Transcripts

INTERVIEWER: Two Minneapolis civil rights groups are threatening to sue the Minneapolis school district over a district reorganization plan. School board is considering a plan that would divide the city into four sectors and essentially place students in their home sector. The goal would be to improve student achievement, in part by keeping students closer to home.

However, the NAACP and the Minneapolis Urban League say the plan would create racial imbalances in some schools and hurt efforts to improve education in Minneapolis. Joining us now is Minneapolis School Board member Bill Green. Good morning, Mr. Green.

BILL GREEN: Good morning.

INTERVIEWER: Do you support this proposal?

BILL GREEN: The options task force report-- so far, it hasn't come to us in recommendation form. We're still collecting information. And I'm withholding my judgment until I see all the information.

A lot of material was presented to the superintendent and his team last night. We're all in the process of sorting through all of that. And I'm not sure that all the issues have been placed on the table. And when that happens, then I'll be able to form a conclusion, a decision on it.

INTERVIEWER: Are the schools in Minneapolis currently desegregated, at least in terms of what the law defines as desegregation?

BILL GREEN: Well, most of the schools fall within the mandate of state law. But the fact of the matter is we're getting a lot of kids who are of color and who are poor coming into the system. And we're doing the best we can in citing them in various schools.

And the fact of the matter is, we're running out of resources. We're running out of sites to maintain the 15% rule. So we're doing OK. But our resources are getting strained.

INTERVIEWER: Is there a value in continuing to focus on numerical quotas, goals in the city?

BILL GREEN: Well, there is a value in that if you think of numbers in terms of how we keep score. I think we need to have some very clear standards by which we define a desegregated school. And that's the purpose for having a numerical value.

Without that kind of standard, then I think we are all tempted to put more kids in one particular site and more or less allow certain schools to resegregate themselves. It's a way of keeping the score real clear. So a way of making it very clear whether a school is desegregated or not.

INTERVIEWER: Given what some people consider to be the value of neighborhood education, strengthening neighborhoods and the rest. What would be wrong with essentially, as you say, allowing the schools to resegregate themselves as long as each of the schools were provided with equal funding and equal educational resources and the rest?

BILL GREEN: Well, theoretically, there's nothing wrong with that. But we live in the real world. And the real world has us dealing with very little resources when we're talking about equal funding. The question is, where does that funding come?

I mean, the federal government doesn't have any money. And the state isn't distributing the funds in a way that I'd like to see it done. I certainly don't have any money. And I don't know if anybody who does have any money to contribute to the schools. And so I think that in one sense, it's almost a red herring to argue that we should allow for schools to be resegregated, provided we have funds. Because the fact of the matter is, there aren't any funds to guarantee equity.

INTERVIEWER: But by moving students around, we could somehow guarantee equity even if we didn't have additional money?

BILL GREEN: Well, therein lies the crux of the problem. We're talking about desegregation in the confines of a reality that existed 20 years ago or 15 years ago or 10 years ago. I think we're at that point now in our history when we have to begin to redefine the commitment of a community to educating kids. And defining community means perhaps thinking more of in metropolitan terms rather than just city terms.

The fact of the matter is the Minneapolis Public Schools and in the city itself is disproportionately bearing the challenge and the responsibility of educating the kids in our area. And I think that we have to begin to marry the notions of school desegregation with housing desegregation. So we have to open up our eyes. We have to push down the parameters that guided us in the past and redefine what really is the issue.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think it's time to mandate cross-district desegregation programs to require the suburban school districts to take part in some broader effort?

BILL GREEN: I think it's time to mandate desegregation and housing so that kids who are poor and kids of color who are living in different parts of the area, of the metropolitan area, can go to schools closest to them. That's what we all want. The desegregation process with regards to schools themselves is becoming more and more an artificial way of guaranteeing equitable education or quality education for all the kids.

But the fact of the matter is that as housing becomes more and more segregated, sending kids farther from their homes is creates nothing more than a burden on families and kids in particular and on various governmental structures. We really have to begin to be more comprehensive in our view of dealing with the needs of our families. So housing and schools have to be married one and the same.

Now, that doesn't-- we don't have any control over housing in our proposal. And so if you're asking me about how we achieve desegregation in our schools, that's one question. If you're asking me whether anything that we can do in this options task force can address those larger issues, that's a different answer. And I guess I'm putting it on you to couch the question.

INTERVIEWER: All right.