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February 12, 2004

Problem Student, Part II -

Problem Student, Part II - An emailer - who will remain anonymous - wrote to comment about my piece on Nick Coleman's column about the Minneapolis Schools plan to shutter ten of their schools.

In Coleman's original piece, he lamented that the closing of Holland Elementary will force students to "transfer to Putnam School. Many will have to take buses for the first time. Most kids just walked to Holland, but Putnam is a mile to the east." My correspondent notes that Coleman:

...writes in his piece that some of the kids from Holland school will have to ride the bus a mile to Putnam, the implication being that this is somehow disruptive to the community. This struck me as odd because busing kids and disrupting neighborhoods has been a Minneapolis tradition for years...[when the correspondent had school-age kids] it came as quite a surprise to learn that our son wouldn't be able to attend the school half a block away. Under the plan at the time, he would have had to been bused to North Star Elementary in North Minneapolis in order to help the people at the lightbulb factory achieve racial balance district wide.
Yeah, I wonder if Nick's ever commented on that? Anyone with access to Lexis/Nexus out there? Or perhaps Nick Coleman himself could respond; he's been known to read this blog. Mr. Coleman; if you have a response to that question, I'll post it here in its full unedited glory. Please write.

Of course, Coleman would not be happy with the writer - he's part of the "white flight":

after living in the same neighborhood of Minneapolis for [many] years, I moved out...and never regretted it for a minute. We're in [a suburban] school district now. It's not perfect but it's small and small-towny we're able to keep involved with our kids' education much easier than if we were still in the Minneapolis morass.
That's a word that keeps popping up about the Minneapolis schools.

I guess the writer is just another talk-radio moron bent on destroying the school system. Right, Nick Coleman?

Posted by Mitch at February 12, 2004 07:30 AM
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