No consensus in Minnesota on calls for moratorium on charter schools

A very small number of Minnesota students actually go to charter schools. Just over five percent in the 2014-2015 school year.

But you wouldn't know it by the size of the debate the publicly financed, independently run schools can stir up.

Former Black Lives Matter St. Paul leader Rashad Turner said a recent call by the national Movement for Black Lives group for a moratorium on charter schools pushed him to leave the group he's been so active in.

"People need choice, so to say that the NAACP national group or BLM national group are able to just say, 'Hey, we shouldn't have these type of charter schools' — to me it's unfair to take away choices," Turner said.

The umbrella group that includes Black Lives Matter made a charter school moratorium part of its education demands. Turner said his split with the group was a long time coming — Black Lives Matter St. Paul is not actually listed as an official chapter on the national website.

But around the same time, a call from the national NAACP also raised questions locally. The NAACP called for a moratorium on "privately managed" charters in a resolution that still needs board approval.

The Minneapolis NAACP hasn't taken a position on the resolution, but its president Nekima Levy-Pounds said children of color can excel at charters, where curriculum may be more likely to emphasize the students' own cultural backgrounds.

Sasha Cotton of the St. Paul-based African American Leadership Council echoed that call for options.

"We are primarily concerned about the quality of education that any school can provide to young people from African American communities, whether that be charter, public, private or even homeschooling," Cotton said.

Among charter advocates, one set of schools comes up again and again as an example of success: the Harvest Network of three schools in Minneapolis, which serves almost 100 percent black students. A 2013 study from the University of Minnesota found two Harvest schools among several charters that scored much better on state tests than expected based on their poverty levels.

But critics say that even with some over-performers like the Harvest schools, the casualties of choice are way too high. The 2013 report is critical of charters overall, showing that more Twin Cities students go to under-performing charters than over-performing ones. Even Harvest's test scores have fallen since 2013.

"I've had CEOs tell me that they can't promote people who don't have cultural and co-existing meaningful experiences with women, with people of color, with immigrants, with people with disabilities," said St. Paul NAACP first vice president Yusef Mgeni.

Mgeni says schools that serve a single racial or cultural group limit students. He also argues charters take money school districts need and lack accountability.

In Minnesota charters are run by elected boards, but only school staff, parents and board members are eligible to vote for the board. Charters are exempt from some laws governing school districts.

Across the river in Minneapolis, NAACP officer KerryJo Felder suggests district schools could provide the cultural emphasis some parents look for in charters using a model called "full-service community schools". That approach has taken hold in the Brooklyn Center district and elsewhere. Full-service schools join with community groups to offer extra services like healthcare.

"The full-service community school has its own agenda," Felder said, "and that agenda belongs to the community, the teachers, the parents, the students."

Amid the debate, voices on both sides sound one similar note: pro- or anti-charter may not be thinking big enough. Minnesota has one of the largest academic achievement gaps in the country between students of color and their white peers.

"It's not about the charter schools and whether or not the charter schools are successful," said north Minneapolis consultant Dave Ellis, who trains teachers and others to respond to trauma. "Some of the kids at the charter schools are doing really well, some of them probably are not doing so well. Some of the kids in the public school system are doing really well. Some of the kids are not doing so well. So we've always got this other side."

Ellis says he'd like to see a solution that would boost both charter and district school students.

He admits he doesn't have the answer. But he says he's ready to talk about it.