Transcript Slide 1
School Choice in Minnesota
League of Women Voters National Convention
June 2014
The Opening Act – few schools
1991 – only authorizers are school districts with
approval by state department of education
◦ Teachers must be a majority of the board
◦ No screening allowed for admission
◦ Annual report required – not submitted at first
Degenerates to just finances and test scores
◦ Goal is creative laboratory school environment – the
possible sharing is never required or facilitated
◦ Teachers’ unions insist on two provisions and get
them
All must be public schools
All teachers must be MN licensed
The Evolution
Legislation has been tweaked almost every legislative session!
Major changes are:
◦ Disallow the use of a closing school district site as a charter school
◦ 2012 – new statute allows a “collaborative” charter which can access
district transport and other help in return for sharing successful
practices. Touted at the time, but haven’t seen this!
◦ Teachers do not need to be majority of the board (They wanted off!)
◦ Expansion of authorizers – all of whom now must be approved by state
department of education
Institutions of higher ed, non-profit corporations but must be incorporated in MN
2009 a thorough application process developed
◦ Allow a school with 3 years operation to form a partner building
corporation which can finance and own a building which is leased to the
school
Sell bonds just like any corporation but need approval of authorizer and MDE
What makes MN different
Constitutional clause (from 1857!) that
forbids funding for sectarian schools.
Started with other options – PSEO and
Open Enrollment –added self-directed
schools within school districts
Now more options to start public schools
than any other state
Strength and cooperation between two
teachers’ unions – now merged into
Education Minnesota
MN Evaluation – Report from the
Office of the Legislative Auditor
2008 – after accounting for demographics
and student mobility, differences in
student performance were minimal.
Charter school board members not
required to take the same training as
public school board members – especially
critical in finance.
◦ Most charters that have been closed are due
to financial mismanagement.
Conflict of interest laws too weak
Continuing issues
Lack of levy authority
◦ Articles cite this as the charter’s getting less money per student than
district public schools
◦ BUT, their boards are not elected and have no community to levy!
Critics see this as a possible area where charter schools will lobby the
state for extra money.
New laws include charter schools which means they are no longer as
flexible
◦ An interesting note – charter proponents call a charter law “strong” if it
means that charters are excused from more state regulations, so when
a state is cited by them as having “weak” charter laws it means we
probably like the law!
Resegregation
◦ number of predominantly white charters in the Twin Cities metro area
has risen from 11 in 2000 to 37 in 2010 . (Report from the Institute on
Race and Poverty)
Influence of special interest groups with money (i.e. Walmart)
More Continuing Issues
Charter accountability
◦ MN proposal to force authorizers to either close low performers
(about 17 out of 150) or defend their continued existence.
Charter proponents oppose this law
For profit management companies
◦ “Because of the way Minnesota law is written, charter management
organizations (CMO's) do not see Minnesota as a good fit because
while they might spend considerable amounts of money to start a
school, the board of that school can decide not to renew their
contract...and no contract can be for longer than five years. “ Bob Wedl
◦ Edison Project has been successful in Duluth
Aid to non-public schools (presently includes transportation, counseling,
instructional materials, nursing)
◦ Because of this aid, the fight for vouchers has gone away for now at
least.
Consulted…
Mary Cecconi – Executive Director of Parents
United MN
Joe Nathan – Director for the Center for School
Change
Bob Wedl – senior associate at Education Evolving
– a policy study group and an authorizer
Garnet Franklin – Educational Issues Specialist at
Education Minnesota (merged teachers’ union)
John Schultz, PhD – superintendent of Hopkins
Public Schools, MN – district sponsored two
charter schools
Resources and works cited
Charter Schools by Joe Nathan (c. 1996)
Zero Chance of Passage by Ember Reichgott
Junge (c. 2012)
Rhetoric versus Reality by Gill et. Al (c.
2001)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/us/awalmart-fortune-spreading-charterschools.html?_r=0
http://hechingerreport.org/content/ascharter-schools-come-of-age-measuringtheir-success-is-tricky_12647/