Good day, CharterFolk.
I start today with news out of Minnesota about beating–the–odds schools – campuses that generate high levels of learning while serving high percentages of low-income students.
No surprise:
A large percentage are charter schools, including Global Academy in New Brighton …
… and Jie Ming Mandarin Dual Language Academy in St. Paul.
Jie Ming is among the schools that have helped St. Paul become one of ten cities in the country where charter schools serve more than 30 percent of students and where all boats are rising and gaps are closing.
Across the river, Minneapolis continues its ride on the carousel: threatened strike, unsustainable agreement, financial crisis, disorderly cuts, new threatened strike.
Only now, the ride turns faster. They’re on their third time around since just 2022.
What jumped out in the latest agreement was the cap of thirty-eight that was imposed on class-sizes in middle and high schools.
38?
Meaning many classrooms were already above that?
And that’s the ceiling that all are now allowed to go to?
Was that on anyone’s radar before?
It certainly wasn’t on mine, though being forced to think about it, it only makes sense.
After the teacher union’s last “win,” the district eliminated 400 positions, 116 of them teaching roles.
Most of them were “specials” teachers in elementary grades.
You can see the desperate trade-offs districts are coming to.
Nix art and music in elementary schools. In the upper grades, let class-sizes balloon.
All the while, take a meat-axe to administration.
And to administrator salaries.
The old “me-too” arrangements where gains for one bargaining unit automatically extended to others are starting to break down. UTLA’s latest bargaining specifically excluded administrators from “me-too” increases.
Which prompted Los Angeles administrators to join the Teamsters.
It’s a dynamics playing out across the country.
A function of the carousel spinning at an unprecedented pace these days, dizzying the entire enterprise of district-operated schools.
Some are betting that local voters are going to keep the merry-go-round going by agreeing to higher taxes.
That proved a bad bet in San Antonio this month.
But St. Paul said yes to a large referendum that will aid district schools …
… but not charter schools.
Minnesota charter schools are legally prevented from receiving local tax revenues.
Call it a law preventing me-too funding for charter schools.
So the country’s first charter school …
… not to mention all those beating-the-odds schools like Higher Ground Academy …
… will be denied the $1,037/pupil going to other St. Paul schools.
Lifting all boats and closing gaps, while being denied the resources that go to other public schools.
It’s beating the odds in more ways than one.
But the carousel is spinning faster every day.
Isn’t it time we realize?
We need a Teamsters solution of our own.