Bill aims to promote school integration in Minnesota with state funding incentives

The number of intensely segregated school sites in the Twin Cities has grown almost five-fold, from 21 to over 100, since the turn of the century, according to University of Minnesota researcher Will Stancil.

If enacted, HF2899 would fund incentives for districts to integrate schools within their boundaries, as well as participate in programs to bus students across district lines to reduce segregation between school districts.

The bill would also create a system of four magnet schools open to students in the metro. Additional state funding would go toward transportation costs for the three integration programs.

A hodgepodge of other proposals are included, like more money for summer school; new data reporting requirements for districts participating in the integration programs and an on-campus summer credit recovery pilot with the University of Minnesota for high school students behind on credits to graduate.

A work group led by Minnesota Education Equity Partnership joined with bill author Rep. Cedrick Frazier, DFL-New Hope, to craft the bill over the past year. The group included two attorneys — Daniel Shulman and Myron Orfield — who have spent over three decades advocating for desegregation, including a single, metro-wide school district to promote racial and economic integration of Twin Cities public schools.

The bill is intended as a vehicle for community engagement as well as a placeholder for a potential settlement of the Cruz-Guzman lawsuit, first filed by Shulman in 2015 on behalf of a group of parents against the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts and the state of Minnesota.

The parents allege that the de facto economic and racial segregation of Minneapolis and St. Paul schools violates the Minnesota Constitution, which guarantees a uniform and adequate education. Whether the court finds in favor of the plaintiffs, or if a settlement is reached, any changes to state law — including additional funding for schools — would need legislative action to be implemented.

The bill’s proposals echo previous attempts to integrate Twin Cities public schools. In 2001, the Choice is Yours program, in which the state paid to bus low-income Minneapolis students to suburban school districts, came out of a settlement from a similar lawsuit, also filed by Shulman. That program also created inter-district magnet schools through the West Metro Education Program and the East Metro Education Program.

Minneapolis Public Schools changed its school assignment policies, school attendance boundaries and magnet programs in 2021 — partially in response to the Cruz-Guzman lawsuit — in an attempt to draw the district’s wealthy students into magnet programs in schools that had previously served primarily low-income students of color.

The changes have largely failed to create integrated magnet schools, and last year the district removed almost all of its additional financial support to help the magnet schools succeed.

In other respects, the proposals in Frazier’s bill differ from earlier attempts at desegregation. The focus is now on balancing the economic status of students within schools, rather than relying on race. The state would also provide additional revenue for districts that participate in the various integration programs, not just transportation aid.

Unlike Choice is Yours, which only bussed low-income Minneapolis students out of the district, the bill would also pay to bus high-income students to schools serving primarily low-income students.

Charter schools would also be eligible to participate in the integration programs.

The bill has been referred to the House Education Policy Committee but it has not yet had a committee hearing.