Home > News & Events > 2009 News > 2004-2008 News > 2004-05 News	Print View

As the Minnesota legislative session came to a dismal end a few days ago, Sen. Minority Leader Dick Day opened eyes and raised ire.

Day, R-Owatonna, repeatedly and angrily said that Minneapolis and St. Paul schools "suck."

With one four-letter word, Day managed to offend all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons. He is being deluged with e-mails and calls from people who think that his use of the word was: a) crude; b) inappropriate; c) insensitive, d) stupid; e) revealing, f) all of the above.

"It's caused some people to say some nasty things to me," Day said. " 'Suck' was a bad word to use, I suppose."

Is that an apology?

"Instead of using the word 'suck,' maybe I should have used a word like 'horrible.' Or 'terrible.' 'Suck' was probably the wrong word." Hmmm. Not quite an apology.

But Day's word choices may say more about the senator than they do about the state of public education in the state's largest cities.

Yes, there are problems in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Most educators and most people who live in the cities suspect those problems have more to do with economics and language barriers than with the quality of education.

Reality is that there are demographic differences between the Minneapolis schools Day says "suck" compared with schools in Owatonna.

In Minneapolis schools, 68 percent of the kids qualify for free or reduced meals. In Owatonna, 23 percent qualify. In Minneapolis, 23 percent of the students have limited English skills. In Owatonna, 7.1 percent have issues with English. In Minneapolis, by the way, 27 percent of the students are white. In Owatonna, 85 percent are white.

If, for example, you use the Minnesota basic-skills reading test as a statement of the quality of the education offered by the Minneapolis and Owatonna districts, you likely can come up with any conclusion you want.

In fact, 81.16 percent of the Owatonna eighth-graders passed the test. Just 52.36 of all Minneapolis eighth-graders passed. But, at the risk of Day-like stereotyping, if only white eighth-graders are tallied, Minneapolis eighth-graders are even with the same demographic from Owatonna and outperform Owatonna kids in math.

Ellen Samuelson Young, mother of Minneapolis school kids and president of a volunteer organization, Parents United Network, was stunned by both Day's language and his message.

She selected several Minneapolis grade schools with demographics similar to the four elementary schools in Owatonna, where 30 percent of the kids come from impoverished backgrounds and 10 percent have limited English skills. In most cases, Minneapolis third- and fifth-graders had better scores than Owatonna kids in math and reading.

But Day is not impressed with such facts.

"Terribly mismanaged," Day said of the two city districts. "What's happening is that nobody's looking at the real causes of what's going on in those districts. What we need to have are mentoring programs, where two or three kids, maybe five or six, work with an adult and maybe go out for a hamburger once in awhile. A loving person doesn't have to be a parent."

Interestingly, state funding cuts, inspired by Republican aversion to taxes, forced Minneapolis schools last year to cut most after-school programs that allowed kids to get special attention. This year, the Legislature failed to pass legislation that would fully fund a pre-kindergarten program.

Day said the Minneapolis and St. Paul districts "are horrible" because the boards of education are filled with DFLers and the schools are loaded down with DFL-inspired programs that don't work.

"All they say is 'give us more money,' " Day said. "We [Republicans] finally bring in one commissioner [Cheri Pierson Yecke] to actually try new things and make things better and all of a sudden everyone's saying everything's going to hell in a handbasket. She wanted to fix the problem."

It was shortly after Yecke was dumped that Day, in front of TV cameras, went into his tirade.

Joe Erickson, a new member of the Minneapolis Board of Education, offered this assessment of the minority leader's word choice and message.

"I can understand if he used the word once," Erickson said. "It was late, he was tired, he was upset [by Yecke's failing to win confirmation]. But he kept using it over and over again. I think it just shows where he is. It shows a naive arrogance."

One positive from the Day outburst: Hundreds of people have risen to support public education in the cities.

Day, Gov. Tim Pawlenty and school officials are getting an earful. Many state residents are giving a ringing endorsement of some of the wonders of public education.

Day, showing he's learning to clean up his language, did note,"I didn't mean to say all the schools in the districts are horrible."

Doug Grow is at dgrow@startribune.com

http://www.startribune.com/stories/465/4789758.html