Transcript Slide 1

School Choice in Minnesota
League of Women Voters National Convention
June 2014
The Opening Act – few schools
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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
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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
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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.
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◦ Most charters that have been closed are due
to financial mismanagement.
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Conflict of interest laws too weak
Continuing issues
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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.
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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!
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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)
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Influence of special interest groups with money (i.e. Walmart)
More Continuing Issues
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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
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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
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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…
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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/
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