Never Saw an Idea I Didn’t Like……

This just in….I mean just in….the Sauk Rapids Rice Superintendent has introduced a proposal for the district to enter into the

“Sauk Rapids Rice Integration Plan”  

Yes, this important socal engineering project comes complete, well not quite complete, with the $370,000 it would add to the district budget.   Only one third ($120,000 or so) would need to be funded through a local property tax levy.  And oh, what about that pesky inflation that would soon swallow up this new initiative.  If it sounds too good to be true?

Did I miss something or did we not recently inform the district that we were not interested in increasing property taxes?

And what exactly is the purpose of this newly essential program?

It’s stated purpose is:

To address the growing academic and social-emotional needs of both majority and nonmajority learners in accordance with the Minnesota Desegregation Law (It should probably be Rule).

Seems we’re not the first to find this interesting approach to ripping off the tax payers.  Apparently our district is simply trying to keep pace with the other districts already feeding at the trough like Stillwater.   I’m sure that Stillwater must be strugling to educate that underprivledged minority population in their district.  Is it possible that this high dollar district needs state aid to help educate minorities.

 As a member of EMID, the Stillwater Area Public Schools received approximately one million dollars in state funding for the 2006-2007 school year. 

Yep you heard that right, 93% white Stillwater is ripping the state off for a cool Milion to implement it’s “desegregation plan”. 

What does the EMID do? 

The plan has two primary areas of focus including year-long classroom partnerships involving more that 2,000 elementary students between the two districts.

It is our understanding that the state of Minnesotat currently allows open enrollment, free of charge, for any students, and that for most districts open enrollments represent a net gain in their financial standing.  What is Stillwater doing differently?   We don’t know, but we were told at the board meeting that this was not “desegregation” like in the old days of bussing and all that.  Must be something else!  What specifically are the services that would be provided and to whom?

So how does this all work and where do we find out about it?  It appears to be described within Rules 3535.01 through 3535.018 of the Minnesota Administrative Rules.   We are not attorneys, so this could be incorect, but it is as close as we could come.  We would have asked at the board meeting but the 15-minute public input time had already expired.  (Before the topic was raised of course!)  We’ll try to get that clarified at the next meeting in two weeks.  The upshot is that even for a 94% white district like SRR it is possible to game the State funding formula for some extra State (err taxpayer) money from just by being close to a district with some minority students.  Sound a little like a pork barrel?

So here is just one more example of how the State funding formula is obviously broken and how our district leaders seem to shamelessly try to get their share of the money.  We recognize the temptation to go for this “extra” money, but in the end this is all coming out of our pockets.  We feel it would be better for organizations like PS Minnesota and Schools for Equity to get to work lobbying for legislation to remove this source of budget trickery and simply start offering equal expectations and educational opportunity to all students in Minnesota regardless of ethnic background.  Until we have equal funding per student, these funding games will continue.

Interesting that there is another State program that is targeted toward  all Minnesota students called Q-Comp.  Remember Q-comp. This program also comes with partial funding, so that is a negative for our pocket books, but it also would require that the district negotiate a performance based pay contract.  Potentially a very large positive for our students.

So we find our district leadership more interested in a backdoor source of funding through good old fashioned social engineering and pork politics.

 Garrison Keillor’s statement about NCLB is equally applicable to the republican backed Q-Comp. 

“No Child Left Behind (Q-COMP)  has plenty of flaws, but throwing it out because it’s a Republican plan is morally disgusting.”

If you missed this board meeting, and we know that most of you did, it would be timely to call your local school board representaive to discuss the wisdom of increasing the school budget in these tight times.  What exactly are the State strings that will be attached?  What will we do when inflation swallows up the already short State funding?  Why this program over Q-COMP?

Beware if you decide you’re interested in attending a board meeting the central committe will apparently be taking names.  We suggest that the board either provide a sign in sheet or refrain from this practice in the future.