Minnesota: The Money Behind the Effort to Rewrite the State Constitution’s Education Clause + Minneapolis: Segregated But Celebrated Charter School Will Close | Diane Ravitch's blog

Minnesota: The Money Behind the Effort to Rewrite the State Constitution’s Education Clause | Diane Ravitch's blog

Minnesota: The Money Behind the Effort to Rewrite the State Constitution’s Education Clause

Minneapolis: Segregated But Celebrated Charter School Will Close | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-u9i via @dianeravitch

In late April, I posted an article by Minnesota blogger and public school advocate Rob Levine about a sneaky effort by elites in the state to rewrite the state constitutional clause on education to protect and encourage segregated charter schools.

This new post digs deeper into the machinations and motivations behind the demand to revise the state constitution.

The campaign is led by the president of the local Federal Reserve Bank but named “the Page Amendment” for a popular local judge.

Blogger Steve Timmer explains that the money and muscle for “the Page Amendment” comes from the president of the local Federal Reserve Bank and the Minneapolis Foundation.

“Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari and former Minnesota Supreme Court Associate Justice CONTINUE READING: Minnesota: The Money Behind the Effort to Rewrite the State Constitution’s Education Clause | Diane Ravitch's blog

Minnesota: Elites Propose Constitutional Amendment to Enable Segregated Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Minnesota: Elites Propose Constitutional Amendment to Enable Segregated Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Minnesota: Elites Propose Constitutional Amendment to Enable Segregated Schools

Minnesota was the first state to pass a charter law in 1991. As blogger Sarah Lahm wrote in the Progressive in 2019, the new charters were exempt from most state regulations, including desegregation. A number of its charters are segregated by race and ethnicity, intentionally so, because the charter industry believes that segregation is culturally affirming. This situation led to a lawsuit to assure the rights of children of color in the state.

So now leading figures in the state charter lobby want to pass an amendment to the state constitution that would make segregated schools acceptable, while adding that school quality would be determined by standardized tests.

Blogger Rob Levine explains:

The Page Amendment is best understood if you recognize these foundations’ overall public education strategies. For 30 years the Minneapolis Foundation and its allies have been creating, funding, and persuading the CONTINUE READING: Minnesota: Elites Propose Constitutional Amendment to Enable Segregated Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Minnesota: Time for the Failed “Reformers” to Leave the Schools Alone | Diane Ravitch's blog

Minnesota: Time for the Failed “Reformers” to Leave the Schools Alone | Diane Ravitch's blog

Minnesota: Time for the Failed “Reformers” to Leave the Schools Alone

After thirty years of devotion to “reform” (aka, deform or disruption), reform leaders in Minnesota are proposing a state constitutional amendment that will install more mischief into the state’s public schools. Rob Levine, an ardent critic of privatization, has written this account of their multiple failures and their plans to try yet again to impose their ideas on the state’s schools. He wrote this post at my request, after I saw his tweets about the travesty that “reformers” are promoting. Rob is a “follow the money” kind of person, which unsurprisingly removes the veil from bold promises that never come true. Minnesota is allowing big money to dictate the fate of its schools. Is there any accountability in the state for thirty years of failure? Why do “reformers” never learn from their failures?

He writes:

In the Fall of 2022 Minnesotans may be voting on a constitutional amendment that will fundamentally change state law around public education. How will this change public education? Surprisingly, even the authors profess not to know the answer to this question. The only thing certain about the proposed amendment is that it will CONTINUE READING: Minnesota: Time for the Failed “Reformers” to Leave the Schools Alone | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education Law Center: Minnesota Considers Constitutional Amendment That Threatens Student Rights | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education Law Center: Minnesota Considers Constitutional Amendment That Threatens Student Rights | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education Law Center: Minnesota Considers Constitutional Amendment That Threatens Student Rights

Imagine a state that adopts a state constitutional amendment that ties student rights to an education to their test scores. Would anyone be so dumb as to imagine that the test scores of students of different races would change because of a constitutional amendment? Remember that Minnesota was the first state to pass a charter law, promising to close the academic gaps. That was in 1992. Thirty years later, the state’s Big Thinkers are still grasping at straws.

EDUCATION EXPERTS AND SCHOLARS: PROPOSED MINNESOTA CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT THREATENS STUDENTS’ RIGHTSFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Today, prominent experts on constitutional law and education sent a letter to Minnesota legislators voicing significant concerns that a proposal to amend the Minnesota Constitution would undermine and weaken students’ right to public education. 
In January 2020, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve proposed to eliminate the current guarantee of a free public education in the Minnesota State Constitution and replace it with language to make education “a fundamental right” to “quality schools” to be “measured against uniform achievement standards set forth by the state.” 

Proponents of the change contend that this new language would reduce gaps in achievement between Minnesota’s white students and students of color. A proposed bill to amend the constitution, H.F. 874, was introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives on February 8.

In their letter, nationally known constitutional scholars and education law experts outline the negative effects the proposed amendment would have on Minnesota students’ right to public education. CONTINUE READING: Education Law Center: Minnesota Considers Constitutional Amendment That Threatens Student Rights | Diane Ravitch's blog