K T Simon-Dastych a Cooper/ Greater Longfellow Resident and Member of the Small School Task Force has suggested smaller school districts. I have an alternative solution, a second, larger school district, perhaps a Hennepin County wide school district. There are several advantages to this approach.
First to clarify. The new district would be in addition to existing school districts within the County. The teachers in this new district would also be members of the teachers union eliminating the internal political risk to the union present in voucher type plans, and still provides the opportunity to offer parents choices and alternatives. Property tax support for the county wide program would have the advantage of being spread across a wider area. A parallel system would be built, offering independently designed programs. Both systems could be set to compete with each other by allowing for free once a year (Off season) transfers between systems for all students. The two systems would be incentivized to do better than the other, thus providing some of the gains advocates for school competition suggest would develop, while maintaining a public school system. Physical facilities for both systems would be transferred to a third entity, possibly financed directly by the state. Thus the state would become the financial entity responsible for the building, maintenance and upgrading existing school facilities throughout the state. Each of the two districts would negotiate for the various available facilities which would be leased by the districts. Over time, the ascendant district will take over facilities from the less successful system. With any luck they will tend to achieve a rough balance over time as they both fight to secure bragging rights. A major benefit of this approach is the fact that it would start to break the functional obsolescence of our existing geopolitical balkanization. We need fewer not more municipal and school district boundaries. We need to evolve into a regional system that is more focused on WE as a region rather than Them against Us. Minneapolis' strategy for the future, particularly as we interact at the legislature, cannot fruitfully be built on a city versus suburbs paradigm. By creating an overlapping super district, we are inviting more and more of our suburban neighbors to participate in seeing the larger set of educational issues in a ME mode that includes US, who used to be Thems to suburban education leaders and their legislative allies. As I have written before, I believe our metro regions 160+ political subdivisions hinder our ability to develop policies critical to sustaining the competitive advantage of our regional economy in the face of quietly growing national and international competition. I see our metro area as an economic city state in competition with the world. By transforming the way we view our schools geographically within the region, I believe we can begin a process toward building a greater self image as a united region. Minneapolis school kids will do better when they are seen by our suburban neighbors as their kids. By building a broader vision we can help build a stronger and more vital local economy capable of providing opportunities for all. Earl Netwal Minnehaha neighborhood of the Twin cities metropolitan city-state. Are you health conscious and entrepreneurial? Visit my USANA web page: http://www.unitoday.net/etn Do you collect postal history or philatelic covers or know someone who does? Visit my E-store. http://www.auctionworks.com/awstore/ETN Earl Netwal 5344 36th Ave S. Mpls., MN 55417 _______________________________________ 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
