Nelson discusses challenges that face education

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Feb. 12, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

The face of public education is changing, and without major support or restructuring from state and federal governments, the quality of public education will become dismal shortly into the next century, says Ray Nelson, Bemidji State University professor of education administration.

Nelson spoke Monday to a group of BSU students and faculty as part of the university's annual Honors Council Lecture series. The lecture series, in its 22nd consecutive year, is sponsored by the Honors Program "to cultivate intellectual interests and to promote scholarly discourse among faculty, staff, students and the public," according BSU.

The new face of public education will not include small, rural schools with a white student majority, Nelson told the group of about 25. He said the future of public education is in large, core-city schools with the majority of students of mixed races. Adding to the already-burdened metro schools is that there will be a large glut of new kids entering school never previously matched.

"Why is this important to you and me? Between now and 2006 there will be a greater influx of kids into schools than when the 'Baby Boomers' entered, and the greatest majority of these kids will be in urban schools," he said. "What's scary is that young teachers don't want to teach there."

Nelson asked the students if they would be willing to teach in an inner-city school, and only two raised their hands. But he said that was a better response than he has at other lectures.

The problem does not only concern large cities elsewhere either, he said. Minnesota will be affected by these trends as well.

Within five years in Minnesota, 50,000 more kids will enter the public K-12 schools, a majority of them attending schools located in a 150-mile geographic corridor from St. Cloud to Rochester, he said, and 4,000 fewer students will attend school in rural schools. Ten years ago, there used to be more than 400 school districts, and now there is under 300, he added.

Newly graduated teachers need to be willing to relocate to the urban centers because that is where the jobs will be, and there is a need to get more of the best teachers there as well. If not for the reason that it is the right thing to do, he said, it also makes economic sense for states and for the nation.

"It costs what ... $3,000 ... to send a kid to public school? It costs $30,000 to house a prisoner," he said. "The taxpayer asks, 'Why should I do something for inner-city kids?' Because like Mrs. (Hillary Rodham) Clinton said, if the parent isn't taking care of the their kids -- maybe it takes a village."

However, he warned that conditions are not greatly improved in Minnesota either, which is demonstrated by two lawsuits filed by school districts claiming the state's education funding system is unequal. He added there is an equal proportion of minorities who will be attending schools in the Twin Cities as there are in other large city schools, and problems such as teenage pregnancy, drug use and violence are also present here.

"An experience is worth a thousand pictures. From what I saw in San Diego, I was convinced the politicians are out in left field," he said. "Politicians have to wake up. I know they're pinched for money, but that has been the case since governments began. Governments never have enough, and they need to begin to put people first."

Nelson has spent his career studying inner-city school issues, and last year he spent his sabbatical touring some of the country's most notorious inner-city schools in such cities as San Diego and Chicago.