Minnesota Teacher of the Year

“I can’t believe it passed!” If I’ve heard this comment once, I’ve heard it a dozen times this week from teachers at Robbinsdale Armstrong High School, where I teach in the mornings. This Tuesday, while most districts saw requests for increased funding get denied, residents in the Robbinsdale school district approved not one, but two school levy referendums to increase funding for schools in the district. The first referendum on the ballot will provide over $7.6 million dollars in critically needed funding for school programs. The second will provide an additional $1.8 million. The funding will allow the district to rehire teachers who lost their jobs last year, restore some of the after-school programs that were eliminated last year, and reduce class sizes from their overflowing levels.

To be honest, I was skeptical leading up to the vote. It was a general election year, meaning that voter turnout would be high. Conventional wisdom says it’s much harder to pass a referendum in such years, as the average voter is reluctant to vote to raise their own taxes. On top of this, it’s easy to imagine how worried voters are about their finances given the economic turmoil of the past two months, with its plummeting stock market, falling house values, and threatening recession. And if that isn’t enough, the district is home to a small yet underhanded “Say No!” movement. Last year this group hired a consultant whose goal is to eliminate public schooling in the United States, they peppered the district with a mailing that included egregiously false information on the day before the 2007 vote, and they even sued the state of Minnesota over its statute that bans factual distortions relating to school referendums. So yes, I had my doubts that passing even one of the referendum questions would be possible.

But as the K-Mart posters of my youth used to say: “People who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.” An active group of concerned residents of School District 281 refused to give in to the impossible. Their incredible efforts, combined with the efforts of the district itself—which listened to the concerns of residents, conducted a Strategic Planning session last spring that involved more than 1,000 residents, and modified levy requests accordingly—make Robbinsdale’s referendum victory a case study in how to get a school levy referendum passed. At the heart of this successful campaign lies the near herculean efforts of the community.

Everyone knows how important it is to canvas voters before an election. While phoning residents is one way to do this, even more effective is visiting homes and speaking with residents about the issues. In most levy referendums, the goal is to visit each home once before the election. Well, get this: my house, which lies in the Robbinsdale district, received four visits in the month before the election. Yes, four! Twice enthusiastic yet respectful activists knocked on my door to talk about the vote, and twice I returned home to find referendum literature at my door. Amazing.

The group also used the internet to great effect. They built a website to help organize efforts, and created a Facebook group that grew to over 1,000 members. They used the Facebook group to quickly spread information about rallies and volunteer opportunities. In the two weeks before the election, it seemed that there was something going on every day. Their energy and enthusiasm was infectious, and their persistence remarkable. As an interesting aside on how technology can change things, on the night before the election, when the “Say No” movement started using illegal robocalling to try to influence the vote, a message went out to the members of the Facebook group asking for someone to get a recording of the call. Within seconds everyone in the Facebook group knew what was going on. Within ten minutes the group had obtained a recording of the illegal calls.

The visibility of the vote in the days leading to the election was remarkable. Community members held up signs on busy streets, put a sign on any lawn whose owners would accept one, and gave out buttons like Halloween candy. If you lived in District 281, you knew about the referendum. It was literally everywhere you looked.

Lastly, they were smart. It’s easy to see how children benefit when school programs are adequately funded, but the fact is that everyone in the community benefits when schools improve, so the group made the slogan “District 281: Say Yes! Everyone Benefits!” a focal point of their campaign. Studies show that while the vast majority of residents are in favor of supporting schools, they often vote no for the simple reason that school referendums are the one place where residents can say no to more taxes, and it’s difficult for many people to see how they will benefit personally from a school referendum. The group emphasized how a yes vote for the referendum indirectly puts money in homeowners’ pockets through increased real estate values, and how a passing referendum is a solid investment.

If there is any sad side to this, it’s that it takes such a huge effort by a Minnesota community to get schools to a level of funding that still lags well behind the amounts of ten years ago. Referendum-based education is a travesty in a state that so long has based its foundation on outstanding schools. Most referendums were defeated, and there is no joy in communities like Osseo, Buffalo, and Norwood. The danger with winning a referendum vote is that is obscures the desperate need for significant and meaningful education funding reform in the state of Minnesota. Please, if you care about education in the state of Minnesota, contact your state representative and ask them to support an educational reform bill. Referendum-based education is wrong on so many levels.

But with all due respect to the communities that saw referendums fail, this is an article about an educational victory, so I don’t want to wrap up on a low note. I’d like to end by saying a huge thank you to the thousands of residents that voted in favor of these two referendums. In these financial times, it’s not easy to give so much when asked, but you dug down and gave. Every teacher I’ve talked to this week is truly ecstatic that the referendum passed, and I’ve heard many comments about the obligation to “use the money well.” Credit also goes to the hundreds of residents, students, teachers, and administrators who donated time, money, and effort to helping the cause.

In particular, though, I’d like to bring to light the incredible efforts of two Robbinsdale residents: George Abide and Jennifer Griffin-Wiesner. No one put more effort and heart into the campaign. I still chuckle when I think of George enthusiastically talking about standing on a corner with a sign encouraging people to vote yes for the referendum, and saying, “I’m optimistic. Only five people gave me the finger!” While it took the efforts of hundreds to make this work, I’m certain that the school levy wouldn’t have passed if the two of you were not involved. Every student in Robbinsdale and every employee of District 281 owes you a debt of gratitude. You’ve made education better. Thank you.