A Conversation on Cruz-Guzman

The other  day, at the invitation of Chris Stewart, I joined a Pizza with a Purpose discussion on the implications of the new Supreme Court decision on the constitutional right to an adequate education.   I've been posting on Cruz Guzman for quite some time, and with issuance of the Court's decision, we now know that the Court has once again vindicated the right of Minnesota students and their families to enforce that right in the Courts.   That is, in fancy legal language, the claim that students are being denied a constitutionally guaranteed public education is justiciable.

Sitting around the table were a number of teachers, parents, and active proponents who are dedicated to realizing "the dream" of providing a quality education for all of our children.   Here are some things that I learned.

First, everyone agreed that :  Minnesota’s public education system is not working for too many families and children.  In Minnesota, too many of us secretly believe that this is somebody else's fault besides the public education system.   When we talk about Free and Reduced Lunch kids, or minority kids, or disadvantaged kids, many families hear us blaming those kids and their families, and effectively writing them off.    I found myself struggling to find a way to discuss this issue in ways that are not hurtful.  It is our job, in the public school system, to provide students with an adequate education.  The constitution doesn't give us an excuse to skip over the students who are a bit more challenging.   In fact, the constitution was written exactly to make sure that we would reach the kids who came to us with educational disadvantages.  In those days, when the constitution was written, lots of families had parents who had very little formal education.   The purpose of the common schools movement was to lift up everyone: to realize the dream of education for all, including the kids who were first generation kids. 

We report test scores by race, by Free and Reduced Lunch Status, and by other demographic identifiers.   And the way that we casually do that, often seems like we're asserting that the demographic characteristics are the reason, and that therefore we can explain away our failure and shift it over to the students or their families.   We need to be finding words so that we are saying and being heard to say exactly the opposite.  The kids that we are talking about have tremendous potential.  Minnesota law, NCLB and ESSA, and the statute that implement those laws in Minnesota are telling us that it is our job, in public education, to stimulate and nurture that potential, not to find excuses for failing in our mission.

Second, almost everyone agreed that taking away family choice is not the solution. The Cruz Guzman case is asking the Courts to treat the representative named plaintiffs as "class representatives," for all students who are attending Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools. I think it is most certainly true that the position that their attorneys are taking in the Cruz-Guzman litigation is certainly not representative of the class.  Sometimes a class action genuinely does represent all the members of the class.  For example, certainly all black citizens would support a class action seeking to protect their right to vote.  And, if you sued on behalf of everyone who bought a worthless television from a manufacturer, you could probably fairly say that the whole class wants its money back.  But it is surely not true, that the class of students and families in Minneapolis and St. Paul is united around the idea that it is ok to keep kids from going to schools that  successfully address the specific needs of students.  Cruz Guzman is really a lawsuit that wants to require all students to go to racially diverse schools, whether they want to or not.

This is a different issue from Brown v Board of Education, in which students were barred from attending the school of their choice based on race.   We have some of that in Minnesota,but nobody is doing anything about that.  We know that their are school districts that purposely bar open enrollment, because they want to exclude immigrants or African Americans.  We know that there are school districts, and some charters, that suspend or steer away certain students based on race, disability, or other characteristics.  But the group of folks I spoke to are virtually unanimous that when a school finds a strategy that works, we should not bar that school from using that strategy, just because it appeals to a particular ethnic or racial group.

Third, when we talk about reforming the public system globally, so that it will work for all children, many of us are so burned out trying to realize these reforms, that it is very difficult to envision how we would get from here, to a system that realizes the dream.  In the pivotal Skeen case, the Supreme Court decreed that an adequate education is a fundamental right. In Cruz-Guzman, Justice Hudson’s opinion eloquently reaffirmed that fundamental right? Why has the education community failed to act decisively in the courts to require the State to realize the dream of a fully adequate education for under-served students?   Many of the most ardent advocates for an advocate education are saying, I'm tired of trying to fix the whole thing:  right now, I need to fix it in this one school right here:  I want the right to find a school that works for me. 

As a result Minnesota’s Education Community Has Failed to Dream Big When Approaching the Courts. Some have envisioned a reform that simply provides more money. Some have envisioned a reform that eliminates tenure, or seniority, or opens the doors wider to new teachers. Some advocate a desegregated system that would manage who goes to what schools in some fashion. Some have engaged in the great charter wars, or speculated that de-unionizing the teaching profession would suddenly transform our schools. I believe that no one of these reforms, and certainly not taking away school choice, will realize the dream.   But the dream of comprehensively reforming our system, giving it enough money and then converting that money into the things that can help the students who need it the most, its hard to get people to believe that this is really possible.

Fourth:  Its about Relationships.   Building relationships is central to creating learning opportunities.   Love, trust, and respect go a long way.  Building relationships keeps kids in school.   When we get into battles about respect, things go sour.  We need more teachers who are invested in making school work for every child. 

I've been advocating that we need to increase school funding by at least $2 billion per biennium.    We are rich enough to do that in Minnesota.   If we spent that money in the right way on the right programs for the kids who need it the most, we would see a radical improvement in achievement.  I know that to be true.   But virtually everyone in the room agreed that if we provided school districts $2 billion dollars more, the money would get spent doing pretty much the same thing that we are doing now, but just at a higher price.  

Listen:   If we can't figure out how to reform our system, so that more money produces significantly better results for our students, then we are never going to realize the dream.    This is our primary responsibility as stewards of public education.   We know that there are countries that have reformed their school systems.  We know that we are failing too many of our children and families, and that if we would just put them first in how we manage our public education system, many more of our young people would realize their potential.  

The first step in realizing a dream is to open your mind to possibilities.   Here and there, schools are working for way more children.  Principals are doing the right thing.  Teachers are doing the right thing in these schools.  If you don't believe that, you should read some of Chenoweth's "It's Being Done" trilogy of books.  The Minnesota Supreme Court issued an invitation to the education community in 1993 to fix the system globally; to make it work for the students it is failing.   Not just for the lucky kids who have found their way by choice or chance into a school that is working, but for all our students.  We can do that, but we have to restore our ability to dream and to turn our dreams into reality.  

We have decades of experience now to convince ourselves that simply doing what we've been doing is not going to get us there.   Its time to try the Court, to get the Courts to impose financial and delivery reforms based on the successful things that schools are doing.   As a public school system, we need to buy more than we are buying, and when you buy something better, its going to cost more.  But we also need to find a way to change the system so that more money isn't just squandered on doing the same thing, but just for a different price.