Glenn Ford Talks Food Deserts (Podcast)

This month Glenn Ford, CEO of Praxis Marketplace provides a sobering and inspirational view of food deserts, social determinants of health, and his new grocery store on Plymouth and Penn – Happily serving urban food traditions.

Listen to the podcast from iDream.tv.

The linked podcast is a segment from the Stone Arch Discussion Group, a project of the DFL Education Foundation. It was recorded on March 9, 2013, at Gardens of Salonica in NE Minneapolis. Production services provided by Minneapolis-based multimedia company iDream.tv.

Why Pick on the Women?

 Minnesota is and historically has been a leader in women’s employment outside the home. Recent studies show that women now make up 50.8% of Minnesota’s workforce.  Statewide, according to the American Community Survey 2008, Minnesota’s married women contribute 44% of family income and almost 40% of Minnesota mothers with children in the home earn 50% or more of family earned income.  This, even though women only earn, on average, about 76 cents for every dollar a man earns.

Now an effort is being made in the state legislature to effectively cut women’s wages.  Even though women earn, on average, only 82% of what men earn in public employment, House file 7 and Senate file 159 would abolish the pay equity provision in state law that has been in force since the mid-1980s.  Statewide, but especially in out-state areas, this could be disastrous.  Most of the women who work for cities, counties, school districts or other arms of government are helping to support families.

Yet, in December, 2010, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce issued a report calling for repeal of the pay equity law calling it an “unnecessary and costly mandate”  because local governments are required every three years to file a report to show that they are in conformance with the legislation.  Such reports now can be filed electronically, taking an hour or two on average.  Still, a number of institutions hire consultants to assist in them in filing the reports.  Isn’t it possible that money could be saved by forgetting the consultants and letting a good woman employee file the report?

Why pick on the women?  If the goal is to save governments money, why shouldn’t the costliest wage earners be cut?  If legislators and others also are worrying about pension costs, they should factor in the fact that those who earn more get larger pensions.  These and other questions should be part of the debate about the proposals to repeal pay equity laws.

Speech by Pam Costain, Executive Director of Achieve MPS

“Do we really as a community understand the seriousness of the achievement gap for kids’ futures and the future of our state?” Pam Costain, executive director of AchieveMpls, opened her presentation to the Achievement Gap Committee on December 17th, 2010, with this question. To another well attended gathering of over 50 people including former and newly elected MPS Board members, Pam discussed the district’s challenges when she was elected to the Minneapolis Public School Board in 2006, what she learned during her almost 4 years on the board, her appraisal of board accomplishments and the critical issues that remain.

After Don Fraser’s introduction that she was giving her “board exit interview,” Pam took aim at the continued existence of the achievement gap in MPS. “Why, if we know how bad the situation is right now for children of color in our urban core and throughout the state, have we made little progress closing the education gap? Do we really believe as a community that ALL children can learn at the highest level and be prepared to go to college? What would our education system look like if we put the needs of children at the center of all of our decision-making?”

The Context of the Minneapolis Public Schools
MPS students are bright, capable and deserving of an excellent education that meets their needs, Pam said. While most MPS students are really poor, middle class families continue to stay despite their ability to leave. The district must provide an excellent education for every child while eliminating the achievement gap between white students and students of color. When Pam joined the board in 2006 they were faced with the loss of 18,000 children in ten years (almost 1/3 of enrollment) and the necessity of closing schools in economically vulnerable neighborhoods reeling from the mortgage foreclosure crisis and unemployment. One in 10 MPS students were homeless or in highly mobile families meaning that they moved monthly, 65% lived in very poor families, and 16% received Special Education services because the district’s top-notch Special Education programming attracts children with severe learning problems from the entire metro area.

In addition to rapidly declining enrollment and the dilemma of excess capacity in neighborhood schools, the shocks to the MPS system included drastic cuts in state revenue, a failed superintendency in 2007 and the loss of key allies.

In the midst of these challenging circumstances, the 2008 MPS referendum provided hope and confirmed that the Minneapolis community cared about educating all children. Even though 80% of voters had no children in the schools and the profile of the predominantly white, affluent voters didn’t match the ethnically diverse, mostly low-income MPS student population, the referendum passed with a 71% majority. The accomplishments MPS has made since 2007, Pam told listeners, must be seen in light of the community’s concern for children, the support for the public schools, and understanding of the link between the health of our public schools and the health of our city and its economy.

MPS Board’s Commitment to Educational Equity
Pam is proud of the MPS board’s commitment to educational equity and to overcoming the achievement gap. “We are not going to decide in 7th grade which kids will go to college.” Challenging a pervasive culture of low expectations, the board’s strategic plan started with the commitment to ensure that “every child is college ready.” To achieve this goal, the administration and board focused on the central role of principals’ leadership and the quality of teaching. They tackled some critical long term problems as a result of their willingness to examine their “dirty laundry:” a curriculum audit highlighted deficiencies throughout the district, programs for English Language Learners were inadequate, and no consistent, system-wide evaluation of principals had been conducted.

Changing School Options
The board’s commitment to equity includes quality schools in every part of town and equity across the system. The Changing School Options initiative redrew school boundaries to create a clearer, simpler, more equitable system of school options to save money while maintaining choice and educational coherence. The board also embraced new models of district sponsored charters and teacher-led schools.

Negotiations with the Teachers Union
Over the past several decades, the district ceded control in negotiating teacher contracts to the teachers’ union. The 220-page teachers contract is silent on management’s rights. The board opened negotiations with the teachers union and sought more management flexibility in meeting children’s educational needs.

Early Childhood Education Partnerships 
Young children’s development from 0 – 5 is the first critical phase of their education The achievement gap starts with unequal access to the learning experiences that prepare young children for success in school. MPS argued strongly for state investments in parenting support and to increasing low-income families’ access to quality early care and education in both public and private programs. Much more work needs to be done to strengthen MPS partnerships with child care, Head Start and other early education providers to enhance children’s learning 0-5 and align early childhood programs with K-12 expectations.

Lessons Learned from the School Board Experience
The over-riding lesson of Pam’s MPS board experience is that while governance is hard because of conflicting demands and claims on resources, governing a public education system is uniquely challenging.  School board decisions have intensely personal impact for what’s most precious to parents – their kids. From the most affluent parents to the poorest, all have a claim on the MPS for their child. It’s challenging to communicate with parents and the public about the whole system.

The inherent weaknesses of school boards, especially in large districts, include the lack of time, part-time pay ($14,000/year in MPS) for a full-time job, no administrative support or staff, enormously complicated issues with an extreme learning curve, elected members with varying levels of experience and mis-matches for the skills and expertise needed by the board.

No Easy Answers for Public Education Reform
Changing a large legacy public institution like the MPS is enormously complicated. Urban districts are at the intersection of race, class, segregation, disability, and lack of resources. Public school districts are dealing with public perceptions of what’s happening vs. the reality.
Every child is important. Opening ourselves to this is difficult even for the most liberal among us.

Critical Issues Facing MPS
MPS cannot tolerate different educational outcomes for the haves and the have nots any longer. Our challenge is to build a district where every child’s educational needs are met.

Second, while teachers are NOT the problem OR the enemy, a system that is not organized to serve ALL children is the problem. Teachers’ contracts must be negotiated to balance management’s needs for serving all children as well as supporting effective teaching.

Charter schools are here to stay. The debate about the role of charters must shift from support to whether or not they’re getting the job done and providing a quality education.

The most critical issue facing the district is the role of the community in decision-making.  The biggest critique of MPS is that we don’t know how to talk with, communicate to, and organize with parents, staff and the community. The district needs to take a long term community organizing approach, dedicating consistent staff an
d resources to ongoing dialogue with all the community stakeholders including parents, staff, local business leaders, policy makers and the media.

Finally, MPS needs healing, but we also need success. The changes we’ve made must begin to narrow the achievement gap and our success communicated to the community.

AchieveMpls Partnership with MPS
The job of educating every child in Minneapolis is too big and too complex for the schools alone.
AchieveMpls believes that “a quality, equitable public education system is crucial to our community’s viability. AchieveMpls is a critical and strategic non-profit partner designated by the Minneapolis Public Schools to ensure students are prepared for school, work and life.”  Achieve MPS provides a bridge between the institution and the public, creating a synergy to help both understand and support each other.
www.achievempls.org

Q & A With the Audience

What help is out there for MPS board governance?
The MPS board is a member of the Council of Great City Schools which has been helpful in looking at data, curriculum and training issues.  But they haven’t really tackled the issue of board governance.

From a former MPS board member: Could “Minnesota Nice” be part of the problem? 

MPS culture of “exceptions” makes it almost impossible for the administration to build momentum for a change.  The MPS administration isn’t directive even when the evidence from other cities and school districts demonstrates that the same curriculum, for example, can provide cohesion and marshal district resources behind a strategy that works. Even though MPS students are highly mobile and kids get lost when curriculum isn’t consistent across grade levels, exceptions to curriculum are consistent. Teachers love to be successful with kids and to help them build kids’ success. The administration needs to change the culture of “exceptions” and build teacher buy-in for using the same curriculum.

Also, if really ALL our kids were succeeding, that could be pretty scary for some people. Could there be a subconscious fear that “those kids” will compete with “our kids?”

Why change the options for school choice?

The board wrestled with retaining choice and also managing choice due to costs (e.g., busing) and limiting choice so that we can marshal our resources for educating every child. The former choice system wasn’t equitable and the board needed to ensure that all kids get an excellent education.

Most (90%) of charter schools in Minneapolis are ethnically similar. Why did MPS fail to develop better services for ELL students in neighborhood schools that have a more diverse student population?

Mistakes were made in providing ELL programming. This isn’t an excuse but it’s just to say that it’s very challenging for a large, diverse system to change quickly to provide education for specific populations like ELL and to involve the families. MPS must do better and yet I feel I must support Charter schools that are able to perform and get results.

Should MPS administration institute a labor/management council to maintain a better relationship with the teachers union?

MPS had too close a relationship with the teachers union for the past 25 years. The union essentially ran the district with little push back from the board or the administration. Going forward, we need a better balance between teachers and management to better focus on children’s education needs.

David Schultz: The costs of privatization: It may not save the state money

Gov. Mark Dayton and the Republican Legislature face a $6.2 billion deficit and a legal mandate to produce a balanced budget. They differ on how to address this task. One thing is certain: Some will argue that a solution is the privatization of state functions or services. For those who think privatization yields immediate savings, that is not necessarily correct. Privatization also forces critical tradeoffs in equity, service delivery to the poor, and perhaps in public safety, quality and accountability.

Privatization has multiple meanings. One definition is the selling off of state-owned enterprises that can make money as private businesses. This is what privatization generally has meant outside the United States, especially in former communist countries, where government enterprises such as utilities are sold to investors. Minnesota does not have these types of enterprises to sell.

Perhaps Minnesota could sell its prisons to be run privately, or maybe some transportation functions. Selling off prisons means a loss of control over them and the possibility of worker strikes. Privatizing snow plowing might save some money, but coordinating a massive fleet of private vendors to plow the roads is a costly logistical issue.

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