I got a call recently from a former Duluth City Councilor asking me about a public notice that the Edison Schools are building a new school up along the Rice Lake Road.
Over the years this Councilor has talked to me about Edison because I was on the School Board that invited Edison into town twelve years ago. Charter Schools are a Minnesota innovation that were the brainchild of a DFL Governor, Rudy Perpich, and then championed by a Democrat (ic) President, Bill Clinton.
It would take a book to cover the Edison School history in Duluth and this post can’t do that history justice. I’ll just say I was the most reluctant vote to bring Edison in and the fiercest defender of Edison once it was established. I’ve never regretted the decision and while I’m appalled that Edison has been able to gouge so many students out of ISD 709 due to the District’s ineptitude it remains what it has always been, a refuge for kids who need to flee the 709 schools. Holy Cow! They’ve taken in a couple hundred more students AGAIN this year and have a 180 student waiting list. They are doing something right.
One more disclosure – my daughter works for Edison, no thanks to me. She loves it there.
Edison operates under state statutes regarding charter schools. It is building a new school that will be paid for by the State of Minnesota and not, as I understand it, financed by Duluth area residents. I wish I could say the same thing about the Red Plan’s construction. Once built the new Edison school will be able to take in even more students.
Edison does not pay its teachers as well as the Duluth Schools. Its teachers are under tighter supervision. It takes on more difficult special education students. lts test scores show it is roughly the equal of the Duluth public schools despite this handicap. There is a fairly high morale among Edison teachers which is one key to their success. They are not oppressed by their own union leadership (they have none) which is the principle reason the DFT took such umbrage to having an Edison charter plunked down in Duluth.
Charter schools are not private schools. They are public schools paid for by taxpayers. As with their new school’s construction Edison draws more heavily on state funds than the Duluth School District. This is because they receive very little, if any, of the locally approved operational levy. This is yet one more handicap that Edison has overcome.
One last point. As a connoisseur of fine irony I’d like to share this with my eight loyal readers.
All through the initial stage of fighting the Red Plan I had one particularly venomous critic Paul Goosens. He condemned me in some very tough letters to the editor and submitted uncounted snide comments about me on the DNT’s web pages. Put his name in Lincoln Democrat’s search function and you will see that I give as good as I get.
Paul Goosens is convinced that brand new schools are a key to a better education for our children in the Duluth Public Schools. One potential consequence of new schools would be their ability to draw students into our schools from surrounding districts thus increasing revenue, allowing us to hire new teachers and add new programs.
Paul’s actions will make this a little harder to accomplish because he once chaired the non-profit Edison set up to build their new school which will allow them to draw students away from the Red Plan Schools Paul frothed at the mouth to defend.
As the kids say – “Go figure?”
