From Rep. Diane Loeffler

Thanks for all of your hard work on so many fronts for the future of education in our city! As you may have noted in the news, the budget targets the House released last night protect education (early childhood, k-12 and higher education) from cuts in addressing a historic deficit. When so many other programs must be cut drastically (up to 8.5%), that was a major concession to this area. For example, in health and human services we have 5,000 people with developmental disabilities on waiting lists for community services, 650 people with traumatic brain injury on a wait list, and hospitals and other health providers laying off hundreds of staff and hoping they won't have to close major departments. So everything's "bare bones" in this era and there are no easy places to cut. The House budget is based on raising $1.5 billion in additional tax revenues - we will propose to do it in a progressive way as much as possible.

Wanted to pass on a few links for your review and consideration.

There wasn't a meeting in N.E or S.E. on the proposed changes for middle schools and high schools. I'll provide the link to the slides on the MPS website. It shows Edison with the second smallest enrollment projected for 2013. Not having seen the presentation, it is easy to misunderstand, but one slide seems to indicated that 74% of area high schoolers would have to change high school under a scenario that would move students back to the closest high school. I hope before enacting it they do some market surveying to make sure we don't loose those kids to other options (the suburbs, charters, private schools, etc.) and the projected savings never materialize and the student counts continue to drop. Other options mention closing one or more schools. On what basis will they be chosen?

Another proposal was to move high school start times to 7:30 a.m - Lots of adolescent brain research shows that is not a good idea. (That research was highly touted when the later high school start times were adopted). Lets give our kids all the advantages possible since many of our kids still struggle with the performance standards. The transportation budget shouldn't be allowed to distract from achievement goals.

Here's the link to the MPS choice options info re: middle and high schools. Note this material is in the second column and the middle school/high schoool choices start at slide 20 of 31 slides. (just above Submit feedback - coming soon - hope it's soon - Administration recommendations are due mid-April).
http://www.mpls.k12.mn.us/Changing_School_Options.html

I found this student's article on Edison's restart concerning. Please take the time to absorb one student's reporting and the quotes from staff. It was published on Twin Cities Daily Planet.

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2009/03/16/old-school-new-school.html

Thanks again for your dedication. These aren't easy times at either the state or local level. May wisdom and well thought through analysis of the options guide us through these tough times.

Diane Loeffler