Re: [Mpls] Schools thread

[Audrey Johnson]

> Do the state education budget cuts affect Minneapolis differently than > other school districts because our population is different? There are some similarities and some differences.  Our district serves a higher number of students with different needs.  We have over 80 languages spoken throughout the district.  In one high school there are 45 languages represented.  We have a higher number of children living in poverty than any other city.  At the end of the special session, at 3 am in a closed conference meeting, we lost $5 million in integration aid, money that was helping with the cost of the NAACP settlement. That's gone. > Do we have a higher percentage of special-ed kids - and thus a bigger > special-ed shortfall, or harm from such?  How does that manifest itself > in MPS? Our projected shortfall is $30 at the moment.  If the Feds were to ante up to the special ed funding level promised 27 years ago, we would be looking at a $3 million budget shortfall.  The state also does not pay it's full share of sp. ed, although they are lots closer to the target than the feds. We have a higher concentration of kids living in poverty, and with that comes a higher number of children in need of special services and monitoring.  All that costs money, take it away and the support for these students is gone. What can we **as Minneapolitans** do about this? If you have friends or relatives who live in the outer ring suburbs tell them how this public education bashing is hurting the future of the entire state.  We can appropriately fund education or we can spent billions more in the long term on prisons.  If the house leadership and the governor would take a more long range view and make sound educational policy, it would go a long way toward helping many children in the city.    Tell them to support and vote for candidates who have a bigger picture of the state and base their policy on actual students and their needs, as they are required by the state constitution, instead of political expediency. The Minneapolis delegation has been very supportive of Minneapolis Public schools.  Certain  house members from outside the city actually ran on campaign promises to take money from MPS.   In the last session, they won. So while this is a Mpls Issues list, what actually occurs in the rest of the state has a very big impact on education funding for Minneapolis kids.  We are expected to do more vis a vis more state and federally mandated accountability steps, like testing, with less and less.  The state & feds call for higher and faster achievement and they allow for less and less resources.  While more money has been put into education, it does not keep up with the rate of inflation.  The district employs about 8,400 people. Health care costs alone are spiraling out of control. Last year utilities cost forced the district to take money out of the rainy day fund.  We now have enough money to run the district for about 4 1/2 days, this is not a sound premise to continue upon.  Like a savings account, once it's gone, it's gone.  Within recent memory, the district got to the point one time that it had enough savings to run for about 4 hours, if the state money were to stop coming in for any reason.  It's a possible scenario folks. One of our legislative items this year is to call for a CFL study on the effects of mobility on student achievement.  While there is lots of discussion on the list about more housing opening up, too many of our students move 2,3,4 and 5 times a school year.  We have high school students who literally can't remember where they live, because they moved so many times.  Every night we have about 800 reported students who are homeless come to our schools during the day.  (I say reported because as kids get older it's harder to get them to admit to this as they feel stigmatized. Some estimates put it at more like 1500)  Try coming to school after spending the night in a car, in a shelter or on the street and learning. The number of kids who are homeless every night in Minneapolis is higher than many entire school districts' enrollment. It takes more resources to work with these kids and their families. Education is labor intensive.  We need to have kids coming to school ready to learn, but the Gov. is on record as being opposed to early childhood education,  that's the parent's responsibility.  I have a hard time understanding how parents living under the stress of homelessness, say parked in a car under a bridge, with kids, can really be expected to get those kids ready in a meaningful way. Lots of kids get shipped off to a relative, many times outside the city, then they show up a few months later as mom found a place for a few months. We lose track of them when they leave the city.  It's hard to have a continuous learning experience under that circumstance. Compensatory Education funding is under attack.  This is money the district receives to help overcome many of the deficits our students have in their lives.  It's about $55 million.  Those same folks who took the $5 million of integration money want to take away the comp ed money.  The elections this fall have very serious implications for education in Minneapolis.  These are the same folks who refuse to change the bussing situation we faced where we are required to bus all non-public and charter schools kids within the city. So call your relatives and friends and have this conversation with them. We have a legislative agenda.  I believe you can find it on our web site, www.mps.k12.mn.us  There are 6 key policy areas: 1.Remove barriers to accessing federal medical assistance for sp. ed services (Currently we recover about $300,000.  If the barriers were removed at the state level, we could collect up to $10-12 million) 2.Establish a state goal to eliminate special education cross subsidy 3. Design effective state and federal accountability systems for student performance (the current system is more punitive and reactive than informative and proactive) 4. Restore the integration funding cut, as mentioned earlier in the post 5.Design a formula based, early childhood finance system 6. direct the CFL to conduct a study of the effects of mobility on student achievement. There is more detail on the web.  Out lobbyist, Jim Grathwol, is coordinating our efforts at the capitol.    He is at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and would be a good source to work with if we are to have an effective message. Audrey Johnson, 10th ward MPS BOE member