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What happens if the referendum fails Minneapolis school funding this election? What are the voters will be asked to approve next year in November 2009 (the vote in elections to the City Council of Minneapolis). The Minneapolis School Board and supporters of the referendum said that if the referendum fails this year, nothing "bad" will happen. This referendum will have no effect on school funding, Minneapolis, for this year (2008-2009 school year) or next year (2009-2010 school year). It covers only the funding of schools from 2010-2011.

Why should people who support children and public schools in Minneapolis to vote NO on the referendum this year? Because they believe that children deserve better than the Minneapolis referendum proposal in progress. The current referendum is flawed and incomplete. Together, the Minneapolis School Board, school administration and teachers union can and should do much better for the children to school in Minneapolis, that the current proposal of the referendum. The district must be more specific about the actions the measures it intends to achieve its stated objectives, I agree with. Here are the things I want to know and I think all voters should know before we support a referendum. Unfortunately, the only way to obtain this information is for us to vote NO, this year. By voting NO, we send a message to Minneapolis School Board, school administration and the teachers union that they can do much better than the current proposal of referendum for the Minneapolis school children.

Enrollment decline

Minneapolis parents vote with their children, taking their children to the school district of Minneapolis and send them to suburban districts. This is a major cause of declining enrollment in the Minneapolis School District. That said 10 times on the Minneapolis school district that all speeches, reports, editorials and advertisements on television and radio, etc. combined. If voters know the specific steps the school district intends to take to reverse this trend before and not after the approval of an increase of 60 million tax dollars?

School closures

The school board and administration will announce which schools they plan to close in February or March 2009. I want a plan to close schools aggressively because I want my taxes go to teacher salaries and not pay for heating, lighting and especially for repairing and maintaining buildings that are over 50 years including several in the 1920s. Others may want to keep neighborhood schools open, neighborhood schools especially elementary. Some people vote No in the referendum if they knew that their neighborhood elementary, middle and / or secondary schools would be closed. We, the voters and especially parents deserve to know that schools in the district plans to close before voting on this referendum is not after. Unfortunately, this means that the NO vote of this year if we know that the plan of closing the school district before voting next year.

Black White Achievement Gap

The gap between students from achieving black and white students in public schools in Minneapolis is among the worst in the same set of U.S. - worse than schools in Alabama or Mississippi. The yield gap has not really changed since it was identified.

The Minneapolis school board, administration and teachers' unions say they want to close the achievement gap between black students and white students. The district is committed to doing everything necessary to eliminate the black-white achievement gap? Or just plan to do what is easy and / or what is not controversial? If the easy steps could reduce the gap, it would have been Elim.