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Is Carla Bates in line for an MPS board seat?














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Is Carla Bates in line for an MPS board seat?
















"What a bummer we didn't elect Carla Bates to the Minneapolis School Board earlier this month...."

"Why didn't Bates run? Who knows, this is the first she's come to our attention..."
Incoming School Board members attend
-Beth Hawkins, City Pages, senior editor

Carla Bates supported and helped to finance Chris Stewart's campaign for school board (and called for Stewart's resignation shortly after the election). I am sure that Bates was well aware of Stewart's self-identification as a 'conservative' prior to the DFL city convention, as were many other MPS insiders who supported Stewart's nomination.

I am surprised that this is the first time that Carla Bates has come to the attention of Beth Hawkins, who has done the MPS beat from time to time, and noted that Bates' "...proposes tackling the rest of the to-do list rejected superintendent candidate David Jennings laid down on his way out of his interim posting..."

It is also easy to find information about Carla Bates by doing an internet search.

Carla Bates was a vocal supporter of David Jennings and the Carol Johnson administration. For example, in October 2003 Bates praised Carol Johnson and expressed confidence in David Jennings as MPS helmsman in a letter to the Citizens' League Journal. In that letter Bates stated her agreement with Sean Kershaw, the writer of a CLJ viewpoint article, on a few key points, writing 

"...I agree that MPS should slow down and consider a different administrative structure and that the District is in good hands with David Jennings in the Interim. I agree that MPS should decentralize numerous administrative functions and give principals, parents, teachers and local communities more control over site management. And I agree that incentives for teachers and administrators should be tied to performance..."

Pasted below is part of each of the above-cited items, with links: A Blotter article by Beth Hawkins, a letter to the Citizens' League Journal by Carla Bates dated October 2003.

Incoming Minneapolis School Board: Attend
Two items the fresh meat for the MPS mill might want to read carefully
[by Beth Hawkins]

What a bummer we didn't elect Carla Bates to the Minneapolis School Board earlier this month. Not that she was running: According to her bio at Twin Cities Daily Planet, Bates is an instructional technology coordinator at the University of Minnesota and the mother of three MPS students. She's also the site's education editor, in which capacity she's penned an agenda for the new board's first 100 days that's ambitious and sensible--if politically sticky. You can read it here.

The gist: Bates proposes tackling the rest of the to-do list rejected superintendent candidate David Jennings laid down on his way out of his interim posting, most notably closing 10 half-filled schools and doing something about the Dickensian teacher-student ratios at the others. She also just comes right out and says a few things that seem obvious to most of us but don't seem to be appropriate topics for discussion among many educators and district administrators: Someone needs to help foot the bill for shipping erstwhile MPS kids to charters and for the disproportionate amount of special ed the district provides. Oh yeah--and pay some serious attention to in-school disciplinary issues.

Continue reading "Incoming Minneapolis School Board: Attend"
 http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2006/11/incoming_minnea.asp#more

Letter to the Citizens League Journal
Posted by: Carla Bates at October 21, 2003 10:40 AM

Dear Mr. Kershaw -

I am writing in response to your article in the October Citizen's Journal regarding how we should go about appointing a new superintendent for MPS. As a parent of three children attending MPS, I must say that I find your statements to be rash and more indicative of an ideological commitment to a certain kind of "systems change" than of a civic leader interested in finding out how to help kids in the District. This emphasis on "systems change" rather than personalities allows you to "seem" civil while you then go on to sow dissension.

As I am familiar with other proponents of similar sorts of system change, such as John Brandl and Ted Kolderie, I recognize and respect your central thesis. I agree that MPS should slow down and consider a different administrative structure and that the District is in good hands with David Jennings in the Interim. I agree that MPS should decentralize numerous administrative functions and give principals, parents, teachers and local communities more control over site management. And I agree that incentives for teachers and administrators should be tied to performance. The whole Citizen League "schtick" about recognizing the importance of competition and motivation and about using the ideas of the free market to improve government services makes
good sense -

BUT there are other concerns, issues, ideas that also make good sense and by failing to account for these, your article and your suggestions just lead concerned parents like me to write you off as a right-wing ideologue who has little to contribute to my family, my school or my community...

for the full text (preceded by an article by Sean Kershaw)
http://www.citizensleague.net/blogs/homepageblog/archives/000047.html
















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