Fw: [Mpls] Re: Minneapolis School Closures

[Audrey Johnson]

Sent: Friday, March 22, 2002 1:47 PM Subject: [Mpls] Re: Minneapolis School Closures I am glad that Catherine Shreves apologized, and I too want to apologize for the misleading information you all received.   As a board we have not received such a recommendation from the Superintendent about closing four schools.  When the recommendation is received, we then start the process for public comment and input.  The folks in the River schools area have been working very hard and making very valid points about small schools.  (I would have responded sooner however I was attending a federal legislation conference out of town. )   The reality of state and federal allocations is that the money received is almost entirely restricted or very directed as to where and how it must be spent.    The effects on Minneapolis of the newly reauthorized ESEA (Elementary-Secondary Education Act) bill are great.  The bill is very complex and has several parts,  I will address only one here for brevity, that is TITLE 1 allocation.   TITLE 1 was originally put into place to mitigate the effects of poverty on children's educational opportunities.  It is federal money that was to be directed to the poorest school districts because it is widely believed that poverty, while not an excuse for failure, does, in fact, create barriers to learning that are no fault of the child living under such conditions.   Those barriers, in turn, put more strain on the schools that serve kids fitting this description or definition.   The TITLE 1 pot of money that MPS receives next year  will be larger and that is true.  However, the CFL (Dept. of Children, Families and Learning)  is stating that each student who receives aid will get more, so that instead of each student counted at a school receiving TITLE 1 gets $480, they will receive $565 per child.  If the district could keep that $480 cap, then the number schools getting TITLE 1 money in our district would increase.  There would be enough money to cover schools that have a poverty level of above 40% instead of 54%.      In addition, 20% of all the money MPS receives must be applied towards two areas,  after school supplemental instruction 15%, and 5% for transportation.  Also, high schools over a certain poverty level must, according to CFL, receive TITLE 1 funding.  This is a new provsion that we are concerned about.  This will take a huge sum of money off the TITLE 1  pot and place it in a school that is not as strapped for dollars as many others because high schools house the most students.  (There are many that are very strapped under the state and/or federal guidelines, River schools are among them.)  The district gets less and less say about the direction and is less able to respond to the needs of all its schools.    Currently, nationwide about 1/3 of kids eligible receive TITLE 1 funding.  And so it is true here in Minneapolis.   If this CFL interpretation is upheld, then less schools will receive this money in Minneapolis.  The State was given a couple of ways to distribute TITLE 1 funds, it chose a system that is not sending more TITLE 1 dollars to Minneapolis.    There are 2 more provisions that have been added to the bill that will force more targeting of the money each state receives.  Therefore, MPS should be getting more.  But the end result will still be that, if the district applies money as directed by CFL, then schools lower than 54% poverty will not get any money.  Under the CFL system of appropriation,  other schools in neighboring districts with a far lower concentration of poverty and lower % of poor kids in schools, (2% to 30%) receive more TITLE 1 money than the  city school across the city line which has 53% (Kenwood is the example I picked) which gets none in the next fiscal year, if the CFL interpretation holds up.     If this money where to be spent by ranking schools, not districts, by their current poverty level, starting with the highest and going down the line to the lowest, then it only stands to reason that the urban schools would get more, they have the highest concentration of poverty.   Then, less of the state general ed money would need to be used to fill the gaps left by the underfunded and unfunded mandates.   While I know this sounds confusing, I want to let Minneapolis citizens know how these things happen so that when candidates running for various offices say "we put more money into education",  the truth of the matter is that they are being more restrictive and are adding more underfunded and unfunded mandates(devil's in the details folks) so that the schools will have to pick up the added costs out of the general formula, or underfund needy schools as the CFL directs.  It' s political double speak,  complex and made that way so that the average citizen wouldn't have a clue as to how both sides could be "correct" while making statements that are so different.   Audrey Johnson MPS School Board Member lhe, 10ward