Star Tribune Report Goes Nuclear on ‘Failing’ MN Charter Schools

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

Charter Schools: Still Bad

How rotten and corrosive is the concept of charter of schools, which originated right here in Minnesota? Pretty rotten, as the Star Tribune discovered in today's deep-dive into floundering local charter schools, and awfully corrosive, as most union public school teachers will tell you. Stribbers Mara Klecker and Jeffrey Meitrodt don't pull any punches with their headline: "Most Minnesota charter schools are failing to make good on their promises."

In the richly reported piece, we learn that, despite $1 billion-plus from taxpayers in 2023, our state's charter schools "are far less likely to meet grade-level standards for math or reading than their peers in traditional public schools." In fact, only 13 (!) of 203 charters have consistently exceeded state proficiency test averages since 2016, though they have consistently siphoned resources away from traditional public schools.

“They promised these schools would be better,” says U of M professor Myron Orfield, a charter school researcher who once supported 'em but has since soured. “The vast majority are really bad. Many of them are so bad they never should have opened. We shouldn’t continue to allow that.” Adds Norma Garcés, who has led charters for 12 years: "Charter schools fall apart because they don’t understand the market they are going to serve. Some people are doing innovation for innovation’s sake."

That's bad news for Minnesota, which has a lot of charter schools—more than any other state with a significant number of independent charters, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “We should not let schools fail kids indefinitely,” says Jennifer Stern of Minneapolis nonprofit Great MN Schools. As Minneapolis Public Schools stares down the barrel of a massive budget shortfall, we suggest a bold solution: Eliminate charter schools and reinvest those squandered tax dollars back into public schools.

But don't take our riffy word for it; read Klecker and Meitrodt's entire story and decide for yourself. It's easy—and fun!—to gripe about the Strib, but this is the type of heavyweight enterprise reporting you won't find anywhere else in Minnesota.

Satan to GOP Candidate: Isn’t Your Sister Hot?

Are you a dude who thinks sexy things about other dudes? You could a) realize that’s totally OK and just go with it or b) blame "the Evil One.” Caleb Steffenhagen, GOP candidate for the Minnesota House seat in District 48B, chooses to do the latter. As he explained of his wicked nemesis on the DMU podcast in 2020, “All of a sudden, he’ll throw in, like, a homosexual thought or a thought about your sister or just like, weird stuff..." Wait, what? Your sister? What else is the devil making this guy think?

Steffenhagen, a National Guard officer who teaches middle school history at a charter school (see blurb above), is hoping to unseat DFL Rep. Lucy Rehm, who won the Carver County district by some 400 votes in 2022. Rehm successfully sponsored the bill to rename part of Hwy. 5 after Prince, who, incidentally, sang “incest is everything it’s said to be” on his 1980 song “Sister." Wait, is Prince the Evil One?

Hero Kitty Survives Two Months in Sewer

He was out for a good time, but ended up trapped below the surface like Will Byers in the Upside Down. That’s what happened to Drifter, a three-year-old tabby who escaped from his Duluth home during neighborhood construction. After he went missing on July 18, his family say they feared the worst had happened—perhaps a wild animal attacked him or he was hit by a car—but in reality he was down below them, fighting to survive in the sewers.

Then, one day, they heard a desperate meow from where the city had been working on the sidewalk. “We ran and started digging, everything was covered in dirt and landscape fabric,” owner Clifton Nesseth tells Sam Stroozas at MPR. “A little paw shot out of a tear in the fabric. It was a tabby cat paw. We tore the fabric more and then his head popped through and at that moment we realized oh my gosh, this is our cat.”

You can watch a clip of the dramatic rescue via MPR’s TikTok.

Burger-Toting Robots Invade U of M

You could accurately accuse at least one Racket owner/editor of being a real luddite. Jay Boller, writing third-person in this very blurb, seems bearish on generative AI—whether it's the soulless writing, hucksterish culture, or slop-mill websites. This is the same reporter who can't even handle an aesthetically modern McDonald's location! So you can imagine his delight at this phrase from KSTP's Ben Henry, seen below reporting on 10 new autonomous robots tasked with delivering fast food around the University of Minnesota: "There are concerns about these B.O.T.s takings J.O.B.s." Excellent fucking stuff Ben, and delightful entry into the person-on-the-street commentary genre of local TV news. We're gonna punch out at our J.O.B. now—T.G.I.F., readers!