Myrl Beam is a south Minneapolis parent and organizer with Minneapolis Families for Public Schools. He is faculty in the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at Macalester College. The views expressed here are his own.
One thing conspicuously missing from the recent Minneapolis Public Schools transformation plan presentation to the school board? A budget.
For a process designed—I thought—to reverse the growing budget crisis facing the school district, there was alarmingly little information about how this drastic plan would address that crisis. In fact, in response to a question from school board Chair Collin Beachy about what budget savings the board should anticipate from this plan, MPS Deputy Superintendent Ty Thompson said the quiet part out loud: “What we know about school consolidations and school closures across our nation is that it’s not something that’s a huge cost savings.”
So, let’s get that argument out of the way then. This plan is not designed to save money. It will not solve the budget crisis the school district is facing. Might it actually worsen that crisis? The 2020 Comprehensive District Design (CDD) certainly did, driving an 18% drop in enrollment, as families chose private schools, charters, or to send their kids to suburban districts. Why would this round of school closures and redistricting not have the same effect? Each kid that leaves the district takes with them approximately $21,000 of per pupil funding on which the district relies.
So if a significant number of families leave the district—which both the CDD and research about school closures nationwide tells us is likely—and the plan is not designed to save money, then the overall effect will be to drastically worsen the budget crisis facing MPS. What good are “optimally sized schools” if there are no kids left to attend them and no money to pay their teachers?
The fact that school board representatives are even entertaining these proposals without budget numbers attached is appalling. We need to see the numbers! There need to be clear budget rationales that include staffing levels, transportation costs, and—critically—what level of attrition they are expecting based on this plan.
Let’s not be distracted by the shifting goal posts. When Board Member Joyner Emerick laments that the board has for too long "kicked the can down the road," what is the can if not the budget? The only reason that anyone would see the closures of beloved schools as necessary is if it has the potential to reverse the budget crisis through some "hard choices." If it not only won’t solve the budget crisis but has the potential to significantly worsen it by costing more money in lost enrollment than it saves in consolidation, then what are we doing here? That is just slashing and burning because it feels like a big swing.
Instead of the big, destructive swing, I’d like to see the board and the district focus on enrollment. Suburban school systems send mailers to Minneapolis families closest to their districts, as do charter schools, touting their small class sizes and special education resources. Why doesn't MPS? We have great schools, schools we should be proud of. For instance, just days before the district proposed closing Kenny Elementy, it sent out an email touting the fact that Kenny has been named a Minnesota School of Excellence. Similarly, if the district has learned that offering pre-K is a major way to recruit new families, why doesn't this plan address that? Instead, it simply shifts the attendance zones so that each pathway now has one pre-K, just moving the existing pre-Ks around without adding any pre-k availability. That doesn't address the issue at all!
One of the lessons of Operation Metro Surge is how critical our school communities are to our neighborhoods, places of real and sustaining connection with one another. Before our school board even considers closing any one of those necessary and valuable communities, they owe it to all of us to show us the numbers. Prove that these devastating cuts are worth something. I think they can’t, and they know it.
