Carol Johnson wrote: > Irresponsible, perhaps even lazy, reporting led to the use of data > that lacked analytical context and appeared to be intentionally > misleading.
Boy, if this isn't the pot calling the kettle black I'm not sure what is. The MPS have intentional misrepresented their data on the impact of small class sizes and yet they want to accuse the Tribune of distorting data! That's not to say that the Tribune is the apex of accurate reporting, but if you can expect anything of consistency in the Education Wars it's the distribution of misinformation. It's hard for someone who knows statistics, the history, and the debating points to see through to the truth, let alone the public! I try as best I can to keep things simple and I will try to do so again. > More than 90 percent of the "administrative" costs > referenced in the story are actually costs related to > people who work in the schools with students and families: > principals, school secretaries, attendance clerks, > security staff and the like. Given the fact that Minneapolis > has 32 more schools and transports 8,000 more students, it is only > logical that we would spend more on such staff. So let's get this straight. The MPS have 32 more schools and transports 8000 more students. Ok. This begs the question of how many more students do the MPS have compared to St. Paul. Answer: MPS has 47,661; St.Paul has 44,033. That's a difference of 3628 students, but the MPS has 32 more schools. Let's see, if we just divide 32 into 3628 we get an guesstimate of 113.4 students per school. This would imply that there are some pretty small schools out there. So Dr. Johnson claims that 90% of the administrative costs are incurred in the schools themselves. It would seem that if we reduced the number of schools we could recognize a significant savings, not to mention how we might reduce costs by bussing 4372 fewer students (the excess number of students that the MPS bus). What we should be debating publicly is whether small schools and school choice are things that we can afford during a budget crisis. > We recognize that school finance is a complex topic and even well > intentioned people can have a difficult time interpreting the > data to create apples to apples comparisons. And we are hopeful that > Governor Pawlenty's school finance reform effort will demystify this > topic. This article would have benefited from such clarity. I've always believed that school finance is intentional complex because administrators don't want you comparing apples to apples, so they're always redefining apples as oranges. Just try asking how the money for class size reductions is distributed. Eck! > Our regret is that naive readers may use this information to draw > erroneous conclusions about Minneapolis' fiscal integrity. > That would be tragic not only for Minneapolis Public Schools, but for > public education as a whole. I think that their regret is that public school financing is finally getting media exposure. This would certainly be tragic for the Minneapolis Public Schools Administration. Don't forget that a few years ago they were telling us that Testing would destroy the public schools, now it's beginning to look like their redemption. The more that becomes public about the public schools the more positive changes will occur, that is unless they can keep the public na�ve. Michael Atherton Prospect Park TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
