Dear Jane and Matt,
The ultrasound pictures you sent us today, showing the miracle of our first grandchild, fills me with joy. I am agonized more than ever by the distance between us! Florida seems far away. I know you would really like to move back to Minnesota, where you both grew up.
You know I long for you to be here, but I wonder if I can encourage you to return to a state that is rushing toward average. We lived in Florida once, and while it was nice not to pay income taxes we soon realized that you got what you paid for. As you know, Jane, we enrolled you and your brother in a private school, something I thought would never happen in our family.
If our granddaughter went to school in Northfield, you could count on the public being supportive of you and wanting to make education a priority. In return for proving we had done everything possible to trim budgets, and for increasing transparency and accountability, the community here passed a levy referendum in 2006 that allowed us on the school board at least to maintain programs. I’d like her to be able to go to a school that has, in addition to the basics, an orchestra, arts programming, Advanced Placement and physical education. Other towns in Minnesota are cutting those things because they cannot pass levies.
Can Minnesotans rebuild a consensus around equity for our citizens, or will we continue to slide into competition, where some citizens (like those in Northfield who do come together in support) have more…. more educational opportunity, better infrastructure, a better standard of living?
Before you two were born, a consensus emerged about funding education. The 1971 “Minnesota Miracle” came from that consensus among the Governor, the Legislature, and the people. This guaranteed each and every student in Minnesota the same basic education funding, distributed by the state.
What came from that agreement is pretty amazing:
* Minnesota’s income followed the investment in education. Our per capita income dramatically increased until 2000, after which it has fallen in comparison with other states.
* Minnesota’s economy thrived. Our compound annual growth rate during the 1990s, compared to the national average, was nearly an entire percentage point above what it is now. Minnesota employment rates and employment growth are now declining.
* Minnesotans with high school diplomas and college degrees increased dramatically, and that brought industry and research capital into the state. But by the time my granddaughter is in middle school, at the current rate of regression, the rates for the majority of students will have reverted back to national averages, while our minority population will be less educated than the rest of the nation!
* Minnesota’s per pupil funding in 1970 was sixth in the nation. And do you know what? In 2007 we were twenty-third! In one particularly alarming statistic, out of the 38 states that provide some preschool funding, Minnesota ranks #37. Fully half of Minnesota kids are deemed not ready for kindergarten.
Building the consensus to reform school funding in a time of budget crisis seems impossible, right? I mean, it seems counterintuitive to argue that our public schools deserve a bump up in 2009, while we’re in recession. But I believe this is exactly the time to rebuild the consensus. When I was a child, after all the ugliness of World War II, our country funded the Marshall Plan, which in no small degree stabilized Europe. It’s time for a Minnesota Marshall Plan, a new Minnesota Miracle. There are brave folks in the Legislature who have authored a bill (Mindy Greiling taking the lead) that would allow this to happen. They’ve done the research and know what works for schools, so it wouldn’t be like just increasing the money supply without accountability.
Recently, Minnesota has pushed funding down to local responsibility, even while increasing state and federal accountability measures. I will argue that such a local control has wasted a ton of local district resources, produced confusion and increased inequality. Minnesota invests less now in state and local government than under Governor Carlson.
I’d dearly love to see you all come back to live in the Midwest…. but the truth is perhaps North Dakota would be a better choice, unless we can create a new public awareness that all of the kids here belong to everybody and they all deserve to be given the best.
Love you both!
Diane Cirksena has been a Northfield School Board member since 2004. This letter is addressed to her daughter Jane, a graduate of the College of St. Benedict and the University of Minnesota Law School.
