Lessons from Chicago: How Rank and File Teachers Defend Public Schools

Michael Brunson, the Recording Secretary of the Chicago Teachers Union, was also a speaker at the last PEJAM Forum that included Glen Ford.  In this part of the Forum, Michael spells out what the current struggle for public education is about and what is at stake.  He also explains how teachers in Chicago organized and pushed back.  This is a model for teachers across the country.

Charter School Rejects Special Ed. Students

PEJAM was part of the effort in Minneapolis to save North High, but we were also part of the unsuccessful effort to save Cityview Elementary from being closed and turned into a charter.  Cityview did not have the same deep roots as North High and the parents, students, and teachers who did step forward were easily ignored.  Now look at what has happened to some of our most vulnerable students.

The online paper, Twin Cities Daily Planet, reports the charter school, Minnesota School of Science (MSS), that took over the Cityview site and was authorized by the Minneapolis School Board has now said it will not serve children with disabilities such as Down’s syndrome and autism.  The intense needs of special education students contributed to the “poor performance” of Cityview, which enable the Minneapolis School Board to justify its closing of this school. 

Now the unelected board of the MSS Charter School has voted to walk away from some of our neediest students because they get in the way of the charter school's goals on standardized tests.

Minneapolis School Board member, Carla Bates, acknowledges mistakes, but falls short of admitting that her, and the Board's, support of charter schools is part of the problem.  If it is simply a failure of the MSS charter school, the Minneapolis School Board can talk to Eric Mahmoud of Harvest Prep Academy (another charter).  The school district recently authorized him to open a District sponsored charter school next year and possibly five more, in total.  Rather than scattering the Special Education students across north and northeast Minneapolis, lets put them in Harvest Prep Academy, and have them participate in mainstream classes there.  Our School Board seems to believe that if anyone can succeed with our neediest students it is Mr. Mahmoud and his Harvest Prep Academy.

Of course, in reality, the Minneapolis School Board should immediately cancel its lease with the MSS Charter School and its authorization.  

This is just the latest evidence that charter schools do not serve all students.  We need to have true public schools that meet the needs of ALL of our students, and our elected school board members need to accept that responsibility.  Charter schools are not part of a universal, democratic, and socially just system of public education.

Rob Panning-Miller

Twin Cities Daily Planet story: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/07/24/cityview-leaves-north-minneapolis-special-education-students-behind

OUTRAGE!! Minneapolis School District letter to North High parents makes the school closure look like a done deal when the school board hasn't even voted on it

This is a SCANDAL! Below is the letter the District Superintendent sent out to parents Friday telling them North High was closing BEFORE the Board of Education has even voted yet! The letter says: "This year's ninth-grade students will be the final class to graduate from North." This shows how much of a sham this process has been. If Board members took the democratic process seriously, they would publicly reprimand Sup. Johnson and send a new letter explaining that the vote hasn't happened, the community hearings have not happened, that parents still have a voice in the process up to then. But in reality its already been decided behind the scenes, at least as far as they are concerned. The vote and public hearing Thursday is just for show. 

Will North be "phased out" or closed down outright?

Another deceptive scandal in the fine-print...

All the official reports say they plan to phase North out over four years, that all existing students will be allowed to graduate, etc. HOWEVER, this appears unlikely to actually happen.  If you read the fine print at the bottom of the info post on the Minneapolis Public Schools website from today, the District leave themselves an escape clause to shut North High down much sooner:

"The plan to phase out North is dependent on enrolling the minimum number of students necessary to sustain an academic program. If the district does not receive sufficient requests for North, the phase out would not be feasible and outright closure would occur."  

http://www.mpls.k12.mn.us/superintendent_johnson_to_recommend_phasing_out_of_north_community_high_school.html

There are only 43 freshmen in North this year, due to an intentional policy of pushing down enrollment, including: widespread reports of the District officials actively discouraging parents of 8th graders from enrolling their kids in North; because they took away North's "home-zone"; and because the widespread rumors that the school would be closed down have not been met with any re-assurances by the District for years now. 

 

Does the District seriously believe these 43 9th graders, or the 10th and 11th graders for that matter, will stick around to spend their final years of high school wondering empty halls, without enough students to fill up the sports programs, with their best teachers jumping ship, etc? 

Of course the District doesn't actually believe this - they are just throwing out deceptive spin to make their poison pill taste a little better, to insert confusion and blunt the protests until the decision is made. We need to call them out and expose the lies and manipulations that underlie this entire decision, their entire policy, which is a pro-privatization agenda.

The fact that they are being so clumsy, so hasty, means they are not as confident as they want to front. They are likely scared of the hell they are stirring up in the community which is why they are trying to rush this process along, make it look like a done deal, etc. That should encourage not discourage us and make us recognize we do have power to challenge this.

See post below this one for details on 4:30pm rally to save North High as well as next meeting of the Save North High committee. 

Come to the rally! Let em know we're not a bunch of cockroaches to be stepped on!

Letter to Parents on North Closing

Rally to Stop the Closing of North High 4:30 tuesday at Board of Ed meeting

Tell the Minneapolis Board of Education…
STOP THE CLOSING OF NORTH HIGH!

Rally at the Board of Education Meeting
Tuesday, Oct. 12
4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
807 Broadway Ave NE, Mpls.
Then join us inside the Board meeting at 5:30 p.m. to voice our demands.
--- Facebook event here - invite your friends! ---

Facts of the situation:

• Friday Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent, Bernadeia Johnson, announced her plan to close down North High School.
• Already the Minneapolis School Board has closed down more schools in North Minneapolis than any other neighborhood, including five elementary and middle schools since 2007.
• The Board is set to vote on the proposed closure of North on November 9^th
• The plan to close North is linked to the Board’s recent decision to create two new privately managed, non-union “Minneapolis College Prep” charter schools.
• Public schools are the bedrock of a community and this will all but eliminate public education in North Minneapolis!
• Click here for WCCO video coverage of North closure and footage of our "Save North High Coalition" meeting.

Therefore we call on the Minneapolis Board of Education to:
* Vote down the proposal to close North High School.
* Reverse the decision to open two “Minneapolis College Prep” charter high schools.
* Re-establish a “home zone” for North High to boost enrollment.
* In partnership with parents, teachers, and students, develop an aggressive, fully-funded plan to boost enrollment at North High.
* Immediately open a dialogue with North teachers proposing an innovative “self-managed” school model.

To get more involved, join us at the next meeting of the
SAVE NORTH HIGH COALITION

Saturday, October 16^th
11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Zion Baptist Church
621 Elwood Ave N, Minneapolis, MN

CONTACTS and MORE INFO:
North High Alumni Association | 612.715.2527
Friends of North Foundation | marcusgo6@gmail.com
Public Education Justice Alliance of MN (PEJAM) | 952.465.5307
For updates: PEJAM.org

_____Text of leaflet being distributed to build for Tuesday protest_____

Stop the Privatization of Public Education!
Save North High School!

District Neglect of North Minneapolis
District officials point toward declining enrollment at North High and district-wide as their reason for closing the school. Less than 270 students are now enrolled in North. But declining enrollment is a direct result of District neglect and underfunding.

It is clear the District pursued an intentional policy of pushing North’s numbers down to make it more politically palatable to phase out public education in the center of Minneapolis’s largest African American community. For example, every other high school in Minneapolis has a “home zone,” meaning that neighborhood students are automatically enrolled in their neighborhood school unless they specifically choose another school. This policy was taken away at North last year, denying the school potentially hundreds of students.

The Board’s planned neglect of North was also shown in their decision last summer to sponsor two new privately managed, non-union “Minneapolis College Prep” charter schools. The first is set to open in North next fall with a 700 student capacity. But studies show privately managed, unaccountable charters have increased segregation in Minnesota, while failing to improve over-all test scores.

Privatizing Public Education
On a national scale, a powerful set of business and political interests are pushing a profit-driven policy of privatization. Corporate funding has poured into privately managed charters, many of them explicitly for-profit schools, as well as political lobbying to ensure government support for expanding charters at the expense of public schools.

Across the country urban, low-income, and predominantly Black and Latino communities have faced the most sweeping school closures and privatization. Low test scores, which say more about a student’s zip-code than about their intelligence, are used as an excuse replace public schools with charters. But every serious study shows charters’ test scores average no better than public schools despite their ability to cherry-pick the best performing students.

Charters failure to perform is linked to rapid teacher burnout and turnover. Charters are non-union, meaning they typically overwork teachers and don’t pay living wages or benefits. The best teachers refuse to work under these conditions. Privatization and charters are no solution to the problems facing North schools. Real answers can only come by expanding the resources and democratic community control of our public schools.

Contact the SAVE NORTH HIGH COALITION
North High Alumni Association | 612.715.2527
Friends of North Foundation | marcusgo6@gmail.com
Public Education Justice Alliance of MN | 952.465.5307
For updates check PEJAM.org