One concern I have about Mike’s letters is that he keeps promising that I’ll re institute the “Minnesota Miracle.” That was the name of the ground breaking, bipartisan compromise to have the state take over the greatest share of financing local schools.
I don’t think the Miracle can be resurrected but I sure as heck think it can be reincarnated.
When I joined the School Board in 96 Minnesota was still near the top among the states in K-12 spending.
More recently we’ve been in the mid range around 25. l’d like to push us up to ten in the next couple years and devolve State control to local control. As I told the Chamber Forum when I was a kid 40 years ago schools had half as many teachers per child than they do today. Something is very wrong.
And in Duluth the average high school class size is actually bigger than when I was a baby boom high school kid.
I’ve got a few ideas about how to fix this.
