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RACHEL RAEBE: Today Minnesota has 435 school districts, but some of those districts are in trouble. Declining enrollments and a corresponding drop in state dollars are making it hard for some small rural districts to stay in business.

Good afternoon, I'm Rachel Raebe. Welcome to a special call-in program about the problems facing small rural school districts and some of the solutions. This program is a production of MPR's Main Street radio team. We're coming to you now live via satellite from the studios of KSJR in Central Minnesota. This call-in program is being heard on all the Minnesota Public Radio network stations in greater Minnesota and in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Decorah, Iowa, and Houghton, Michigan.

Let me begin today by introducing you to our studio guests. In the studio with me today is Irvin Bjerga. He is a feed store owner in Motley, Minnesota, a town of 500 people in Central Minnesota. He started a concerned citizens group in Motley over concern that the Motley High School would be lost in a pairing arrangement with the nearby town of Staples. He is now a candidate for next month's school board election.

Kathy Berger lives on Minnesota's Iron Range. She has spent seven years as a school board member on the Mountain Iron-Buhl School District. They were actually the last district in the state of Minnesota to consolidate. That happened in 1984. So she was on the Buhl school board before the consolidation, through the consolidation, and now in the new consolidated Mountain Iron-Buhl District.

And Glen Anderson from Bellingham is here, a town in extreme West Central Minnesota. He has spent 16 years in the Minnesota legislature, most recently as chairman of the appropriations committee. He recently sponsored legislation to provide money for two pilot projects that would reorganize some rural districts into area schools, and we'll talk about that today.

Let's begin by having each one of our guests talk a little bit about their particular situation. Kathy, let's start with you, Mountain Iron-Buhl, the reason to consolidate in the first place three years ago.

KATHY BERGER: Our school districts were both realizing declining enrollment and declining revenues. And we were facing very large deficits in excess of $400,000, both districts. We got together to try to save program and run a more efficient school district. And we began that process by sharing our sports teams and I believe 1983, and we consolidated in 1985.

RACHEL RAEBE: When consolidation talks began with Mountain Iron and Buhl, there was a combined enrollment of 1,500 students. And people hoped that through the consolidation, that would be the answer to the problem. Today, there are 1,100 students in Mountain Iron-Buhl, and enrollments continue to drop. Has that put you in a more difficult position?

KATHY BERGER: Yes, definitely. As long as the school districts are financed on a per pupil basis, declining enrollments make a very large difference in your revenues. We have lost approximately $1.5 million in declining enrollments from the day we consolidated until today.

RACHEL RAEBE: So, your district, a consolidated district, but still facing problems? They voted this week to close one of the schools in your district.

KATHY BERGER: Yes, we did Monday night.

RACHEL RAEBE: Irvin Bjerga, you are from the town of Motley, have lived there for many years. You got involved in the discussion over rural schools, when and why?

IRVIN BJERGA: Well, it was about 11 months ago. That was the first that we heard of a proposed pairing between Motley and Staples. And at that point, we had a merchants' meeting just a couple of days after that, and we talked about it. And we felt that it was a pretty large decision for our school district to make.

And we just wanted to see that it would be studied very, very good. And that input would be in from the citizens and from the community. And this has probably been our-- it's probably what has made us fight harder to save our school is probably being put out of input into that decision.

We were just blocked about everything we tried to do. We just were refused any input into it, and it just made us that much harder-- fight that much harder to keep our school.

RACHEL RAEBE: And again, the decision was made by the two school boards, the school board in Motley and the school board and Staples, to join districts in a pairing arrangement. For those of you who have listened to our series of shows this week on rural school districts, you know that a pairing legislation started in 1978, and under the provisions of that law, school districts could retain their independence, retain their own school boards, and yet come together to share part or all of their programs.

And the plan in Motley-Staples is to have all the high school students in both districts go to Staples, a town seven miles to the west of you, have all the middle school students in Motley, and have each community keep their elementary school.

IRVIN BJERGA: Yes. I guess our-- like I said, our biggest thing here is that in May, we heard about the pairing, and last October, it was already finalized. That isn't a very long time to make such a big move.

RACHEL RAEBE: Our phone number this afternoon is toll-free. Please call us and join our discussion. Our number is 1-800-525-4999. So if you have a question or a comment about rural school districts, the problems or the solution, call us, 1-800-525-4999.

Mr. Anderson, you are from a rural community. Tell us a little bit about your work with rural school districts and the legislation that you have sponsored.

GLEN ANDERSON: Well, I watched over a period of years, not only the school districts in my area, but talking to colleagues in the legislature, it seems to be about the same throughout the state, where with the declining economy, the smaller families of today, and declining enrollment in many of our rural areas that what we're seeing is cuts in curriculum in many cases.

And at the same time, curriculum is cut. In many cases, levy referendums are passed to increase the taxes to keep that school going. And that's what I've been observing in my part of the state. What precipitated, I guess, action on my part was about a year and a half ago when we lost one of our high schools due to a fire.

The high school in Madison, Minnesota was totally destroyed by fire. Madison school board came to me and asked if I could get some assistance out of the legislature to help them rebuild the school. I said, well, I doubted that I could for that specific school alone, but why don't we tackle the whole problem in the area and see if we couldn't get something going that would broaden the curriculum, not only for the Madison school district, but for the other area schools as well?

And what happened out of that was a bill was built, you might say, and ultimately passed a year ago that calls for any three or more school districts in the state. It was a pilot project that had an enrollment of a thousand or less K through 12.

If they would merge their upper classes, and there were three options, grades 10 through 12, 9 through 12, or 7 through 12, hire one superintendent for the three or more-- there could have been as many as six or seven, and proved to the State Department of Education that they could broaden their curriculum and provide a better education that the state would participate in helping either remodel current facilities or building a new facility for that new combined upper class school district.

RACHEL RAEBE: And in your area now, there are four districts that are looking to getting involved in an area school that have expressed their willingness to be involved and to build a new school at a place where there currently is nothing, just an open field.

GLEN ANDERSON: What has happened-- in fact, there are two pilot projects now where grant applications have been made. The one is in the west central part of the state. The four communities are Milan, Marietta, Nassau, Madison and Appleton. The other pilot project will be Gaylord, Arlington and Green Isle, which is about 50 miles west and a little south of the Twin City area.

The four communities in my part of the state are excited about it. They have made application. The grants will be awarded July 1st, after which, both of these combined groups will have to float a bond referendum then for the local share. The new facilities are expected to cost somewhere in the area of about $11.5 million. Each of these combined districts will be given a grant of $8 million or up to 75% of the total project by the state of Minnesota.

RACHEL RAEBE: Our phone number this afternoon is 1-800-525-4999. Did you go to Bellingham High School?

GLEN ANDERSON: Yes, I graduated from Bellingham in 1956.

RACHEL RAEBE: And that's a town of how many people?

GLEN ANDERSON: About 260.

RACHEL RAEBE: So it's a small town right in the middle of this area where this area school is proposed to being built.

GLEN ANDERSON: Well, Bellingham is off on the fringe of the area. It would be further to the new school from Bellingham. The furthest distance would be from Marietta. They're about half or half a mile or a mile from the South Dakota border. They would be the furthest, but they are also the smallest. And their plant is probably the oldest and needs the most work on the physical plant.

RACHEL RAEBE: Your town, though, has chosen-- your hometown, although you sponsored this legislation, has chosen not to go along with it. Why not?

GLEN ANDERSON: Well, any town in Minnesota has intense local pride, and that's certainly a good trait. The school in most small towns is the biggest industry in town. We don't have factories. It's totally agricultural area. Everything depends on agriculture, and that is the only business in town outside of those directly related to agriculture, the fertilizer plants and the elevators, et cetera, that provides jobs.

And when parents and grandparents of the children in school today graduated from the same school, you see that nobody wants to give that school up. And I really can't blame them. I'd much prefer to be able to bring an industry or two into every small town in Minnesota and to up the population somewhat, provide jobs, and keep every small school going. That doesn't seem to be happening.

RACHEL RAEBE: And this is the best option, you think.

GLEN ANDERSON: Well, I may be old fashioned, but I believe schools are for education. And it disturbs me to see curriculum being cut out and the local taxes-- local property taxes going up at the same time. With colleges and universities imposing more stringent entrance requirements very shortly into the future, I think that we have to plan for that in order to give our young people an adequate chance at life.

RACHEL RAEBE: Our phone number here is 1-800-525-4999. Please call us on that number and join our discussion today. Mr. Bjerga, you just heard Mr. Anderson say that he has an old-fashioned notion that schools are for education. And yet you have been a very strong advocate of, keep the school in the town, even though Motley School has a population of 469 students, K through 12, you say, it's not all that important that they offer what you call the frill classes. What's your point of view on that?

IRVIN BJERGA: I'm really a strong supporter in the basics in education. I feel that in pairing where you have more classes, I certainly agree that there are 10% of those students, the top students, the better students, they are going to benefit with more classes. You can't take that away.

But I also am a strong believer that for the majority of the kids that a small school environment is much better for them for a lot of different reasons. And I think you can dwell on leadership positions, more responsibility, feeling better in the school, having a feeling that the community is a little closer to you. And likewise, I think that the kids have a better attitude. They're under less stress. I think there are a lot of benefits in a small school and in a small town--

RACHEL RAEBE: And you'd be willing to, for the sake, perhaps the extra classes for that 10% of the students, you think that's a good trade off, to keep that school home and to have the children in their community?

IRVIN BJERGA: I've always been a firm believer in the majority that we have got to do things for the majority of the people, and that the majority of the people should make the decision as far as what does happen.

RACHEL RAEBE: Our first caller on the line is from Nisswa, Minnesota. Go ahead with your question, please.

SPEAKER: Yes, I'm wondering about these children and how long they're going to be on a bus if they're 30 miles from a school. And how-- a lot of things happen on a bus. They get into all kinds of things, drugs, whatever. I just think that it's pulling children away from their family and their community to have a bigger school. I mean, bigger isn't necessarily better.

RACHEL RAEBE: Kathy, let's talk about that for a minute. When I interviewed you, you said if these students are going to be on the bus an hour going and an hour coming, you might as well just put the teachers on the bus. And that can just be a portable classroom in the true sense of the word. What do you think is the maximum distance you'd like to see students bussed?

KATHY BERGER: I made that comment when we were talking about an area high school from Aurora-Hoyt Lakes, over to the MIB district. There are students presently being bused in Aurora for an hour, and that would be another half hour ride. I don't think-- 30 to 45 minutes is probably the maximum I would care for a child on a bus, especially the elementary grades.

This is an awfully big state. I took a ride last week, and there are children in remote areas. And we cannot expect all school districts to consolidate because of the great distances between the schools. You can measure between schools, and that doesn't necessarily mean that's the same distance where the students live.

I really do believe that over a half an hour is an excess. 45 minutes is way too much.

RACHEL RAEBE: Mr. Anderson, how do you feel about that? Do you have some outer parameters saying, if they can get to school in this amount of time, it'll work, but if it's on this side of this certain arbitrary number, it's not going to be such a good idea? These area schools, how far should kids come? How long should they be on the bus?

GLEN ANDERSON: The one-- the school that's planned in West Central Minnesota would have, I suppose, the greatest distance for a youngster to come to it, about 30 miles. The vast majority however, would be much closer.

The way it would work is that the elementary schools would be retained in each individual community and grades 7 through 12, where they need the more intensive courses and a broader curriculum, in preparation for college or the job market or whatever, then would go together into the new facility.

I don't believe there would be a much more time spent on the bus than there currently is. The buses are currently pretty much circulating-- circling some of the smaller towns. And I believe the bus routes would be revamped and be made more into where they would go to, like, to the hub of the wheel.

RACHEL RAEBE: So if some schools in your area, now would be coming 30 miles to this proposed area school, we could assume that they would be on the bus certainly longer than 30 minutes, perhaps?

GLEN ANDERSON: Well, three of the communities would be about nine miles from the new proposed school.

RACHEL RAEBE: But those students that would be coming the farthest could possibly be on the bus for as long as an hour, perhaps?

GLEN ANDERSON: I would expect so.

RACHEL RAEBE: Is that acceptable?

GLEN ANDERSON: Well, I spent many years going five miles to my school, and I spent over an hour every morning. And so I don't know if it's a whole lot of change.

RACHEL RAEBE: We have a caller now from Lind, Minnesota. Go ahead with your question, please.

SPEAKER: I don't have a question. I just have a comment on our situation that seems to be working well for us. We have pre-school through 8 maintained in our small town and are paired with a larger town for high school. And we feel that our kids are getting a good basic start here in our smaller classroom sizes and then get the advantages that a larger school can offer them, an extra curriculum at the high school level.

The community is very proud of the academic level that we have in our school and is one reason I think that we have such strong support for our school. We just recently sent a group of youngsters to Southwest Regional Science Fair. And out of 14 contestants, eight of the ones that went on to state were from Lind. Five top honors were given out of that group, and all five were taken by our students.

RACHEL RAEBE: So you think your students can match up academically with students anywhere in Minnesota?

SPEAKER: Absolutely. That is something that the community is willing to pay the extra money to maintain.

RACHEL RAEBE: Where do your students grades 9, 10, 11 and 12 go to school? How far do they go?

SPEAKER: Five miles to Marshall, which is a very ideal situation we have here.

RACHEL RAEBE: There has been some discussion-- I've certainly heard it from Mr. Bjerga when there was a discussion about moving the high school students from his town to Staples, saying that a town is its high school. And if you don't have the high school, you're taking the very heart out of the community. Would you respond to that?

SPEAKER: I guess I think that's probably another reason that the community works hard to hang on to their school because we feel just having up through grade 8 is a big boost to our community and to its identity. But meeting the academic standards is also very important.

And I think that when they made the decision to pair with Marshall for the high school, that's one thing they were looking at, that as a small school, maybe we couldn't maintain the academic levels through high school, but we certainly could through aid. And if that were to ever drop, a community's first interest is to maintain that our students get a good basic education.

RACHEL RAEBE: Our phone number is 1-800-525-4999. Call us and join our discussion this afternoon. Mr. Bjerga, you made the comment about the community being the high school. And even though Motley, actually, under this proposed pairing, would pick up 200 additional students that you don't have now.

So there would be 200 more students actually in the Motley schools as a result of the Staples-Motley pairing. And yet you've said, still, if the High School isn't here, we're the big losers.

IRVIN BJERGA: I feel that-- I feel that with the activities that we have in school now, so many of them are built around the activities in the high school. And I think that people-- the people, in turn, will have to go to Staples for so many of our activities that our children are involved with.

And I think it takes-- and this is where-- this is where people get together and where the young meet the old and so forth. And friends who probably don't even-- neighbors who don't even see each other the rest of the year get together at these events. And I think we take that away a little bit by going to the larger school. I think we have a lot better atmosphere for those relations in the small school.

RACHEL RAEBE: Again, your towns, Motley and Staples are seven miles apart. Mrs. Berger, you're from Buhl. You are nine miles from Mount Iron. Those two schools consolidated, and your high school students all went to Mount Iron.

KATHY BERGER: Right, and our Middle School students remained in Buhl. And there were various ways to overcome the school spirit and town spirit.

RACHEL RAEBE: How did your community do it?

KATHY BERGER: We played our football games at the Buhl High School, which was the high school. It's now the middle school. It was a larger facility, it had lights, et cetera. And we played other sports at the high school.

Baseball was in Buhl, and softball was in Buhl. The basketball was played in Mountain Iron. And the fans all got together, that was not a problem. We've all worked very strong, and I believe that our community and our school probably has more school spirit than any other district who are up there because there are-- you just compromise, and you can overcome those things.

RACHEL RAEBE: Our phone number, 1-800-525-4999. Our next caller on the line from Motley. Go ahead with your comment or question, please.

SPEAKER: Yes, I'd like to say that Mr. Bjerga failed to mention that over 450 people called in to let our board members know that they were supporting them in the decision to pair with Staples before the actual vote was made by the board. I have recently spoken with Dan Scoug of the State Department, and he told me that the length of time since the decision was made in the coming fall when the pairing will take place was adequate.

I spoke to the secretary from the Renville School in March of this year. Danube has decided to join Renville and Sacred Heart. So I feel that if they can do that by this fall, then our time has been adequate.

RACHEL RAEBE: So you are from the town of Motley. Do you feel that your students will be better off by going to Staples? Is the pairing arrangement the best opportunity for your kids in Motley?

SPEAKER: Because our kids already are sharing-- going to Staples for some vocational things, I can speak personally from this because I have a son that was not able to take classes here that he should have been having. Now, he's trying to catch them up in the college area.

RACHEL RAEBE: What sorts of classes, ma'am? What sorts of things?

SPEAKER: He had to take some Ag classes and such as that, and he has no interest at all in agriculture. Now we don't even have that to offer to our students.

RACHEL RAEBE: So you feel strongly that the pairing with Staples is the best way to go.

SPEAKER: It's the only way. I mean, we've had kids over there this year that there was nothing here for them, so-- we had some top A students right there this year.

RACHEL RAEBE: One of Mr. Bjerga's arguments has been that the school board summarily made the decision and they voted without turning it over to the people, without taking this question to a referendum. Do you feel like you should have had a vote in this matter?

SPEAKER: No, I don't, because I voted for our school board members. And like I said before, 450 people called in or let the board know in some way that we support you in this action. Before they made that final vote, they had the support of that many people.

So I don't feel that the people of the community were left out. Maybe some were. I mean, at the last election, he didn't note that 47 people voted. That's what the interest was in our school before this happened.

RACHEL RAEBE: Thank you for your question today. Mr. Bjerga, you told me that you think 60% to 70% of the people in your community are against the pairing. What do you base that on?

IRVIN BJERGA: I can only base that on a few things. Initially, we took a survey of the community. We surveyed approximately 500 homes, probably close to 1,000 voters. And that survey came back 42%-- oh, excuse me, yes, 42% against the pairing and 15% for it.

The school board held their required informational meeting during the summer. They took a vote after the meeting, and that came out 151 to 67 against the pairing. We took another survey of our high school students and parents who would go to Staples next year. We took that last October. That was 190 to around 60, I believe.

The Staples school was promised by the Motley school board. That we would send the figures have been from 40 to 50 to 70 of our elementary kids to Staples. And yet when the time came for those kids-- for those parents to let those kids go, we only came up with about anywhere from 10 to 14.

I just don't believe with all those indicators that it is a majority of the people that are for the pairing. And I just am a firm believer that the people should have had a right to vote on it. It's, I guess, what's wrong with people voting on something so important?

RACHEL RAEBE: And again, state law provides that a consolidation, people have to vote on.

IRVIN BJERGA: Requires--

RACHEL RAEBE: Requires a vote.

IRVIN BJERGA: --a referendum.

RACHEL RAEBE: A pairing and sharing arrangement does not. Our next caller on the line from International Falls. Your question, please.

SPEAKER: I have the radio here.

RACHEL RAEBE: Go ahead with your question.

SPEAKER: Hello?

RACHEL RAEBE: Yes, go ahead.

SPEAKER: OK, I'm from Hills, Minnesota.

RACHEL RAEBE: All right, go ahead.

SPEAKER: Two comments. One is, I think that oftentimes, in a smaller school, you have participation from some students who would be lost in the shuffle in a larger school. They either would not be able to participate or they would just get lost in the shuffle, so to speak.

And secondly, how does telecommunications fit into this? Telecommunications would make almost any class available to students without the additional cost of physical plant, and it could be done in an existing settings. I'll hang up and listen.

RACHEL RAEBE: Thank you for your questions. Let's take that first one. Mr. Anderson, getting lost in the shuffle, is that going to happen? Mr. Bjerga's talked about when students are kept in a small setting that they have an opportunity to exhibit leadership and to practice leadership and develop some of those good life skills. When they are put in with a larger and yet a larger group of students, were they going to miss out on some of those opportunities?

GLEN ANDERSON: Well, first of all, I don't think we've defined what is small. And I guess that varies a lot depending on what part of the state you're from. For instance, my school has a typical class of 13 to probably 18 students.

RACHEL RAEBE: That means that's how many would graduate in a typical year.

GLEN ANDERSON: That's right. I would consider that small. If you're talking in the 50 to 60 to 80 per class, by metro standards, that's extremely small because they have 600 and 700-- 800 per individual class.

RACHEL RAEBE: And your area school from your area would have about how many?

GLEN ANDERSON: The four combined schools in grades 7 through 12 would have about 770 students.

RACHEL RAEBE: So that would mean per class--

GLEN ANDERSON: I don't know what that is, 125 per class? That's where a number of our schools were as recent as 10 to 15 years ago.

RACHEL RAEBE: So that would be nothing new being a part of a class of 125.

GLEN ANDERSON: And I don't think being one of a graduating class of 120 students is where you're going to get lost in the shuffle.

RACHEL RAEBE: Mr. Bjerga, how do you feel about that? Motley has about 50 students, their graduating class. Once they join with Staples, I think they're projecting next year's graduating class will be somewhere around 180. Is that your idea of getting lost in the shuffle? Is that too big of a class?

IRVIN BJERGA: I think we're probably closer, like this year, around 30. And we'll probably be going into the high 30s and high 40s the next few years-- or not high 40s but in the 40s the next few years. And I think when you go then from that stage up to 180, you just will not get as many activity opportunities for each student that they have in these classes of 30 in the schools that have 30 and 40 students.

They just cannot economically and financially provide enough activities to where these children will have a chance for those leadership and responsibility positions.

RACHEL RAEBE: We now go to a caller in Staples. Good afternoon, your question, please.

SPEAKER: Yes, my main concern is I got real mixed feelings about the percentage of people who are against-- who are for or against the pairing from the two communities. And I think we should-- I don't think the people did go along with Mr. Bjerga as far as the people not having the right to vote.

I don't think we had a chance, and I don't-- I think there's just been a lot of ideas that have changed since the proposal was made. And I think the people have got a lot of opinions and have a lot of feelings about it and aren't being heard right now.

RACHEL RAEBE: What is your opinion on the proposed pairing between the Staples and Motley districts?

SPEAKER: I don't want it.

RACHEL RAEBE: For what reason?

SPEAKER: For the many just like the communities because a lot of it, we haven't heard. We haven't heard what was going to be done. It's always-- there's nothing been-- nothing definite has been said that it's not concrete enough. And I think Mr. Bjerga, along-- he had said earlier at a meeting that there just hasn't been enough time to go through all the issues and it's just been done too fast.

RACHEL RAEBE: It's interesting that most of the uproar in Motley-Staples has come from Motley people and very little has been heard from the Staples people. Mr. Bjerga--

SPEAKER: We'll hear it yet within the next half hour.

RACHEL RAEBE: All right. So people in Staples you think are upset about the plan as well?

SPEAKER: Yes, they definitely do.

RACHEL RAEBE: Thank you for your question today.

GLEN ANDERSON: We did not address the gentleman's question from Hill pertaining to--

KATHY BERGER: Telecommunications--

GLEN ANDERSON: Social media.

KATHY BERGER: Thanks for bringing that up again.

GLEN ANDERSON: And there are a number of ways, in my opinion, that that curriculum can be expanded. You don't necessarily have to merge high schools together. You can pair and share. That started in '78.

Telemedia is coming in. There was substantial funding last session for telemedia throughout the state. That's better than not offering the course. It's not as good, of course, as having the teacher in the classroom.

But even with these merged districts, telemedia will continue because off into the future, telemedia will be connected between the high schools, the vocational-technical system, community colleges, state university, and very likely even the University of Minnesota. So I think telemedia is also a thing that's coming.

The thing that I-- some of the benefits of merging two or three or four high schools that I can see in some parts of the state are that according to studies done by the Department of Education, there ought to be a minimum of 80 students per grade to offer a broad curriculum.

You can save a lot of administration costs, I would say, by doing that. It doesn't make much sense to me to have a school superintendent in a school district of about 200 students, K through 12, earning $45,000 a year when probably that same individual could just as efficiently manage three--

RACHEL RAEBE: It's too top-heavy, another one.

GLEN ANDERSON: --for close to the same wages. That money, I think, could be better spent on teacher salaries on a couple of courses that are currently not offered. 80 or more is what the Department says is necessary that gives the economy of scale.

And another advantage of that, for instance, the chemistry teacher, the physics teacher, or the math teacher will be teaching more in their area of specialty, instead of perhaps one course in chemistry or physics or math, and of course, in social studies and a couple of courses in Fayette. That is not fair to the teacher and for sure, it's not fair to the students.

RACHEL RAEBE: It's important to note at this point that school districts, although they are called independent school districts, certainly are under mandates from the state of Minnesota as to what they have to teach. And those what they call minimum mandatories have increased and are projected to increase. That schools must offer advanced math. School must offer a foreign language.

We're going to talk about whether the three of you think that's a good idea-- is it a good idea that the state sets up those minimum mandatories, after we take this next call from International Falls. Go ahead with your comment, please.

SPEAKER: Yes, nobody seems to be addressing a study done in 1986, the spring of, by the Minneapolis Morning Tribune regarding national standardized testing. The PSAT scores in the smaller schools were abysmally low. Nobody seems to be concerned about your students having such low scores. Wouldn't combining schools help grade these scores up?

RACHEL RAEBE: How do you feel about that, Mr. Bjerga?

IRVIN BJERGA: That same-- what you're referring to, if you will-- if you will go through that list and you take the top 20% of those schools, you will find that 40% of those schools have classes of less than 100. I think that is a pretty good indicator that small classes are doing a pretty good job on the Star and Tribune's on those PSAT scores.

KATHY BERGER: Yes, I'd like to address that, too. I've done some checking into the national testing, and I've seen that schools with a population of 1,000 to 1,600 do the best on those tests. But I also have a problem with rating schools. Even if they're close, when you look at the list, somebody's at the bottom. And that does not necessarily mean that is the worst school in the state.

Minnesota has a good educational system, and we should be proud of it. And we should be able to try to make it better. The other problem with testing is that some schools, in order to get up on the list, will be teaching to the test. And I think that's a dismal mistake.

IRVIN BJERGA: I'd like to add also that Motley's junior knowledgeable team last year came in 31st in the whole United States. And that for schools of its size, it was number third in the nation. I think Motley has a good education. And I think this is something that verifies that small schools can give good education.

RACHEL RAEBE: Our guests in the studio this afternoon are Irvin Bjerga, feed store owner in Motley, a member of the concerned citizens group there and a candidate for next month's school board election; Kathy Berger, who's from the Iron Range. She has been on the Mountain Iron school board for seven years, the Mountain Iron-Buhl School Board; and Glen Anderson from Bellingham is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, a job he's held for 16 years.

Our phone number on this special live call-in show is 1-800-525-4999. That's toll-free, 1-800-525-4999. If you'd like to join our discussion, give us a call this afternoon. Our next caller on the line from Fargo. Go ahead with your comment, please.

SPEAKER: I have a question but first, I would like to make a few comments. I was a high school teacher for seven years and learned in that time period that there are certain statutes and rules within the Department of Education in Minnesota, in particular, that I'm familiar with, that favor large schools over small schools as far as making them, meaning large schools, more financially solvent than small schools.

And I guess I personally feel that small schools have a lot more benefits than large schools because of the opportunities and some of the things that have been mentioned already in the program. My question is, how do people, listening people, feel about the idea that the State Department of Education is favoring one school system over another school system through their financial aid and this type of thing?

RACHEL RAEBE: Mrs. Berger, do you want to respond to that?

KATHY BERGER: Well, I've never been told by the State Department what they consider a small school and what they consider a large school. A lot of people think our school system is small with 1,100 students. And now, listening to this afternoon's conversation, I find that we're probably a larger district.

I believe that a school system of 1,000 to 1,500 students, K through 12, can be efficient and offer all the courses that we would like to offer. Our school system does offer calculus, advanced biology, three foreign languages. We do pair and share spring sports and other sports with neighboring districts. We have a cooperative vocational program. And we are also cooperating in academic programs with our neighboring high school.

There are a lot of things that can be done. And of course, it makes a difference where your school is situated. I think a small-- I really do believe that a small school system of less than 500 or 600 students will have a difficult time offering their students the requirements and becoming efficient. That is one reason the Buhl district became in a position where they had to consolidate. We actually had enough students for one and a half teachers per grade, and that is very inefficient.

RACHEL RAEBE: Mr. Anderson, does the state formula favor larger schools?

GLEN ANDERSON: Well, not straight out, but it does in certain ways because while the formula is-- it's a very complicated formula. But various things are built into it. And I believe that probably what benefits the larger schools more than anything else is what's called maturity, where more state aid is paid, where a high ratio of the staff has longer tenure and higher degrees.

Those tend, you see, to get higher salaries, and that gets built into the formula, where some of the core city schools get a little higher state aid is because of the AFDC portion of the formula. Single-parent families, they get extra because it's considered by the state that they are more at-risk students.

There's a host of things. We tried this past session to build in some equity funding because there is quite a range of per-pupil funding from the bottom to the top. And of course, this all goes also on local property valuations.

The first half of this session, we pumped in, I believe, about $25 million that would benefit some of the more smaller districts in the state. That was at the disadvantage of some of the suburban districts. Political pressures, this session, reversed that somewhat.

There was $10 more per pupil unit awarded to some of those districts that suffered a year ago. $20 across the board per pupil unit was put in, and $30 then for some of those districts. But off into the future, I believe funding may not be totally on a per-pupil unit, that, in fact, the formula may be changed also to recognize curriculum.

And between that and redistricting coming up in 1990 and '91, which will shift, we figure about 8 to 10 house seats from rural Minnesota into the metro area and open enrollment, which will be a reality statewide in 1990-1991 school year.

I believe that many of these changes are coming that we have to plan in the smaller districts of the state in advance of them coming. And by planning in advance and by talking to our neighbors five or 10 miles down the road, that we'll have a lot more input into what the future of our local schools are, than if we just ignore the situation.

RACHEL RAEBE: Mrs. Berger.

KATHY BERGER: Mr. Anderson addressed at-risk students in the school districts are now under another state mandate to identify those students. I feel that when a child is at-risk in a smaller school system, where the teachers know all of the kids-- and I'm talking in grades of 100 to 125, they still know all of their students. Those teachers do have the ability to identify those students at-risk.

If the state is going to force us into larger school systems, we're going to have a bureaucracy looking for children at-risk and probably never identify them.

RACHEL RAEBE: We go now to Grand Portage. You're on the line, your comments, please.

SPEAKER: Yes, thank you. As a former school board member for Cook County, I'd like to share a couple of comments. And the first one is that it's interesting that this broadcast does not include the metro area. I don't know whose decision that was. But it demonstrates to me the problem that I dealt with as a school board member, namely, that we have separated the state of Minnesota into in-state and out-state and the metro, greater Minnesota, and now the lesser Minnesota.

And that unless our legislators and especially now with the census and the redistricting and less representatives from Northeastern Minnesota, unless everybody in the state who makes the laws in the state aid formally and so forth understands the plight of the small school, which is essential to democracy. And I realize that money is an important consideration in fiscal responsibility.

But I also realized that we have a tremendous responsibility. And I support the speakers today who are advocating retaining the community school. Especially, some of you have had the wisdom to keep your elementary schools. Unfortunately, here in Cook County, we used to have 35 schools and seven school districts. And we're down now to one school district, and we have two and a third elementary schools and one high school.

And I think our superintendents and our board members and our legislators, and the whole state has got to realize how important it is for the small school in the preservation of democracy. And that doesn't mean sacrificing quality education by any means.

So I encourage every person who is working towards retaining the community school to be careful of elitism, which France made the mistake, Japan is making the mistake, though they seem to be in superior. Remember that in the long run, your quality education begins in your community. Thank you.

RACHEL RAEBE: Thank you for your call. We go now to Northern Hubbard County. You're on the line, your comment, please.

SPEAKER: Yes, I have two comments to make. One is, I disagree that small schools are not able to offer the quality education. Students who get a really good quality education in a small school where they can relate better with their teachers can easily pick up the courses that they didn't receive in high school, say, before they go to college. This seems to be not a big problem. I think--

RACHEL RAEBE: How would they pick up those courses, ma'am? You said they could easily pick them up. How would you see them picking those courses up?

SPEAKER: Well, I think if you take children and build a very good base with a good student-teacher relationship in a small school, where they learn to really be good students and study, they learn to think, they learn to write, which is something a lot of kids in school are not learning now, that they will have the strength to be able to pick up the courses that are offered, better than the ones who go into college, who've had the courses that they need offered but are not good students who cannot do very well as far as expressing themselves.

They just don't have a strong base. I just don't feel that the trade off is worth it. And the other thing I wanted to comment on is, I'm happy with the education that my children receive. But in order to get that, they ride the bus two and a half 0 Now they go to school for six and a half hours. And of course, their school day, when you count the bus rides, is nine hours.

Now this counts them out of a lot of family life and in a short time because they have to eat, they have to get enough sleep to get up early enough to catch the bus and then go on to school. So this is a bad trade-off, too. Now I'll hang up and listen for the answer.

RACHEL RAEBE: We have heard a lot of adults calling in today and saying, keep the schools in the communities. Smaller can be better. And yet many of the students, certainly, that John Biewen and I talked to when we were preparing the series that preceded this program today, many of the students, I think we could say most of the students we talked to said, we are missing out a little bit.

A kid in Motley told me, I had to drop a class and there was nothing else to take. There was nothing else offered during that hour that I could take. Has it been your experience, the three of you, that the students are perhaps not as resistant to going to larger schools than perhaps the parents, Mrs. Berger?

KATHY BERGER: Yes, I always said laughingly and I maybe mean it that all the adults should sleep for about 20 years, and the kid will do just fine. A larger school system, I'm not talking a huge school system, can offer you all those courses. We are now under a requirement, I believe it's next year's graduates that will need a foreign language to enter a state college.

Students that do not have a very strong, good background in the math and science areas will have a more difficult time in college. It may cost parents an extra year of college tuition to get their students caught up.

I don't believe that the state should try to get down to 100 or 200 schools. I think that's impossible. I think interactive television for areas, especially like in Cook County, are very important. And the state has the obligation to spend more on those districts because they are remote.

RACHEL RAEBE: Mr. Bjerga, you have two school-aged daughters. Are they as opposed to going to Staples as you are opposed to having them go to staples?

IRVIN BJERGA: I think you could pull children every month. And I believe you will find that children probably will vote pretty much the way their parents feel. I think their parents change their mind, I think the students change their mind. I think they-- I think as far as a majority of them anyways, they-- the kids change their mind every day. Probably, my daughter has had an argument with every girl in her class, at one time or another, but right away, the next day, they're friends.

RACHEL RAEBE: Most days, how do your daughters feel?

IRVIN BJERGA: Well, my daughters would like to stay in Motley.

RACHEL RAEBE: Our next caller is on the line from Duluth. Go ahead with your comment, please.

SPEAKER: Thank you. I think that there's a misapprehension in the notion that the problems of the small schools and the problems of the large schools are somehow so distinct that you can usefully separate them and deal with them separately, as I've heard and I've visited a lot of small school districts as well in Northern Minnesota.

And as I've heard the conversation today, I hear problems that we've faced in the Duluth school district, we've gone through all of the problems that folks on the Iron Range and the folks in rural Minnesota are struggling to come to grips with. We've closed a high school. We've closed junior high schools. We've closed elementary schools.

And it was agonizing. And there's no way to do it and have united community support in doing it. It just can't be done that way. So all of those-- all of that frustration and that concern is very familiar to people in areas like ours and in the metro region, where they have lost schools that they valued.

I think that in some very important ways, we ought to start looking at what all of the schools in the state have in common, what we need in common that would enable each of us to produce the best job that we can do because I think that each of the school districts brings a special flavor and a special gift to the work they do.

I think that we need to start looking at the needs we have in common. And our legislature, I think, is going to have to come to grips with the fact that for the last about eight years, the schools in Minnesota have been-- that is the progress that we've made has been sliding behind the progress made in neighboring states.

Other states are beginning to outspend us, and that never was true before. And we are now sliding down to a mediocre performance, not an outstanding performance in state support of schools.

RACHEL RAEBE: And what do you see the solution to that problem is being?

SPEAKER: I think the solution is that the people in Minnesota are going to have to tell their legislators that we still are willing to spend money on education, and we are willing to pay money into taxes in order to do that.

RACHEL RAEBE: Do you have-- do you see a difficulty with that when we tell you that one-third of the households-- one-third or less of the households have school-aged children? Kathy Berger is from a district that twice now, has defeated levy referendums to raise more money locally for their schools. And prospects for next month's referendum do not look good.

Are the people willing to spend more money? Are those two-thirds of the people who don't have school-aged children, are they as willing as you are to raise their taxes?

SPEAKER: In my judgment, we haven't a choice. The prosperity of this state has been based on the success of its school system. And I don't think that those are independent. And if the schools are allowed to decline, if the schools are allowed to slide down to mediocrity, it is going to cost the state so greatly in every manner and process imaginable.

And unfortunately, we've been at this process of not supporting the schools as generously as before. We've been at that long enough now that we are genuinely beginning to see the results. Minnesota is losing ground against the rest of the nation. We're still ahead, but we're losing ground against the rest of the nation.

So it seems to me that if the legislators are willing to take a leadership that they will find a constituency out there that is articulate, that is very hardworking and is willing to make a strong case for investing in the future of this state. And the only way we can invest in the future of this state, the longest lasting investment is investing in the schools.

RACHEL RAEBE: Thank you for your call today. We go now to Managa. Your comment, please.

SPEAKER: I have a reference that refers to the students going to college from a small school who have had enough training in their own school to acceptably be or achieve in math and sciences, and so on. Our school offered as many courses as there were teachers available for them.

But my students, my own children discovered that they were decidedly at a disadvantage in the college situation as compared to those from a Metropolitan area, they had classes in the Metropolitan or larger school systems, which were available, that covered, in some instances, all of the first years' math and science they would have had in the college, and they were able to test out of that.

RACHEL RAEBE: So, sir, you would have been willing to send your children perhaps farther than they went to school if they had had some of those additional courses offered to them?

SPEAKER: Especially from hindsight, yes. At the time, I may have had enough emotional problem with the, shall we say, break up of a local high school. But I can see where that was not really a good argument afterwards, that the fact that there are going further to school would have been worth it in reference to the education they could have achieved because more courses would have been available.

RACHEL RAEBE: Thank you. Our next caller is on the line from Virginia, Minnesota. Go ahead, please.

SPEAKER: Hello, I have a comment and then a couple of questions. Firstly, the lady previously said that our students can-- of smaller schools can go out to college and catch up. My daughter is going to graduate from college this spring. She had-- because of the lack of advanced foreign languages, she couldn't test out of a college out east, and she had to take a whole semester of French, I believe it was, which cost considerably money.

But also, I'd like to ask Mrs. Berger, what classes is the consolidated Mountain Iron-Buhl School able to offer now that they could not offer independently as Buhl or Mountain Iron? I'll hang up and listen. Thank you.

KATHY BERGER: After we consolidated, we were able to offer our students chemistry and physics on a yearly basis. There were times when we had to offer them alternately. We've added advanced biology. We've added calculus. We've got a different math track now, where the students start in algebra on the 8th grade.

We offer presently three foreign languages up to three years in two of them and growing, if we can still afford them by next year. We've offered several extracurricular and curricular activities for the students, junior high and senior high.

RACHEL RAEBE: Mr. Anderson, let me get back to a question that was raised earlier. Is this whole subject too hot to handle for legislators? Certainly, when I talk to them, they say this is very controversial. And a man from the State Department of Education said, we don't even like to talk about it. There will be no discussion until 1990, until after the election and redistricting gets going. Is this a really controversial, hot subject for legislators?

GLEN ANDERSON: It is controversial, no doubt about it, but not as controversial as it was when I was first elected. At that point in time, 16 years ago, you didn't dare talk about it. And I think probably more in the last six years with the decline in the rural economy--

RACHEL RAEBE: People see the handwriting on the wall more or less.

GLEN ANDERSON: Yeah, farming has changed immensely. The rural economies have been changing. Student enrollments have been dropping. One of my communities was really, really upset with me a year ago. They have come to me and flat out said-- they sat down around the table, looked where they had been, looked where they are, and looked off into the future, decided they didn't have any option. And I would say that community is about 85% in support of this merger at the present time.

RACHEL RAEBE: We'll take one more quick phone call from Rochester. Go ahead with your comment, please.

SPEAKER: Yes, this fits right in with what you were talking about, Glen, about change. Is it possible that because of the changes that we've seen in the rural economy, the price drops, land evaluation, soil erosion, that we are also resistant to change in our views of education because it is so much gotten into the public psyche that we will further lose our rural identity if we give up our schools and become one with another community?

KATHY BERGER: Can I have just that?

GLEN ANDERSON: Well, you see, I believe that providing a better education at the same or less tax dollars than we currently are, which a merger of two or three or four districts in many parts of the state would do, will, in fact, enhance our rural economy. It will give us a much, much better chance to bring industry into our communities, as well as giving a better education.

RACHEL RAEBE: And your quick answer, Mrs. Berger?

KATHY BERGER: I've noticed on the Iron Range, when the economy went down, our students went to college. When the economy grew, our students stayed at the mines. I think as the economy in greater Minnesota does go down, our students need their college education even more.

RACHEL RAEBE: Our technical director for this special call-in show was Rob Daily. Phone traffic was handled by Dorothy Hanford. Our satellite uplink was operated by Scott Bridgewater and Scott Yankus. Thanks to Mark Conway and the staff here at KSJR for helping us put this show together.

The special call-in program was a production of MPR's Main Street radio team and was made possible by the Blandin Foundation, supporting economic development, leadership and education in rural Minnesota.