By Christopher Magan

St. Paul Pioneer Press

How Minnesota spends millions to try to integrate public schools will be back in the hands of the Legislature in 2017.

Brenda Cassellius, education commissioner, said in a letter Wednesday she was withdrawing her proposal to overhaul the state’s achievement and integration aid program.

In March, an administrative law judge rejected Cassellius’ proposal to include charter schools in the program, which funds efforts to reduce racial imbalance in schools and close the academic achievement gap.

Administrative Law Judge Anne C. O’Reilly said Cassellius’ proposed changes overstepped her authority and some conflicted with state law. Revising the proposal would have required considerable changes that Cassellius was unwilling to make.

Instead, Cassellius wants the Legislature to further clarify which schools should be eligible for the program and how they should use the money.

“The commissioner believes it would be inappropriate to propose further rule amendments until these issues are addressed by the state legislature,” Cassellius’ letter said. She declined to comment further.

Now the future of the program, which has distributed more than $1 billion to schools over the past two decades — including nearly $70 million this year — will likely be determined by who wins control of the Minnesota House and Senate.

Myron Orfield, a University of Minnesota law professor and school integration advocate, doesn’t know how much clearer the Legislature can be. He said lawmakers ordered the department to fix the integration program and the department responded with a rule that was “incomprehensible.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a legislature in the United States give more clear guidance,” Orfield said. He said the program remains in dire need of an overhaul because it exempts charter schools and “chills” some efforts to integrate schools.

“The present rule is illegal and it has to be changed,” he said.

Integration aid has been in state lawmakers’ sights since at least 2011, when the Republican-controlled Legislature voted to overhaul the program or phase it out. That move came after the state Legislative Auditor’s office found the money was spent in questionable ways and programs were often ineffective.

After Democratic lawmakers took control in 2013, they ordered widespread changes for the program, including focusing more on closing the achievement gap between minority students and their white classmates. Cassellius and the state education department were asked to draft new rules to update the program.

Besides including charter schools, Cassellius proposed allowing schools to spend more on helping struggling students and less on increasing racial balance.

To be eligible for integration aid, schools typically must have minority-student enrollment that is at least 20 percent more than their district’s average. Since the program was created in 1995, schools have used the aid on academic support, magnet schools that attract a diverse enrollment and other programs.

Charter school advocates opposed Cassellius’ proposal, arguing that “schools of choice” shouldn’t be considered segregated even if they are attended primarily by students of one race or ethnicity.

Supporters of school integration also rejected the proposal. They feared relaxing the focus on racial balance would lead to schools abandoning integration efforts altogether.

Meanwhile, in November 2015, nonprofit One Family One Community and seven parents filed a class action lawsuit against the state, claiming leaders were not doing enough to reduce racial segregation in public schools. The lawsuit calls for a new metro-wide school integration plan.
—Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.