The MPS Budget: Who’s Leading? And What About the Kids?
Our public schools are facing unprecedented financial challenges. St. Paul closed six schools within the last two years and now plans to cut 110 teachers. Edina Public Schools is taking out an $800,000 loan to cover next year’s basic operating expenses. Here in Minneapolis, families are grappling with a devastating $110 million deficit next school year.
As an educator and the parent of two Minneapolis Public School (MPS) students, I know it’s time for those of us who care about public schools to have hard conversations and make hard decisions. But here’s my worry: no one in Minneapolis is taking the lead.
With three major power players charged with guiding our public schools, I ask myself, “Who is leading the whole community of us through this moment? And how are we centering the needs and outcomes of students in these conversations?”
MPS’s Superintendent and Cabinet
MPS’s central office has failed to communicate effectively with the broader community about our district’s financial situation. Only those who paid close attention to School Board meetings over the past five years knew the fiscal cliff we now find ourselves facing was entirely predictable. Superintendent Dr. Lisa Sayles-Adams has only been in MPS for two months and should not be held responsible for the actions of past leaders. However, I am disappointed that those in the Cabinet who created next year’s proposed budget did not ask principals, educators, caregivers, or students for input on how to make these historically large cuts. Why did they spend hour after hour in meetings with each other rather than harnessing this moment as an opportunity to draw on the wisdom of the community? What is the data they used to decide these cuts?
Minneapolis Board of Education
Former School Boards redistricted our city with the CDD without confronting our overarching financial difficulties. Due to declining enrollment, the writing was on the wall about needing to close some schools. Numerous parents and teachers asked the School Board to do that as part of the CDD so that kids would not need to switch schools twice in a short period. Yet, past School Boards lacked the political will to make hard decisions and kicked the can down the road. Our current School Board is doing the best they can to clean up multiple messes that were handed down to them. While I feel hopeful about the current iteration of the School Board, will they be more courageous, transparent, and action-oriented than their predecessors? We need them to be asking tough questions about how this budget is contributing to our strategic goals for student outcomes.
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers
The leadership of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) has compounded trust issues by creating an us vs them narrative that blames the boogeymen of “middle management” and “outside forces” for MPS’s challenges. Like many other school districts nationwide, MPS’s financial difficulties are caused by declining enrollment, a massive underfunding of public education by state and federal governments, and inflation. Rather than acknowledging these facts, MFT’s leaders perpetuate false claims about MPS hiding money. During 2022’s three-week strike, they claimed that MPS had enough money to meet educators’ demands but was refusing to do so. In the two years since, this strategy has backfired. Governor Walz and numerous state legislators have expressed surprise that MPS is facing financial difficulties after Minnesota legislators passed millions of dollars in additional education funding last year. Rather than changing course, MFT’s leaders doubled down on their false narrative about hidden money with their recent widely publicized glossy report that was prepared by a consultant whose flawed financial analysis misled the Portland Association of Teachers into a month-long strike last November. Why isn’t MFT using their formidable organizing power to work with school districts statewide to push Minnesota’s Democratic trifecta for the resources necessary for modern-day public schools, in particular fully funding Special Education and English Language Learners?
The adults who are supposed to be leading MPS — including the central office, the School Board, and the MFT Executive Board — are pointing fingers at each other instead of prioritizing children. We need a different conversation. We must stop shifting blame and start working together. I believe we have a responsibility to our children and our democracy to meet this moment with our very best. We need to ask hard questions and wrestle with their answers without resorting to false binaries.
As a parent and a graduate of Minneapolis Public Schools, I care deeply about our district’s success. I believe in the collective. I believe in leadership that comes out of silos to ask hard questions and make tough decisions. As a taxpayer in this city, I don’t want to live in denial about MPS’s current state of financial crisis. We are spending $55 million dollars from MPS’s emergency fund to make it through next school year. What happens after that? I want to talk about it.
We need leaders who explain difficult circumstances to MPS stakeholders with transparency. We need leaders who bring us together to create a community-driven plan for how to make MPS the vibrant, high-quality, and financially stable school district our kids deserve. To quote Alice Walker, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” Please join me in this vital conversation.