought of the desires of the Israeli, Israelis for security, and the anguish of the Palestinians at the land they had lost. The occupation [unclear] said, “they are nothing, they count for nothing.” And that pain, and the many humiliations that have been suffered is fertile soil for the desperation of suicide bombers. I have heard Palestinians pointing to a residence. I was walking with Cannon Ateek whose father was a jeweler. And as we walked in Jerusalem he pointed out and said: “our home was over there. We were driven out of our home. It is now occupied by Israeli Jews.” And then I recalled how many times people of color would point in South Africa much the same way to their former homes from which they had been expelled and which were now inhabited by whites.

My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short? Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten the humiliation of wearing yellow arm bands with the Star of David? Have my Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten the collective punishment? The home demolitions? Have they forgotten their own history so soon? And have they turned their back on their profound noble and religious traditions? Have they forgotten that their God, our God, is a God who sides with the poor, the despised, the down trodden? That this is a moral universe? That they will never, they will never get true security and safety from the barrel of a gun? That true peace can ultimately be built only on justice and equity?

We condemn the violence of suicide bombers. And if Arab children are taught to hate Jews, we condemn the corruption of young minds too. But we condemn equally unequivocally the violence of military incursions and reprisals that won’t let ambulances and medical personnel reach the injured. That wreak an unparalleled revenge, totally imbalanced, even with the Torah’s law of an eye for an eye – which was designed actually to restrict revenge to the perpetrator and perhaps those supporting him. That it is the humiliation and desperation of an occupied and hapless people which are the root causes of the suicide bombing. And the military action recent days – I want to predict with almost absolute certainty – will not provide the security and the peace the Israelis want.

All it is doing is intensifying the hatred and the resentment and guaranteeing that one day a suicide bomber will arise to wreak revenge. Israel has three options: to revert to the stalemate of the recent status-quo bristling with tension, hatred and violence. Or, to perpetuate genocide and exterminate all Palestinians. Or third – which is what I hope they will chose – to strive for peace based on justice based on withdrawal from all the occupied territory. And for the Palestinians to be committed too and say so loud and clear at every opportunity that they too are committed to such a peace. We in South Africa had a situation where everyone thought we would be overwhelmed by a blood bath. The blood bath did not happen. We had a relatively peaceful transition. And, instead of revenge and retribution, we had a remarkable process of forgiveness and reconciliation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. If our madness, if our intractable problem could have ended as it did, then we believe it must be possible everywhere else in the world. For South Africa is yes, an unlikely candidate, but South Africa is this beacon of hope, beacon of hope for the rest of the world. If it could happen in South Africa it can happen anywhere else. If peace could come in South Africa then surely it can come in the Holy Land.
Sometimes they ask: “Does this mean you are pro-Palestinian?” And my brother Naim Ateek has said what we, that we used to say too: I am not pro this or that people, I am pro justice. I am pro freedom. I am anti-injustice, anti-oppression any and everywhere that it occurs.

But you know, as well as I do that somehow the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal where to criticize them is immediately to be dubbed anti-Semitic. As if the Palestinians were not Semitic. (applause) I, I have not been even anti-white despite all the suffering that that crazy group inflicted on our people. NO! How could I be – if I wasn’t eve anti those who did that to us – be anti-Jew? Because that is actually the term that ought to be used Are you anti-Jewish? Not anti-Semitic. And then, you would have to say the same thing to the biblical prophets – because they were some of the most scathing critics of the Jewish leadership of their day. We don’t criticize Jewish people. We criticize, we will criticize, when they need to be criticized the government of Israel.

They said the same to us, I mean when we said to them: Can you explain to us how it comes about that you can collaborate with the Apartheid government on security matters, how you could prolong our oppression. And they would say you’re being anti-Semitic. I said: “tough luck. Really tough luck.” And when we raise similar questions about the treatment of Palestinians when we were visiting the Holy Land in the time that Cannon Ateek was speaking of, they put up, they painted graffiti just outside St, George Cathedral in Jerusalem: ‘Tutu is a black Nazi Pig.’ We come from there.

People are scared in this country to say wrong is wrong. (applause) Because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful. Ha, Ha, Ha ha! So what? So what! This is God’s world! For goodness sake this is God’s world! The Apartheid government was very powerful, but we said to them: Watch it! If you flout the laws of this universe, you’re going to bite the dust! (applause) Hitler was powerful. Mussolini was powerful. Stalin was powerful. Idi Amin was powerful. Pinochet was powerful. The Apartheid government were powerful. Milosevic was powerful. But, this is God’s world. A lie, injustice, oppression, those will never prevail in the world of this God. That is what we told our people. And we used to say: those ones, they have already lost, they are, they are going to bite the dust one day. We may not be around. An unjust Israeli government, however, powerful will fall in the world of this kind of God. Because we don’t want for that to happen but those who are powerful have to remember the litmus test that God gives to the powerful – what is your treatment of the poor, the hungry? What is your treatment of the vulnerable, the voiceless? And on the basis of that, God passes God’s judgment.

We should put out a clarion call. Let’s, let’s make a clarion call to the government of the people of Israel. A clarion call to the Palestinian people and say peace is possible! Peace based on justice is possible! And we are meeting today, and we will continue going on, calling for this, for your own sakes Israeli Jews, for your own sakes Palestinian Arabs. Peace is possible and we will do all we can to assist you in achieving this peace which is within your grasp, because it is God’s dream that you will be able to live amicably together as sisters and brothers, side by side because you belong in God’s family. Peace! Peace! Peace!
(applause – standing ovation)

Posted by Matt Snyders at October 4, 2007 11:30 AM | Comments (15)

 

Banning Desmond Tutu

Filed under: Education

Matt Snyders' excellent piece detailing the University of St. Thomas' bewildering decision to rescind an invitation for Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu to speak on the campus was picked up by both daily newspapers today. While the Pi Press went the classy route by citing the original CP story, the Strib simply stole the scoop.

Posted by Paul Demko at October 4, 2007 11:06 AM | Comments (1)

 

U of M strike over; workers blink first

Filed under: Education

U of M administrators are no doubt breaking out the bubbly this afternoon.

Union negotiators decided today to end the more than two-week strike by clerical, technical and health care workers at the school, and to take the administration's offer to a vote of the membership. Union leadership is neither endorsing nor opposing the current offer.

Going into the strike, the union had demanded raises beyond the 2.25 and 2.5 percent annual increases offered by the school. But the school didn't budge. Instead, it has offered $300 lump-sum payments in each of the two years of the contract for all employees.

In other words--and it's hard to put this in other words--the strike was a failure.

Posted by Jonathan Kaminsky at September 21, 2007 1:46 PM | Comments (17)

 

The Little School That Could

Filed under: Education

Only in Prospect Park would news that the neighborhood's pride and joy, Pratt Elementary, is slated for merger with another Southeast Minneapolis school be greeted with vows to redouble the amount of community elbow grease being applied.

In other quadrants of the city, the kind of news Pratt's absorbing would touch off a stampede to get little Charlotte and Dylan into the Waldorf school. But Pratt's parents--half Somali immigrants, half university staff and other middle-class types hopelessly prone to civic do-goodism--are apparently responding by e-mailing one another to make sure there are enough volunteers on the roster to bring all the new students up to speed.

Sure, make the rest of us look all self-interested and unwilling to sacrifice our pocketbooks for our principles. We ought to come TP your precious watchtower.

On Monday night, parents and neighbors gathered at Pratt, expecting to hear Minneapolis Public Schools brass say their school was one of the ones the district planned to close. They thought it was a courtesy call to let the community know before MPS staff presented their explanations to the board the following night. As it happened, the meeting was a heads-up, but to news that staff were recommending nearby Tuttle be closed and it's elementary students moved to Pratt. Pratt currently has just 90 students in four classrooms; the addition of Tuttle's K-5 population would triple the size of the student body.

The community publication The Bridge has a lengthy dissection of MPS staff's reasoning, posted today on www.tcdailyplanet.net.

It's not a done deal; MPS has scheduled a public comment session at Tuttle, the school slated for closing, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 28th. That's to be followed by a larger hearing on the overall closing plan to be held at Patrick Henry High School on April 10, and, of course, a school board vote, now scheduled for April 12.

Still, Pratt's supporters--who lovingly rehabbed the old school with their own hands and their own money--are already talking about how to turn disappointment into opportunity. "To make the Pratt model survive, we'll have to be really careful," says parent Scott Johnson. "I would never want to get into pitting one community against another. We all care deeply about our schools."

Posted by Beth Hawkins at March 22, 2007 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

 

What if a School Closed and Nobody Hollered?

Filed under: Education

Perhaps Hell has in fact frozen over. Last night at Minneapolis Public Schools HQ, the school board discussed the likely closure of a number of city schools and the transfer of their students to other schools. And no one screamed. No names were called. Nary an accusation of indifference or ineptitude was floated. We can't say for sure when last there was so much quiet discussion at 807 Broadway, but it's probably safe to say there are middle-schoolers who couldn't say the alphabet last time this happened.

Last night the board and the public got their first gander at the so-called North Side Initiative, under which MPS would close anywhere from four to eight schools at the end of this academic year. In concert, the district would beef up resources in the remaining schools and lower class sizes in early grades. And yes, that deafening silence would be coming from Minneapolis's African American community, which has long been at odds with school administrators.

Of course, none of this is to say that any dust has settled. Board member Chris Stewart, for one, hasn't exhaled and doesn't expect to know whether the reorganization plan will earn the district any renewed community trust until administrators hear from the parents of the 1,100 to 1,800 children facing reassignment.

Today's Star Tribune contains a fine account of the plan and the conditions that gave rise to it. But if you're interested in more detailed information or want to try to handicap the odds for a particular school, a visit to the MPS website will supply even more details.

A chart laying out the proposed timeline and direct comparisons of the three proposed scenarios can be found here. (Caveat: scenario C bit the dust last night.) But even more helpful is the presentation found here, which includes clear, concise information on which classrooms are half-full and which bursting at the seams.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at February 28, 2007 3:22 PM | Comments (1)

 

Incoming Minneapolis School Board: Attend

Filed under: Education

Two items the fresh meat for the MPS mill might want to read carefully

What a bummer we didn't elect Carla Bates to the Minneapolis School Board earlier this month. Not that she was running: According to her bio at Twin Cities Daily Planet, Bates is an instructional technology coordinator at the University of Minnesota and the mother of three MPS students. She's also the site's education editor, in which capacity she's penned an agenda for the new board's first 100 days that's ambitious and sensible--if politically sticky. You can read it here.

The gist: Bates proposes tackling the rest of the to-do list rejected superintendent candidate David Jennings laid down on his way out of his interim posting, most notably closing 10 half-filled schools and doing something about the Dickensian teacher-student ratios at the others. She also just comes right out and says a few things that seem obvious to most of us but don't seem to be appropriate topics for discussion among many educators and district administrators: Someone needs to help foot the bill for shipping erstwhile MPS kids to charters and for the disproportionate amount of special ed the district provides. Oh yeah--and pay some serious attention to in-school disciplinary issues.

Why didn't Bates run? Who knows, this is the first she's come to our attention. But there's a better than middling chance she, like most sensible critics of the district, would have gone screaming in the other direction if approached. The majority on the outgoing board may well be remembered as the cabal that robbed the listing ship at 807 Broadway of its meagre remaining credibility. They ignored Jennings, hired an unstable replacement whose drawn-out departure caused tectonic shifts in race relations in Minneapolis, drove talented staff to the 'burbs, and only accelerated families' rush to pull kids out of MPS schools in favor of any half-attractive alternative.

Which provides a tidy segue to the second item of interest on the 'net today: The Twin Cities have been selected as the site for a new Knowledge is Power Program school. To Bates' list we'd like to add an item: Close those half-empty schools if you must, but move heaven and earth to snare the new KIPP school for MPS.

Here's the PiPress' explanation of KIPP:

The Knowledge is Power Program started with one school in 1994. It now has 52 schools in 16 states and is recognized for having improved the performance of low-income and minority students....

Students at KIPP schools have longer school days and school years than their peers at other public schools. They're in class from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. every weekday and four hours every other Saturday. They also have school for three weeks during the summer.

KIPP also is known for intensive training for teachers and school leaders and for setting high expectations for staff. Teachers are given cell phones and are required to have them on at all times so students can call with homework questions.

Volumes have been written about what does and doesn't work in terms of reaching the disadvantaged students who are increasingly clustered in districts like MPS, and it's tempting to write off the buzz surrounding KIPP because of its resemblance to the rhetoric used to promote No Child Left Behind and other save the schools by killing them strategies. And KIPP, which gets huge foundation support most public school principals would sell their souls for, may still turn out to be the brave experiment du jour. In any case, the approach is conveniently detailed in Sunday's New York Times, and not all of it is going to be immediately palatable to the average practitioner of Minnesota Nice:

The schools...are not racially integrated. Most of the 70 or so schools that make up their three networks have only one or two white children enrolled, or none at all. Although as charter schools, their admission is open through a lottery to any student in the cities they serve, their clear purpose is to educate poor black and Hispanic children. The guiding principle for the four school leaders, all of whom are white, is an unexpected twist on the "separate but equal" standard: they assert that for these students, an "equal" education is not good enough. Students who enter middle school significantly behind grade level don't need the same good education that most American middle-class students receive; they need a better education, because they need to catch up. Toll, especially, is preoccupied with the achievement gap: her schools' stated mission is to close the gap entirely. "The promise in America is that if you work hard, if you make good decisions, that you'll be able to be successful," Toll explained to me. "And given the current state of public education in a lot of our communities, that promise is just not true. There's not a level playing field."

You can read the rest of the Times piece here.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at November 29, 2006 11:33 AM | Comments (4)

 

Do they have the Internets at the U of M Law School?

Filed under: Education

The Minnesota Daily reported yesterday on the ruckus currently unfolding at the U of M Law School over the hiring of Robert Delahunty to teach a Constitutional law course next semester. Delahunty formerly served in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. In that capacity he co-wrote one of the so-called "torture memos" that seemingly justified the psychological and physical abuse of detainees in the war on terrorism.

Delahunty joined the University of St. Thomas School of Law as a professor two years ago. The U of M is hiring him to teach a single class.

The Pioneer Press follows up on the story this morning. Amazingly law school officials tell the newspaper that they were not aware of Delahunty's connection to the controversial memo, which he authored with John Yoo. Which raises the question: How exactly do they vet adjunct professors at the law school?

At least nine U of M law school professors have signed on to a letter asking the school to reconsider the hiring decision. Read the document here.

Posted by Paul Demko at November 29, 2006 10:05 AM | Comments (9)

 

What Jim Said

Filed under: Education

Reading, Righties, and Righteousness

In the first few weeks of school, my 7-year-old twice came home with news that gave me pause. The first time, he announced that his class had practiced "locking down," in case there was an intruder in the school. The second time, he brought home a sealed envelope and stood anxiously by as I opened it.

The letter from his teacher said that the class had read a series of books on different kinds of families. The class was talking about one of the stories, about a girl who has two mothers, when the teacher told them he was gay and was in the process of adopting a child with his partner. The kids' reactions varied, the teacher wrote; some were disrespectful and we might expect to hear about it at home.

When I was done reading, my son asked if he could see the letter. When he was done, I asked him what he thought. It came out in a second-grader's convoluted way, but what he thought was that it was suddenly interesting that his Uncle Randy and I are adopted, and that he had come to suspect that being adopted might bear some relationship to the other family oddity floating around in his head, that Uncle Randy has brown skin and I don't.

My stomach rolled. We were headed toward the sticky stuff at the bottom of the parental toy chest: Where do families get babies, anyhow, and if Grandma got you at the Indianapolis airport where did you get me? You could see the inevitable question forming in his brain, but then he must have decided he's not ready to know, because he changed the subject.

My son hasn't brought it up again, but in the last few days the episode has taken on a life of its own. Two of the mothers of his classmates complained to the principal of the school, Interdistrict Downtown School in Minneapolis, and asked to have their children moved to another class. She demurred, and a media maelstrom was born, complete with a protest comprised mostly of people school staffers say they have never seen before. As Jim Walsh has already noted several posts down, Katherine Kersten weighed in on the saga today, implying in a virtually context-free column that there was some "real irony" involved--presumably because the two angry mothers, who she describes as "a group," are African American.

Let's not bother with Kersten's questionable use of the word irony, let's move straight on to the monster in the closet. Was it Freud who said that all children fantasize about the act of their creation? (I do know that it was Bill Maher who quipped that if a man is going to stick something in another man, it had better be a bullet.) I don't remember exactly, but it's unarguably true that we've all wondered what those grownups were doing in the next room, and how it would make us feel to do it. Because my boy keeps tiptoeing up to the keyhole, so to speak, I haven't had to frame The Talk. But it looms, and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that after we grow up, find out, and procreate (or adopt), we all also feel every bit as squeamish and awkward and small and childlike when junior finally does ask about Tab A and Slot B. And that's really the problem here, isn't it?

As it happens, I agree with Kersten on two points: Adults shouldn't project their agendas on to children, and parents have a right to frame The Talk as they see fit. But I also happen to think that it's a parent's place to answer a kid's questions about the things he sees and hears out in the world, and if you think you're going to get out of this part of the job by imposing a Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy on teachers, your head is firmly up Slot B.

Here are a few things not noted by any of the news stories on this I've seen. The teacher did not gather everyone around for a coming out session; he answered a question honestly. The books were written with the express purpose of helping kids learn to respect each other; other titles in the series are about adopted families, single parents, foster parents, and so on. The parents of the other 21 kids in the class aren't angry; several have expressed gratitude that their children came home talking about how it turns out they're not the only ones whose family somehow looks a little sub-nuclear.

And if it matters, I hear that "Asha's Mums" doesn't talk about things that go bump in the night, but about the puzzles that arise when a little girl with two mothers can't get a field trip permission slip filled out to her teacher's satisfaction.

It's explosive stuff for kids and parents alike because the question of how families get formed is central to so much: How we order our personal lives, who we invest in, how we order society, and on whom we bestow privileges and obligations. Historically, marriage has meant an economic and social alliance within which children are created and reared. That has changed, of course, sending ripples everywhere. And not even homeschooling is going to keep the kids from noticing. The toothpaste is not going to go back in the tube.

If you've spent any time at all watching the Lord of the Flies atmosphere on the playground at recess, you know kids are quick to use differences to bully one another. And it's a quick hop from bullying to the other news from school that made my stomach tighten: That the air-raid drills of yore have been replaced with instruction on responding to an armed intruder. The intruders often seem to have been the targets of the bullies, kids who were forced to ride it out alone.

And have you seen the statistics for suicide among gay teens?

My son's teacher told the truth in an appropriate context. In doing so, he taught his class a lesson in self-respect. And while the grownups may still have their knickers in a twist, second grade has moved on to liquids, solids, and gases.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at October 12, 2006 4:41 PM | Comments (2)

 

MPS Superintent Green at Barton: Big Changes Ahead

Filed under: Education

Interim Superintendent Bill Green of the Minneapolis Public Schools held a town hall meeting at Barton Open School in south Minneapolis Monday night to update parents on the state of the district three months after his predecessor, Thandiwe Peebles, acrimoniously "resigned" her post after an extended soap opera with the current MPS board.

A pretty straight shooter during his tenure on the school board during the 90s, Green was more cautious and more reliant on bureaucratic generalities in the course of the hour-long discussion at Barton. For example, he said he has determined his time as superintendent should be focused around three priorities: 1) healing and rebuilding trust; 2) refocusing on student achievement; and 3) laying the groundwork for strategic planning by the district--and that he had come to realize that all three things were interrelated.

There are a couple of obvious reasons for this bland approach. First, as reflected in his first priority, Green is on board to be a balm, and to try and calm the turbulance from the flap over Peebles that has significantly wounded this district. Second, as Green noted, four of the seven school board positions are up for a vote in November. With two of the four incumbents already choosing not to face reelection and the other two facing a public unhappy over the Peebles fiasco, there could be a significant overhaul of the board. Furthermore, Green may not enjoy the support of a reconstituted board, or, conversely, may decide he can't support their philosophy. That's why "It's not the best time to begin a new planning process," he said, adding that he and the community "can begin laying the groundwork."

Even with all the caution and cavaets, however, Green included enough clues between the lines to indicate that he believes huge changes need to occur within the district. At one point he said the district, "Desperately needs to reorganize the whole financial picture," and "redefine community--not passively but aggressively learning what the community is about." And he called these changes "scary as hell...with no precedent."

Later, responding to a question about transparency in the strategic planning process, Green said "We are talking about defining a completely different system [for] what the Minneapolis Public Schools will look like," adding that "it will take a profound commitment on the part of the community" to make that happen. He talked about organizing meaningful parent advisory committees and pointedly said, "Sharing of power is the heart of the challenge we face in the future. Not all the parents who need to be at the table are at the table. I'm specifically talking about parents of color." He added that their input was crucial and if it had to be solicited in more segregated settings where the parents were more comfortable providing feedback, that was a concession he was willing to make.

In an address long on generalities, Green did make one firm pronouncement. Despite the upcoming elections and the fragmented nature of the district along race, class, and geographical lines, he said that "there has to be an educated community willing to sit down and talk about strategic planning by next spring."

Posted by Britt Robson at May 3, 2006 1:17 PM | Comments (2)

 

The business model fails the Minnesota Business Academy

Filed under: Education

Last summer, the St. Paul City Council voted to forgive a $750,000 loan to the Minnesota Business Academy, an experimental charter school that enjoyed the backing of many prominent politicians and business people. At the time, there was considerable skepticism voiced over the bail out. The school--which aimed to immerse its "associates" in the business culture--had struggled financially from its inception six years ago, largely because of the more than $9 million it expended on start up costs.

After the City Council came to the rescue, MBA executive director Jerry Neff expressed optimism about the future, telling worried parents, "We're here to stay." Some former students, staffers and others affiliated with the school were far less sanguine about the prospects. "I would not recommend this school to anyone," former MBA board chair Kathy Mirsch told City Pages at the time. "I think it's living on borrowed time."

As it turned out, Mirsch had the better crystal ball. Last night, the MBA board voted to shutter the operation at the end of the current school year. The main reason: the school could not consistently enroll enough students. Executive director Neff attributed the enrollment woes in part to media coverage of the MBA's financial difficulties.

Posted by Mike Mosedale at April 27, 2006 10:41 AM | Comments (21)

 

Just Say No

Filed under: Education

Drug convictions mean no aid for 2,500 Minnesotans

Today's Slate has a funny little piece on some recently produced statistics on the 8-year old federal law that bars anyone with a drug conviction from obtaining financial aid.

In 1998, Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., an advocate of stringent drug laws, slipped into a House bill an amendment denying federal financial aid for college to anyone who had been convicted of either selling or possessing drugs. No congressional committee voted on the amendment. But it passed as part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, first enacted in 1965 to create federal financial aid for college students.

According to statistics appended to the article, would-be Minnesota students are denied aid at a lower rate than their brethren in other states, but plenty are still losing out. The biggest losers? Students in Souder's Indiana: "As of August 2005, nearly 9,000 Indianan students--one in 200--have been denied aid since the law passed. That's the highest proportion of students affected in any state by a wide margin."

The article includes an interesting aside on the likelihood that anyone with a state-court conviction will get caught if they lie on their aid application form. "A word to the wise, and the not-so-wise: You may want to just check 'no.'"

Posted by Beth Hawkins at April 14, 2006 9:29 AM | Comments (0)

 

Still Bozos: Minneapolis School Board members resist electoral reform

Filed under: Education

It is disappointing, but hardly surprising that the primary opposition to new legislation that would reform the way Minneapolis School Board members are elected is coming from the board members themselves. Sponsored by Rep. Jim Davnie and Sen. Wes Skoglund (both DFL-Minneapolis), the bill would have school board representation mirror that of the Minneapolis Park Board, with six members each elected from a specific geographical district and three more chosen on an at-large, city-wide basis. Currently, all seven school board members run city-wide.

This is the third year in a row Davnie has introduced the bill, but, as he says, "Objective observers have said they think there is a good chance of it passing this year. It has passed both committees required in the Senate and awaits action on the Senate floor. It passed two committees in the House last year and all it needs to go to the floor is to go through the education policy committee that passed it last year--it is a parliamentary issue--and the chair has assured me that we'll get a hearing."

Why is the third time apparently the charm? The disastrous "resignation" of Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Thandiwe Peebles earlier this winter further soured opinions about the board's credibility and responsiveness to parents in the city, a disconnect that Davnie believes existed before the board helped usher Peebles out the door. "Parents are frustrated that when they have an issue with a school, they don't know who to call. Because all the board members are elected at-large, nobody really knows all the school families and has both the formal and informal networks established to understand where your particular area of town is coming from. This bill will help the board be more grounded within the communities they serve."

But board chair Joseph Erickson told the Star Tribune earlier this week that he thinks the district would be better served by a board that treats the system as an "organic whole" and warns of turf wars as "different parts of the city vie for resources." That's a disingenuous statement given persistent and longstanding sentiment, particularly among parents on the northern side of town, that the board is biased toward the more affluent southwestern neighborhoods. In particular, they point to the most recent spate of school closings, which mostly spared the southwestern area. And parents with children in schools in more impoverished neighborhoods cite the recent contract the board negotiated with the teacher's union, which continues to afford an enormous amount of leverage for teachers with seniority to determine where they are placed, enabling the most experienced teachers to create quality enclaves in schools where there are fewer social problems.

Asked who is opposing the bill, Davnie says, "The school board has repeatedly come down to testify against it. I know that both Joe Erickson and [board member] Lydia Lee were at the Senate Education Committee. Otherwise, I know of no other opposition at this time.

"Mayor Rybak is a strong supporter this year, and that is a new development," Davnie continues. "I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think education was one of those quiet but everpresent issues during his election last year, with a lot of people telling him that they want to see the board more responsive to schools. And now this year he is supporting the bill. You can draw your own conclusions."

Posted by Britt Robson at March 17, 2006 11:38 AM | Comments (6)

 

More Fun than a PS2

Filed under: Education

Student essays frequently used as profiling tools

Remember Cook County teen David Riehm, whose creative writing essay on blowing away his creative writing teacher landed him (involuntarily and mistakenly) in a psychiatric hospital last year? He's got plenty of company, according to USA Today.

States contract with testing companies whose evaluators, often ex-teachers, read and score the tests, usually administered to students around spring. As part of procedure, scorers are instructed to flag an exam that contains disturbing images or language. That information is usually forwarded to the state or the local school district, which decides whether to notify parents and recommend counseling.

Officials with testing companies say they believe every state has some system in place to identify a child's problem and make sure it's addressed.

The story quotes several experts talking about the need to listen carefully to teens, as well as a Wisconsin educator noting how distressing essays written by victims of persistent bullying can be.

Here's a little extra something to think about: If these experts are right--and I imagine they are--that adults need to do a better job listening to teens, what does it say that the creative writing teacher who apparently inspired Riehm's fantasmagoric paper didn't get around to reading it for more than three months?

Posted by Beth Hawkins at February 14, 2006 1:26 PM | Comments (0)

 

Hacking returns to Minnesota to oversee the teachers' pension program

Filed under: Education

Laurie Fiori Hacking is leaving the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System at the end of February to oversee the teachers' pension program in Minnesota. Hacking was executive director of Minnesota's public employees fund from 1991 to 1996. The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System is that state's largest public pension fund, covering 370,000 workers, 315,000 former public employees who still have retirement accounts, and 150,000 retirees. The fund has assests of $68.6 billion, from $56.6 billion when Hacking became the executive director in 2000.

Posted by Corey Anderson at January 25, 2006 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

 

Minnesota 42nd in the nation in offering school breakfasts

Filed under: Education

The 2005 School Breakfast Scorecard released last week by the Food Research and Action Center stated of the 2,115 Minnesota schools who participate in the National School Lunch Program, only 1,489 offer school breakfast. Minnesota law states school breakfast is to be required in public schools at which 33% of school lunches are served free or at reduced price. The report states school breakfasts have been linked to a healthier overall diet, reduction in obesity rates, and improved academic performance. R. Jane Brown, Executive Director of Second Harvest Heartland, also suggests participation in these programs would relieve some of the burden on poor families.

The Minneapolis and St. Paul School Districts have recently implemented a more universal school breakfast program, and has seen an 8.7% increase in the number of students eating school breakfast comparing October 2005 to October 2004. This increase has happened despite declines in enrollment.

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 21, 2005 10:13 AM | Comments (1)

 

Back to Basics, Folks

Filed under: Education

How about making the school year as we know it worthwhile first?

Reporteth today's Star Tribune:

Minnesota's school superintendents urged Wednesday that the school year be extended by five weeks -- a move that would be phased in over four years. The proposal, which was intended to bolster competitiveness, also is likely to revive lots of debate.

Can we fix a few of the really basic things ailing the system first?

How about this year's shift to enormous, untenable class sizes--even in the earliest grades? (My son's elementary class, 20 kids last year, has swollen to 25 this year; too hot for teacher for sure.) How about classroom aides to help with all of those burdensome tests and paperwork? How about better hours, more before- and after-school care, and more contact with parents? How about real gifted and talented services for those who need them?

Posted by Beth Hawkins at December 8, 2005 5:06 PM | Comments (0)

 

Monkey business

Filed under: Education

Gay fashion is straight fashion minus 20 years. Straight fashion is gay fashion plus 10 years. I first read that fail-safe formula in one of those men's mags that have a paradoxical mixture of oiled-down women and ads for the kind of grooming products that have not traditionally appealed to fellows who look at pics of oiled-down women. Maybe Details.

I thought of that equation the other day when I read in the Star Tribune that the Minnetonka school district is tiptoeing away from the teaching of evolution:

"The Minnetonka school district may change its guidelines for teaching evolution to emphasize that it is a scientific theory rather than proven fact.

The school board, which reviewed the district's science curriculum last week, is considering changes suggested by board member Dave Eaton, who was a member of a state committee that revised science standards in 2003.

Eaton said the existing Minnetonka guidelines regarding evolution contain 'careful wordsmithing' to create the impression that evolution has been established as fact. He said the district's science curriculum must get away from dogmatically teaching the theory as fact."

This development--or should that be "devolution"?--coincides with a recent analysis piece in the New York Times, with the snappy title "Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker." The thrust of the piece is that latter-day creationism may be multiplying fruitfully as a political movement but it's not making much headway in classrooms:

"Behind the headlines...intelligent design as a field of inquiry is failing to gain the traction its supporters had hoped for. It has gained little support among the academics who should have been its natural allies. And if the intelligent design proponents lose the case in Dover, there could be serious consequences for the movement's credibility.

On college campuses, the movement's theorists are academic pariahs, publicly denounced by their own colleagues. Design proponents have published few papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.....

While intelligent design has hit obstacles among scientists, it has also failed to find a warm embrace at many evangelical Christian colleges. Even at conservative schools, scholars and theologians who were initially excited about intelligent design say they have come to find its arguments unconvincing. They, too, have been greatly swayed by the scientists at their own institutions and elsewhere who have examined intelligent design and found it insufficiently substantiated in comparison to evolution."

The article underlines the fact that thoughtful conservatives have embraced ID about as warmly as they would Hillary Clinton at a carnival kissing booth. The Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer, for instance, asserts, "Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud." And it goes on to describe the Dover school board trial as "a fight over evolution that is so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment."

Meanwhile, as Mike Mosedale reported in City Pages a few weeks back, intelligent design sideshows continue to draw standing-room-only crowds at the U of M. So is Minnesota riding the rump end of the trend curve here? While Governor Pawlenty has spoken little on the issue, his deposed commissioner of education, Cheri Pierson Yecke, monkeyed with state science curricula to enable the teaching creationism.

In fact, Pawlenty's politics at large seem to lag behind the times like the novelty t-shirt rack at a dollar store ("I Believe Anita Hill!"). While Pawlenty was sticking to his no-new-taxes pledge, Republican governors in such liberal bastions as Indiana, Colorado, and Alabama were proposing tax hikes to sustain public schools and basic services.

So how's this for a new description of Minnesota's current cultural consciousness: Bible Belt politics equal Minnesota politics minus ten years. Minnesota politics equal Bible Belt politics plus five years.

Posted by Michael Tortorello at December 7, 2005 3:05 PM | Comments (0)

 

Failing Grade for "No Child"

Filed under: Education

Bush Administration eases off pass-fail system for public schools

Four years after enactment of its hallmark education reform, the Bush administration appears to be heading off calls for changes in the law by agreeing not to enforce key provisions of No Child Left Behind. Schools that fail to make "adequate yearly progress" on academic performance under the law to escape the "failing" label can show progress by other means. Some urban districts can offer students in failing schools tutoring instead of a transfer to a better school. States previously under pressure to show that their teachers met certain minimum standards can now show that they made "good faith efforts" toward hiring qualified educators. Testing requirements for disabled students will be eased.

The analysis in today's Washington Post--which fields a crack educating reporting team--is clear, if not terribly pointed:

The Education Department's actions could signal a new phase for school improvement efforts nearly four years after the law's enactment. Taken together, these actions amount to a major response to critics who have called No Child Left Behind rigid and unworkable. They also help the administration combat efforts to amend the law in Congress.

Is it possible that movements to institutionalize charter schools and voichers have succeeded to the point where the law, long and credibly criticized as an assault on public education, is irrelevant? Think about it: State politicians are starting to feel the heat over the absolute lack of anything resembling instruction that's going on in many classrooms; it is starting to look very much even to those so-called terror moms like Bush is wrong, the problem isn't a lack of will, it's a lack of money.

If you have a child in a Twin Cities school, you know what I mean. Parents and teachers are frantic this year; yesterday, the Strib explained the numbers behind what we know anecdotally to be true:

At South, across Minneapolis and into the suburbs, high schools have been fighting a losing battle against bigger class sizes. It's a particularly sensitive subject in Minneapolis, where as recently as 2000 voters approved tax increases to keep class sizes down, only to watch them edge up in recent years because of higher expenses and tighter state funding.

This year the erosion in Minneapolis elementary classes is one to two students on average, but high school classes are jumping, with math classes up by an average of nine students citywide.

"We seem to have reached a tipping point in terms of parent concern," said Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis. "This fall it seems like there's almost a spontaneous grass-roots reaction among parents."

If the tough-love rhetoric fueling No Child was anything more than ideological bluster, would Bush et. al. really be backing away from enforcing the rules at its core?

Posted by Beth Hawkins at November 22, 2005 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

 

Minnesota universities join the rest of the nation in plying presidents with CEO salaries

Filed under: Education

By Eliot Brown

In recent years, colleges have been overwhelmed by an arms race of sorts, where both public and private institutions battle each other with bigger and better student centers, athletic buildings and dorm rooms, sending the cost of tuition through the roof.

At the forefront of this war is college president compensation, where CEO-like salaries are beginning to take hold with a handful of presidents receiving over $1,000,000, as reported in a survey released this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Minnesota salaries have not quite reached the ridiculous level of schools such as American University, where the former president is being handed a $3.75 million compensation package after he was released for spending improprieties. In Minnesota, the average compensation with salary and benefits for 4-year private college presidents was around $225,000 in the 2003-2004 academic year, according to the Chronicle. However, that average has jumped 33 percent since 1997-1998, the oldest year reported on the Chronicle's website.

The list for 2003-2004, as reported to the Chronicle of Higher Ed.:

Augsburg College, William Frame, $211,622
Bethel University, George Brushaber, $220,890
Carleton College, Robert A. Oden Jr., $427,073
College of St. Benedict, Carol Guardo, $245,371
College of St. Catherine, Sister Andrea J. Lee, $0
College of St. Scholastica, G. Larry Goodwin, $240,258
Gustavus Adolphus College, James L. Peterson, $226,364
Hamline University, Larry G. Osnes, $285,880
Macalester College, Brian Rosenberg, $283,912
St. Mary's University, Brother Louis DeThomasis, $185,700
St. Olaf College, Christopher Thomforde, $229,915
University of St. Thomas, Rev. Dennis Dease, $229,915

Posted by Corey Anderson at November 16, 2005 11:59 AM | Comments (0)