Brendan Behan’s poster on a Dublin alley wall has a message you might want to send to the Minnesota legislature, or the U.S. Congress: “I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.” Roads, anyone? Food stamps? Heating assistance? Continue reading
Category Archives: education
Four things you need to know about Minnesota’s special session
In the Minnesota special session, the legislature will decide on school funding (including teacher lay-offs and pre-K classes), water quality (including totally deregulating mining pollution and de-funding other anti-pollution measures), and whether to allow seed companies to tell lies on labels, among other issues. Anything there that interests you? If so, read on for a quick-and-easy guide to how the special session works, with more detailed articles linked at the end. Continue reading
Filed under agriculture, education, environment, food and farming
Beyond Pre-K: What MN schools need from the special session
Photo by Barnaby Wasson, published under Creative Commons license – https://www.flickr.com/photos/barnabywasson/279911701/in/set-72157594345855838
The debate over Governor Mark Dayton’s education bill veto focuses on the legislature’s rejection of his proposal for universal pre-kindergarten in Minnesota. But that’s only a small part of what’s wrong with the education bill. Continue reading
Filed under education
MN education budget forces ‘a gosh darn lousy plan’ on schools
With a two billion dollar budget surplus, the Minnesota legislature is poised to pass inadequate budgets that will force schools across the state to cut teachers and programs. In the House, Republicans have passed an education budget that increases per-pupil state aid by six-tenths of one percent. That’s far below the rate of inflation, and comes on top of years of failure to keep up with inflation. The DFL Senate does barely any better, with a one percent increase. Continue reading
Filed under education
MN Republicans say no to four-year-olds
Photo by Barnaby Wasson, published under Creative Commons license – https://www.flickr.com/photos/barnabywasson/279911701/in/set-72157594345855838
In the debate over universal preschool vs. targeted scholarships, the Minnesota legislature is just saying no. Governor Dayton proposed $348 million to create a free, all-day preschool program in public schools across Minnesota. The money would come from the two billion dollar budget surplus. Republican legislators said no. Instead of funding preschool, they want permanent tax cuts for businesses, permanent elimination of all estate taxes, and temporary tax cuts for individuals. Continue reading
Filed under education
Shortchanging Minnesota schools — and kids
With an almost two billion dollar state budget surplus, you’d think we could do great things for kids. But no — the Minnesota legislature proposes per-pupil school funding increases that are lower than inflation. Again. As it has done for 20 years. Continue reading
Filed under education
Walking out of work: National Adjunct Walkout Day
© Manuel Carmona – Fotolia.com
Adjunct teaching horror stories started circulating after the death of Margaret Mary Votjko in 2013. She died at age 83, alone, sick, penniless, almost homeless, after being let go from her 25-year job teaching French at Duquesne University. Daniel Kovalik’s moving column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explained that for years, “Margaret Mary worked on a contract basis from semester to semester, with no job security, no benefits and with a salary of between $3,000 and just over $3,500 per three-credit course.”
Wednesday, February 25 is National Adjunct Walkout Day, a day organized to draw attention to adjunct professors and to efforts to unionize and gain better wages and working conditions. Equity for adjuncts is an urgent issue, for faculty and students alike. Continue reading
Filed under education
Not there yet: Five ways MN preschool programs fall short
Photo by Barnaby Wasson, published under Creative Commons license – https://www.flickr.com/photos/barnabywasson/279911701/in/set-72157594345855838
As Minnesotans congratulate ourselves on paying more attention to preschool, we need to face painful facts. We know a lot about what works to get children a fair start in school, and we are still far from providing or funding that fair start for poor children. Continue reading
Filed under education
Cheating schools, students and taxpayers
© nikkytok – Fotolia.com
What’s next after Minneapolis Public Schools terminated its $375,000 contract with Community Standards Initiative? The Star Tribune’s Alejandra Matos reported in detail on the story back in September, and nothing has happened since then to make MPS or CSI look any better.CSI, led by Clarence Hightower and Al Flowers, still has the first $46,000 payment — so the taxpayers are out that money. Going back a few years and looking at other contracts makes MPS look event worse.
In an open letter, a new group named Black Advocates for Education last week asked “how many other similar contracts have been approved over the last several years behind closed doors and without a transparent process.”
Quite a few, would be my guess.
Donald Allen has been charging for years that MPS gave the Urban League and Front Street Marketing a sweetheart deal in 2008. That $103,000 contract awarded while Clarence Hightower was president of the Minneapolis Urban League. That contract also didn’t turn out so well.
Allen knows about sweetheart deals, because MPS awarded him a no-bid contract in 2011, which was another fiasco.
I know how difficult MPS made it to get any information on their contracts back in 2011, because I was the editor for Sheila Regan’s 2011 series in the Daily Planet. Perhaps in response to the criticism back then, MPS rolled out a new contract policy — which provided for less oversight and less transparency, making it even harder to track who was getting contracts. Here’s how Regan described it:
Under the new system, as described by [Chief of Policy and Operations Steve] Liss, the school board is only responsible for approving contracts over $100,000, or building contracts for over $500,000. Previously, they needed to approve contracts over $5,000. These were typically included in each month’s consent agenda, which the district staff presents to the board for approval without discussion.
Under the new system, the managers of the various departments will be responsible for seeking RFPs for any contract over $50,000.
It’s possible that the policies have changed since 2011, but shouldn’t a $375,000 contract require an RFP and competitive bidding? Especially when the contractor — Community Standards Initiative — had no track record at all?
As Regan reported back in 2011, contracts are typically put on the consent agenda and approved by the school board without scrutiny or question. The contract approval process is confusing, contradictory and not at all transparent.
Chris Stewart, who was a school board member back in 2011, tried at that time to get some accountability and to block at least one bad contract. Instead, MPS did a sneaky end run and got it approved under another name. It’s all there in the Daily Planet series — Strange bedfellows and Contracts and transparency in Minneapolis Public Schools and Foot-dragging on public information.
Stewart and University of St. Thomas law professor Nekima Levy-Pounds were among the eight people signing the open letter from Black Advocates for Education. They also asked for an investigation of “disturbing allegations about our elected, appointed, and self-appointed leadership in Minneapolis.” That’s got to include the MPS administration, MPS school board, Senators Bobby Joe Champion and Jeff Hayden, as well as Flowers and Hightower.
As the letter points out, there’s an even bigger issue here than adult shenanigans and wasting taxpayer money:
“It is a crying shame that while adults play political games for self-enrichment and to increase their personal influence, Minneapolis students are suffering and their potential is being stifled.”
Filed under education
What education does Minnesota need?
When Steven Rosenstone, chancellor of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, spoke last week at the Compass annual meeting, he could have been mistaken for a Chamber of Commerce representative. I don’t mean that as a compliment. Continue reading
Filed under 2012 issues, education
Mary Turck