Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Integration 

Representative Pat Garofalo of Farmington wondered about six weeks ago about "integration aid", without some people being sure what it's used for:
In 2005 the legislative auditor performed an audit of state integration funding program and found a number of problems.

For example, the purpose of funding is not clear � some school staff believed its purpose was to alleviate racial imbalances, other thought the funding was to close the achievement gap, noted the auditor,

Other findings were that neither school districts nor the state adequately assessed the program, and racial concentrations in some schools receiving the funding continued to increase.
Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL chair of the K-12 Funding Committee said everyone knows it's broken and suggested it be capped. Why would you keep this going?

Today Rep. Garofalo repeated the charge and added more examples as the K-12 bill heads towards completion. I assume this to mean the integration program is still intact.
  • After school soccer, $3,000
  • Art Exhibit: supplies, consultants and �artifacts�, $7,500
  • Collaborative coordinator, $43,000
  • Cultural liaison officer, salary & benefits, $125,000
  • Culturally responsive teacher training, $15,000
  • Equity coach, $74,000
  • Ethnic celebrations, $3,000
  • Field trip scholarships, $10,000
  • 5th grade kindness retreat, $5,000
  • Food and snacks for ethnic celebrations, $4,000
  • Integration program coordinator, $99,000
  • Secretary to IPC, $57,600
  • Newcomers program teacher, $113,000
  • Pen pal book club, $3,500
  • 6 step hip hop program, $2,000
Is a six-step hip hop program meant to teach people how to hip-hop or like hip hop Anonymous, a six-step program to stop hiphopoholics? (That was fun to write, thanks for asking!) I don't think $5,000 is enough to pay for a fifth grade kindness retreat -- you ever work with fifth graders? Oy!

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