This is a very informative report by Sarah Lamh
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/03/30/minneapolis-public-schools-not-ready-teacher-led-school

She quotes Bob Wedl saying, "neither district administration or the district’s
school board were clearly ready to manage the process."

This is a great series that explains the charterization of the Minneapolis
Public Schools.
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/03/30/whats-next-pierre-bottineau-french-immersion-school
It appears that the MPS is working hard to create as many charter schools as
possible.

Tom Franta, the director of new schools for the MPS, has no teaching
experience, no experience in school administration, and no experience in
Minnesota. He does have experience as the Associate General Counsel at the
Charter Schools Institute in New York.

The site-governed schools were NOT supposed to be charters. The TC Daily
Planet articles describe how MPS has had trouble creating new
"within-district", non-charter options similar to the Boston Pilot Schools.
In both Boston and Minneapolis, the teachers union encouraged the district
to encourage, receive, consider and when well done, create new NON-charters
developed by teachers, parents and community members, working within the
district.

Here's some information about how this has worked in Boston:
http://www.ccebos.org/pilotschools/bostonpilotschools.html

Sadly, it has not worked well in Minneapolis - despite great efforts by a
number of teachers and encouragement from the Minneapolis Federation of
Teachers.

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 10:19 PM, Dan McGuire <<email obscured>> wrote:

> This is a great series that explains the charterization of the Minneapolis
> Public Schools.
>
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/03/30/whats-next-pierre-bottineau-french-immersion-school
It appears that the MPS is working hard to create as many charter schools

Rest of post

Thanks for posting the story; it was a complex one to write. I don't think it's
over yet, either.

Although I could not adequately work it into this series of stories, I would
like to say that the line between charter and self-governed, in interpretation,
is blurry. People who I talked to, who were part of the creation of Pierre
Bottineau were so hopeful about the school. Then, they felt MPS had a "charter
only" mindset, for a variety of reasons that can be documented.

It seems the Office of New Schools wanted charter schools and I think one can
see that in the way Pierre Bottineau's budget was handled. I guess, as an
observer, I am wondering what led to such an unfortunate situation, and what
the future will be for Pierre Bottineau. Also, Cityview will share space with
PBFI, and it will be the district's first community partnership school.

What will distinguish, I wonder, the site-governed school from the community
partnership school?

Rest of post

The line between charter and self-governed seems to be union vs non-union
teachers, and it appears that the MPS has no interest in seeing self-governed
schools be successful. "Jill Stever-Zeitlin, who was the Director of
Strategic Planning, (and
McKinsey & Company Partner from September 1992 – February 2008) jumped in to
help “ensure the proposal fit with the district’s Strategic Plan.” McKinsey &
Company has always been proud of their union busting abilities.

MPS didn't really want successful teacher-led schools

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MPS didn't really want successful teacher-led schools

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