This is the most important local story the Duluth News Tribune has covered in the last ten years. Our new schools are cesspools of overcrowding. Far be it from the DNT to correctly point to the reason for the overcrowding – the theft of $5 or 6 million annual operational dollars to pay the bankers for the Red Plan bonds. No, its all the state government’s fault for shortchanging our schools with flat funding.
Yes, the state has been stingy but I defy any Red Planners to find another Minnesota school district which routinely crams high school students like livestock in cattle cars into standard subjects like history and science the way Duluth does. One of our principals makes the godawful statement that 47 students is a “breaking point.” Hell, 37 kids is damn near a breaking point. Ah but we have white boards.
As long as the DNT insists on ignoring the true reasons for our classroom overcrowding they will remain part of the problem and they will never coax Duluth voters into passing a much needed operational levy. Its time for some serious confession on their editors part.
Note: I originally wrote a considerably more venomous metaphor for cramming kids into classrooms. It was my scorn speaking and its still justly deserved.
