--- Audrey wrote: "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."
Speaking of gone, a few years ago, Gary Suddeth, who was then President of the Urban League publicly asked the district to account for millions (I believe it was 100 mil, but have forgotten the exact number) that the district recieved to close the "racial gap" in academic achievement. I never did see the district's answer, can you explain Audry? [Audry]"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 spend billions more in the long term on prisons." So an infusion of cash is all that is needed? How much cash? $10 million? $100 million? $1 Billion? What if the district recieved it's every wish. What if money was no object? Would that work? In fact that's been tried. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it. Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country. To entice white students to come to Kansas City, the district had set aside $900,000 for advertising, including TV ads, brochures, and videocassettes. If a suburban student needed a ride, Kansas City had a special $6.4 million transportation budget for busing. If the student didn't live on a bus route, the district would send a taxi. Students could take courses in garment design, ceramics, and Suzuki violin. The computer magnet at Central High had 900 interconnected computers, one for every student in the school. In the performing arts school, students studied ballet, drama, and theater production. They absorbed their physics from Russian-born teachers, and elementary grade students learned French from native speakers recruited from Quebec, Belgium, and Cameroon. With some 600 employees for a district of 36,000 students, the KCMSD had a central administration that was three to five times larger than the administrations of other comparably sized public school districts. It was also 150 times larger than the administration of the city's Catholic school system, in which four people; one superintendent, two assistant superintendents, and a part-time marketing manager ran a school district of 14,000 students. It didn't work. When the judge, in March 1997, finally agreed to let the state stop making desegregation payments to the district after 1999, there was little to show for all the money spent. Although the students enjoyed perhaps the best school facilities in the country, the percentage of black students in the largely black district had continued to increase, the average black student's reading skills increased by only 1.1 grade equivalents in four years of high school, and the black-white achievement gap was unchanged. It is my opinion that until the parents of the children who are struggling in school take an active interest in their own kids, no amount of money is going to "fix the system". Until the administrators are willing to take responsibility for the academic achievement, or lack thereof, no amount of money is going to "fix the system". Until the many fine teachers who do know the difference between a job and a profession throw off the burden of the unions that tie unworthy collegues and political hacks around thier (and our) ankles, no amount of money is going to "fix the system". Until the public system rids itself of political special interests, of every stripe, who put idealogy ahead of academics, no amount of money is going to "fix the system". My purpose here is not to "bash" the public schools, indeed my family and I have as much at stake as anyone else. It is very easy to demonize the authors of opposing views, but as has been posited on this forum many times, critical examiation of an issue leads to clearer understanding by all parties involved. Thomas Swift Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
