St Paul is more Catholic. Catholics are the biggest percentage of private schools.
Suburbs are richer. Richer people can more easily afford private schools. Who says "they would move if they could"? Is that a supposition, David, or something that is established? One thing no one brings up is the idea that a lot of the dropouts don't consider their condition a personal social crisis. If not, then why would they want to move? We know it is a problem to leave so many people un-educated, but that is not the same thing as the kid wanting more school. Minneapolis may simply have fewer seats to fill than some of these other places. It seems to me not that long ago schools were closing because of falling enrollment. Most of my Catholic friends did go to Catholic elementary and then finished in public junior high and high school. Has it occurred to anyone that students whose parents are paying more money get more parental support and attention? And that this biases the results some towards success? --- David Brauer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The Strib had a story this morning on students who moved > from public to > private schools. Though it led with a Minneapolis mom of > 3, it wasn't > really Minneapolis-specific. > > However, there's a chart (more extensive online) that > listed the > percentage of each city's students in private schools. > (Cities in this > chart are those with more than 10,000 people.) > > Minneapolis ranked 29th (my count) of 83 communities, > with 12.7 percent > of kids in private schools; St. Paul has 15.4 percent, by > the way. (The > top community, Mendota Heights, has a mind-boggling 47 > percent of kids > in private schools. St. Cloud, Roseville and Golden > Valley all had > higher percentages of kids in private schools; Apple > Valley, Brooklyn > Center and Lakeville were far lower.) > > Our city's ranking was lower than I thought, and I'm > guessing there are > explanations that favor the current system's fans > (Minneapolis schools > are doing a good job) and foes (our kids are too poor to > move, but would > if they could; Minneapolitans aren't as religious as our > neighbors in > St. Paul). > > Anyway, a data point for an election year. > > http://www.startribune.com/stories/1592/3242066.html > > David Brauer > King Field Michael Atherton:"Here's some more wild speculation: Maybe parents in Mendota Heights are afraid of the public schools because innovation and reform are stifled by Education Minnesota, the largest and most political powerful labor union in the state" "Innovation" and "reform" are great glittering generalities. But nothing more. I think teachers are as eager for innovations as anyone else. But with the constant throttling of school budgets by people on Michael's end of the spectrum, gets a little hard to be innovators. And in any case, it seems to me that innovation is the antipodes of what Michael wants. He really wants to recreate the little red school house with the school marm wielding her ruler. His idea of "progress" looks more like "regress" to me. ===== Jim Mork (Cooper Neighborhood) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vote Wellstone! One of the few people in Washington who'll stick his neck out for BOTH the stockholders (combatting management fraud) AND the working people.************ Why do corporations always love war? Easy: They don't bleed and they on't pay.************* __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
