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Maple River Education Coalition PAC
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June 13,  2001
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Transforming High Schools in Mpls
Small Learning Communities and False Advertising!

The following quotations are from an article about a Minneapolis Board of Education meeting on May 8th. (See the entire article on their website) It discusses transforming the Minneapolis high schools into "small learning communities." Small Learning Communities sounds like an innovative way to personalize education by grouping students into smaller units that build relationships and create a learning environment. That is not the truth about Small Learning Communities.

"Small Learning Communities" are a means to force a career path upon every student, typically by the end of 8th grade. (See our article "Decoding St. Paul's 'Education Blueprint") The misuse of language has become a means to manipulate the public. The new system uses language that sounds like what the public wants, but delivers the substance of something entirely different.

In reality, each so-called "Small Learning Community" is a career cluster (or aligned with a career cluster in the younger grades). In other words, the "Small Learning Community" is a way to railroad children into career paths long before they are ready, even long before they have made a conscious choice.  The number of career clusters is limited to those that have been identified by "federal and state research" to be Minnesota's careers. (See the list of careers decided for Minnesota.  Students receive career testing in 8th grade. On the basis of that, job skills and minimum academic competencies are given to each student for their 9th and 10th grades.

Most of the 11th and 12th grades are then to be used for apprenticeships, work-based learning, and on-the-job skills. It is career tracking. It is here. Yet nothing in the literature or public meetings gives the public a picture of this. All of it is presented as simply a more personal, caring approach to learning. All students will participate. That is, all education is vocational, and it is determined too early in life to constitute an independent decision of the student.

Here is their summary of the May 8th public meeting. Nothing in it describes what small learning communities really are:

Since last fall, the district has talked with various high schools about what makes a quality high school experience. With help from Minneapolis Public Schools Foundation President Joel Kramer, the district received $1 million from the McKnight Foundation to help move high school reform forward. The goal is to transform the high school experience, having every 9th grade student choose a small learning community (maximum of 150 students per grade) by the fall of 2002. [Emphasis added.]

Kramer, who is helping lead the high school reform effort, outlined the main goals of the transformation: to improve the graduate rate, lower the dropout rate, and increase graduates' preparedness for post-secondary education and careers.

Increasing academic achievement is not on the list of goals of their high school reform effort. That is because academics is not the purpose of school-to-work or the small learning communities.

To help define what these small learning communities will look like, the district has gathered input from students, teachers, staff, other school districts, and the community. All Minneapolis public high schools - including five alternative schools - have school-based planning teams that are working on how they will transform their specific school.

The above gives the false impression the public had real choice and impact in the planning , when the plan was put together years ago by central planners (such as Marc Tucker and the NCEE).  This technique – of manipulating public meetings and focus groups into a predetermined conclusion is called the Delphi Technique – is now widely used here in Minnesota and around the country to create the illusion that the public knowingly decided on the radical new education system.

Southwest Area Superintendent Bob McCauley outlined the timing for implementing this reform: during this June through September, school-based teams will design the specific small learning communities at their site; in October, current 8th graders will receive a high school brochure outlining their options. The district’s school information fair will be November 3, and choice cares are due by January 15, 2002. The small learning communities will be launched by September 3, 2002.

Ideas and comments from the public

Several representatives from the Hispanic Education Issues Committee - made up of Latino students, parents and community members interested in high school reform - spoke about their concerns and hopes for high school reform...

Questions raised included: Would staff have a choice about which small learning community they work in? With budget cuts, where will the money come from for this effort? What happens to a student who wants to change what small community they belong to in 10th grade? What impact will small learning groups have on athletics? Since the high school reform begins with students entering 9th grade in 2002, what happens to students already in high school in the 2002/2003 school year?

Notice that none of these questions are answered in the article.

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