In 1961, communist East Germany faced a crisis.\u00a0 The West had stiffened its spine against communism.\u00a0 The East Germans (and their Russian handlers) faced a dire threat across the nation\u2019s open borders.\u00a0 So they built a fence and, through the middle of the divided capitol in Berlin, a big wall, reinforced with barbed wire, mines, dogs and machine guns.<\/p>\n
Not to keep western invaders out, of course; it was to keep East Germans, Czechs and Poles in.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t NATO tanks they were worried about; it was the immense efflux of the Eastern bloc\u2019s most motivated, talented, useful people across the border to freedom.<\/p>\n
Public schools, especially (but far from exclusively) in the major cities, are failing.\u00a0 Graduation rates in Saint Paul are under 50%; it\u2019s far worse among black and hispanic students.\u00a0 And the parents of those students are responding by leaving the districts.\u00a0 Due to Minnesota\u2019s school choice rules, parents can sent their kids to other public districts, to private schools, or to charter\u00a0 schools.\u00a0 Over an eighth of Saint Paul parents have decamped from the public system; it\u2019s \u201cworse\u201d in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
And like the East Germans, the Minnesota education establishment knows that it needs to stanch the bleeding before it bleeds completely dry.
\nThe left – especially the big institutional left, the DFL, and its handlers, the teachers union – hate charter schools.\u00a0 The schools are generally non-union, of course.\u00a0 Beyond that, due to the 1991 law that established the charter system, the state money that would\u00a0 go to the student at a public school follows the student to the charter school.<\/p>\n
In the MN2020 hit piece on charter schools<\/a> yesterday (subtitled \u201cAn Examination of Charter School Finances\u201d, John Fitzgerald wrote:<\/p>\n Unlike private schools, charter schools are funded by taxpayer dollars. While traditional public schools get roughly $9,500 per-student from the state, charter schools get $10,500 for each student from the state. State officials say charter schools deserve more taxpayer money because they can\u2019t ask local taxpayers for additional taxes to operate their schools or for bonds to build school buildings the way traditional districts can.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Fitzgerald breezes past this like it\u2019s immaterial – presumably (I\u2019ll put words in his mouth) to leave the reader with the impression that charter schools are over-funded compared to the public schools.<\/p>\n But local bonding funding more than makes up the purported differences<\/a> in spending:<\/p>\n Statewide\u00a0 – $9,063 per student<\/strong><\/p>\n During the 2008-09 school year, Minnesota school districts will receive an average of $9,063 per student in general education revenue from state and local sources.<\/p>\n State funding per student will average of $8,182.<\/p>\n Referenda revenue per student will average $881.<\/p>\n Minneapolis (District 1.2) – $11,692 per student<\/strong><\/p>\n During the 2008-09 school year, Minneapolis will receive $11,692 per student in general education revenue from state and local sources, compared with a statewide average of $9,063.<\/p>\n State funding is $10,797 per student, compared to a statewide average of $8,182.<\/p>\n Referenda revenue total $895 per student, compared to a state average of $881.<\/p>\n St. Paul (District 625) – $10,809 per student<\/strong><\/p>\n During the 2008-09 school year, St. Paul will receive $10,809 per student in general education revenue from state and local sources, compared with a statewide average of $9,063.<\/p>\n State funding is $10,039 per student, compared to a statewide average of $8,182.<\/p>\n Referenda revenue totals $770 per student, compared to a state average of $881.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Remember to add 8% – the government inflation rate – to these numbers, which are from last year.<\/p>\n And then remember that charter schools need to pay for a whole lot of things – rent, for starters – out of their per-student allotment that the public schools largely don\u2019t.Fitzgerald next moves on to \u201caccountability\u201d.<\/p>\n A major component of the 1991 charter school legislation allows the taxpayer dollars to follow the student: if a student leaves a traditional school and enrolls in a charter school, the per-student money leaves the public system and is allocated to the charter school.<\/p>\n Although charter schools receive taxpayer funds, they are not subject to the same checks and balances taxpayers have the right to expect. Traditional schools are governed by elected school boards. Taxpayers who disagree with the way their money is being spent need only go to the school board meeting and voice their concern. Ultimately, voters can exercise their rights and vote school board members off the body.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019ve spent a solid day trying to figure out how to even address the myopia in this statement.<\/p>\n \u201cThey need only to go voice their concern?\u201d\u00a0 To whom?\u00a0 To the very body that is causing the problem.\u00a0 Who, especially in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, were put into office by local party machines and the teachers unions whose entire goal is to maintain the status quo.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s true; the taxpayer can\u00a0 \u201cexercise their rights\u201d to mount a big election campaign (at the appointed time in the election cycle), put their lives on hold, raise millions of dollars, and butt heads with the most entrenched establishment anywhere in Minnesota\u00a0 politics. And, pretty much inevitably, fail.<\/p>\n As, indeed, people who are revolted by the way taxpayers money is being spent in the Cities today are failing, and even falling behind; the one Republican member of the Saint Paul school board (indeed, the sole elected Republican anywhere in Saint Paul) is leaving.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s the alternative?<\/p>\n Go to a private school (with its attendant costs).\u00a0 Or go to a school in another district (which is good if you can manage the transportation to and from the district; transportation funds do not follow the student, which is fine unless you are the one of the families most affected by the attempt to gut charter schoos, the working poor in the city.\u00a0 And which, let\u2019s not forget, is a function of the \u201cOpen Enrollment\u201d law that will be the Educational-Industrial Complex\u2019 next target when they kill off charter schools)\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026or go to a charter school.\u00a0 Where, if you don\u2019t like how things are being run, you can express your dissatisfaction by leaving.\u00a0 By depriving the school of your kid\u2019s share of the state money.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t get more accountable than that – if by \u201caccountable\u201d you mean \u201cto parents\u201d.<\/p>\n Oh, and there\u2019s one other way:<\/p>\n There is no such remedy for taxpayers concerned about the financial dealings fo charter schools. Their boards are not publically elected and taxpayers have no say in how their money is spent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is, of course, balderdash.\u00a0 Many charter schools have boards, elected from among the school\u2019s sponsors, staff and, lest we forget, parents.\u00a0 These boards are immediately responsible to the school\u2019s parents about everything, immediately.<\/p>\n And for those that don\u2019t?\u00a0 As Fitzgerald\u2019s report itself notes, the Minnesota Department of Education itself administers the financial affairs of charter schools!<\/p>\n I mentioned this to a couple of different supporters of the current public school system.\u00a0 \u201cBut taxpayers as a whole don\u2019t get a say in how their tax money is spent at a charter school!\u201d<\/p>\n I reeled with responses:<\/p>\n Your input as a voter ends at your district<\/strong>!\u00a0 If you\u2019re a voter in Marshall, your disgust with how your tax money is being spent in Minneapolis will fall on deaf electoral ears, except\u2026via the Minnesota Department of Education.\u00a0 Same as with charter schools!<\/p>\n Charter schools aren\u2019t the only bodies that accept public money without publicly-elected boards<\/strong>; every non-profit that accept tax dollars has a board that is privately elected. Do I get a say in how, say, Minnesota Public Radio spends my tax dollars?\u00a0 Do I get a vote on their board, just because they\u2019re spending my money?\u00a0 Hell, I don\u2019t even get a vote for pledging to them!\u00a0 No, my only say on MPR\u2019s funding – or the funding of any non-profit that accepts tax dollars – is the same as the Marshall voters\u2019 say over Minneapolis\u2019 school spending, or over John Fitzgerald\u2019s say over my kids\u2019 charter school\u2019s spending; via the legislature, which controls the Department of Education.\u00a0 Which is frustratingly indirect, although not nearly so indirect as, say, being a conservative trying to change the composition of the Saint Paul School Board.<\/p>\n \u201cBut MPR isn\u2019t a school<\/strong>!\u201d\u00a0 True.\u00a0 But Fitzgerald\u2019s article wasn\u2019t about \u201ceducation\u201d, per se; you\u2019ll find only the most oblique references to the actual business schools conduct, \u201ceducating\u201d kids, anywhere in the article.\u00a0 It\u2019s about financial governance, compliance and accountability with taxpayer money.\u00a0 And none of those differs in any but the most picayune details between charter schools and, say, a social service non-profit with a state contract (which also have spotty records), or an HMO (which are non-profits in Minnesota, and have even dicier records).\u00a0\u00a0 And if you want to bring the fact that a charter is a school into the mix, then it\u2019s patently misleading to compare charters\u2019 performance at financial management with public schools (not that any of them can manage money; they don\u2019t have to follow the same rules), to say nothing of the differences in educational service and achievement that are the justification for charter schools in the first place.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason for that, naturally.<\/p>\n But while Fitzgerald\u2019s piece didn\u2019t touch on education, it did talk a lot about financial management.<\/p>\n More on that on Monday.<\/p>\n UPDATE: I had to re-do this post; MN2020’s code interacts badly with a “feature” in WordPress that made it basically impossible to fix it without copying the whole thing into Notepad to scrub the invisible formatting and re-pasteing it into WordPress.<\/p>\n So the comments are lost.\u00a0 Sorry about that.<\/p>\n (Part I<\/a>, Part III <\/a>and Part IV<\/a> of this series)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1961, communist East Germany faced a crisis.\u00a0 The West had stiffened its spine against communism.\u00a0 The East Germans (and their Russian handlers) faced a dire threat across the nation\u2019s open borders.\u00a0 So they built a fence and, through the middle of the divided capitol in Berlin, a big wall, reinforced with barbed wire, mines, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-school-choice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}