The Jennings proposal is on the school district website at: http://www.mpls.k12.mn.us/news/pdf/school_summary.pdf
--- FNA Roberta Englund wrote: > Minneapolis Schools are in a chaos created by a historical series of > bad > decisions that it appears residents have permitted. Perhaps it is > time > for Minneapolis to follow the lead of other cities, assume direct > responsibility for the public schools and remove at least one layer > of bureaucratic shelter from a broken system. [TB] I'm not convinced that all of the decisions were bad at the time. You need to make decisions based on the best information available at the time. Only a few years ago, I'm not sure anyone would have expected the number of students who would have the ability to transfer out of the district due to the desegregation agreement that the State of MN signed along with the Mpls district and a number of suburban districts. I'm not sure what is meant by "decisions that it appears residents have permitted" unless it is electing the board members. The Board is responsible for running the school system. I think they are trying to do what is best. How efficient is it to have school buildings with fewer than 20 classrooms and how many programs can be offered in the smaller buildings? If we by fall we will have lost 6,000 students in the last 3 years, thats 240 classrooms if we average 25 per classroom. With that many empty classrooms, how do we not close some schools? Interesting question about moving responsibility for schools to the city. Anyone have any info about how that has actually worked out elsewhere? I think I can see making the Mayor's office part of the management of the school system, I'm not sure why the City Council would be expected to do a better job than the School Board. I do know that in Hawaii, all schools are state schools and they haven't been very successful in having good public schools. I don't think that having another group just take over is the solution. Superintendent Johnson often talked about the difference in achievement level of students who frequently transferred schools from those that stayed in the same school and the higher achievement of those that actually attended (that's a surprise isn't it?). How does any management of a school district address those issues? Terrell Brown Loring Park __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
