NEWS DAY | Student choices, school winners and losers
A Star Tribune article marking the 20th anniversary of Minnesota's open enrollment option offers some interesting insights on who wins and who loses. Open enrollment gives students the option to enroll in public schools outside their own district. Big-city school districts lose both students and the state aid dollars that follow them, with more students opting to enroll outside the districts than there are outside-district students coming in. (Anoka-Hennepin and Minneapolis are cited in the article, and the same is probably true of St. Paul.)
Some districts gain lots of students and state aid - Minnetonka's $40,000 advertising campaign, for example, pays off with a net gain of 708 students out-of-district students, bringing with them millions of dollars in state aid. The 1,700-student St. Anthony-New Brighton district is also a winner, with a total enrollment of 1,700, including a net gain of 762 students from outside the district this year, according to the Star Tribune.
One number jumped out at me in the Strib's report - Minneapolis had "a net loss of nearly 12,000 students to open enrollment and charter schools last year." That started me digging, and the numbers I came up with were a little less alarming. The "net loss" might be the total number of Minneapolis K-12 students enrolled in non-district schools, but it didn't happen overnight, and it didn't happen last year. Here are the Minneapolis Public School K-12 enrollment figures for the past four years, as reported on October 1 of each year:
2009 -- 33,548
2008 -- 33,855
2007 -- 34,290
2006 -- 36,336
Minneapolis enrollment dropped by 307 students from 2008 to 2009 - a decline of less than one percent. From 2007-2008, the drop was 435 students - just over one percent.
Twelve thousand Minneapolis students in charter schools, or attending other districts through open enrollment, is a substantial number, but the main exodus took place from 1997-2006. During that time, the percentage of Minneapolis students enrolled in district schools fell from 95 percent to 77 percent. Declines since 2007 just are not the same order of magnitude.
The bottom line, however, remains Minnesota's commitment for student choice:
"Minnesota has made a policy commitment that it is parents' choice about which schools best fit their students' needs," said Karen Klinzing, an assistant commissioner at the state Department of Education. "One size does not fit all."
News with attitude, mostly from MN but with occasional forays abroad. News Day summarizes, links to, and comments on reports from news media around the world, with particular attention to Minnesota news.
Mary Tuck is the editor of the TC Daily Planet.
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Comments
Open enrollment
Minneapolis, as a city, has much to offer its residents but Minneapolis Public Schools has squandered the trust residents have placed in its ability to educate our children. The school choices MPS offers are limited and unimaginative. Many of the district's employees also seem to have a poor attitude toward the public for whom they work. As a family we have a strong commitment to urban public schools so have chosen to send our children to a top-notch public school system across the Mississippi River, Saint Paul Public Schools.
SPPS has a visionary K-12 Spanish immersion program that will enable our sons to graduate from an IB certified high school as bilingual, biliterate and culturally proficient citizens. Adams Spanish Immersion is the state's oldest elementary immersion program with a 25 year history of graduating top quality students. Highland Park Jr. and Sr. High Spanish Immersion programs are truly one of a kind in our region and are frequently held as model programs across our region. As a matter of fact, SPPS now has immersion programs in Spanish, French and Hmong.
There are many families at Adams and Highland Park Jr. & Sr from the extended metro area who know there are good things going on in some urban schools.
Excellent Education
We have two children in MPS (Kenwood/Performing Arts Magnet K-5) and will have a third enrolled next year. We could not be happier with the school system - MPS manages the breadth of diversity, talents, and backgrounds well, blending the students together into a classroom environment that is (we believe) without equal in the Twin Cities.
The increase in professionalism has been marked over the past 5 years - kudos to Dr. Green and his team. Our neighborhood alone has expanded its commitment to MPS - we now have over 20 children at our bus stop.
If our Middle School experience in a few years is as strong as the K-5 has been, I suspect that enrollments will begin climbing again soon.
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