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BACKGROUND
Minnesota has struggled for years with segregated neighborhoods and school districts, and has recently been embroiled in conflict over the role and effect of its charter schools. The Minnesota Department of Education has been attempting to require that charter schools with significant populations of students of color create more diversity, but some members of the community have likened these new demands as an insult to parents who are making the conscious choice to enroll them in schools that they deem the best fit for their children. In the past few months, Judge Anne C. O’Reilly ruled that state education officials overstepped their authority when rewriting integration rules and that their regulations are not backed up with enough evidence and on occasion conflict with state law. The judge recommended that state education officials remove charter schools from their proposed plans and make a better case for why they are attempting to change existing integration rules. The debate is not over however; as with the support of the legislature the plans could move forward despite pushback from the charter schools and legal system.
MEDIA
- Minnesota – Minnesota school integration proposals draw fire: Charter school supporters fight having to integrate like public schools (Star Tribune, January 2016)
- Minnesota – Minnesota school integration reform advances despite opposition (Twin Cities Pioneer Press, January 2016))
- Minnesota – Judge rejects Minnesota’s school integration plans (Twin Cities Pioneer Press, March 2016)
- Rockford, MN – Rockford school integration funds safe, for now (Press and News, April 2016)
- Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN – Urban school districts are among least integrated: Meanwhile, many once overwhelmingly white suburban districts are increasingly diverse (Star Tribune, November 2015)
ADVOCACY
- Brief of Amici Curiae Education Law Center and the Constitutional and Education Law Scholars in Support of Plaintiffs-Petitioners (June 2017)
- Minnesota Department of Education – Achievement and Integration for Minnesota program
- School Desegregation Lawsuit Threatens Charters: A provocative civil-rights case in Minnesota could influence school integration efforts nationally (The American Prospect, January 2016)
- Human Impact Partners and ISAIAH – Findings and Recommendations of the Rapid Health Impact Assessment of the School Integration Strategies in Minnesota (April 15, 2013)
OTHER RESOURCES
- Why are the Twin Cities So Segregated? (Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School, February 2015)
- Charter Schools in the Twin Cities 2013 Update (Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School, October 2013)
- Failed Promises: Assessing Charter Schools in the Twin Cities (Institute on Race and Poverty, November 2008)
- A Missed Opportunity: Minnesota’s Failed Experiment with Choice-based Integration (William Mitchell Law Review, 2009)
ACTIVE NSCD MEMBERS
RESEARCH ADVISORY PANEL MEMBERS
- None