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NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Good morning. The time is exactly 10:00 AM. Neal Saint Anthony speaking from our Saint Paul Studio. In the Twin Cities at this hour under cloudy skies, the temperature is 30 degrees Fahrenheit, one below Celsius.

Winds are south at 25 per hour, gusting to 35. Look at the Twin Cities Metropolitan area forecast, windy and warmer, with decreasing cloudiness and sunshine today. Mostly clear tonight. Sunny and mild Sunday.

Southerly winds at 15 to 30 miles an hour by late morning, becoming west to northwesterly, and diminishing early tonight. Highs today and Sunday in the upper seconds and lower 40s. Lows tonight in the middle 20s. Cloudy skies at this hour.

This morning on our public affairs hour, we look at some of the pressing issues facing the Minneapolis Public School System. A federal judge supervising the racial balance in Minneapolis schools has ordered that by next fall minority attendance in any one school may not exceed 42%.

The administration maintains that the goal is unattainable. District projections show total minority enrollment in elementary schools will exceed 40% by 1982. Currently, the total minority enrollment in the public school system is about 26%. The administration says higher minority concentration in some schools is unavoidable.

At several recent school board hearings there has been vocal opposition to further busing to achieve racial balance. Parents complain often that they don't know where their children will attend class next fall. In addition, leaders in the Indian community have presented compelling arguments for educating their children together. They wish to encourage and foster traditional Indian culture.

Well, our guests today are Dr. Raymond Arveson, the superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools and Mr. Harry Davis, a member of the school board. Unfortunately, Dr. Arveson has not yet arrived. He agreed to come on the program and confirmed his participation late this week. We hope that he will be with us momentarily.

For now, I'm going to take up some of these issues with Mr. Davis. And later in the program, you may phone in your questions to Mr. Davis and hopefully to Dr. Arveson. First, I'd like to go directly to the issue of the federal court order, Mr. Davis, specifically Judge Larsen's order would permit no more than 35% enrollment of a single minority, no more than 42% of all minorities in any one school.

The board has authorized two plans to be submitted to the court on Thursday. One complies essentially to the letter with the judge's order. The other is dubbed the preferred plan or the superintendents plan and exceeds Judge Larsen's ceilings. Can you spell out the preferred plan for me?

HARRY DAVIS: Well, first of all, I think the listening audience should understand what the court order says. The court order which was decreed by Judge Larsen back in 1972 stated that the Minneapolis school board was found guilty of de jure segregation, which is in violation of the 14th Amendment.

That meant there were a number of schools in our system that could be identified as racial schools, either black, white, Indian, and so forth. Now, what Judge Larsen said to us at that time is that, you are the educators.

I am, of course, the judge of the federal court. The mandate for desegregation integration is coming down from this court to you. And I'm asking you to come up with a plan that you will submit to me for my approval for that process.

He then stated that you should report to me quarterly with any modifications or change in plan. And then I will determine whether you're in compliance. Now, that explains the procedure.

I think where the misunderstanding comes is that people believe that Judge Larsen is mandating certain issues that are relevant to the desegregation of schools. Judge Larsen is not doing that. Judge Larsen is allowing us to do that. The 3542 Plan as it's established right now--

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Which is his plan?

HARRY DAVIS: Is our plan.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Your plan?

HARRY DAVIS: It's our plan that was approved by Judge Larsen over a year ago. Now, in the process of implementing that plan, we found that housing patterns in the city of Minneapolis did not change and that there were still large majority-- large pockets of minority concentration around certain schools.

And those schools at the present time where there are problems are Bethune and Hall School in North Minneapolis, Anderson and Wilder school in South Minneapolis. Now, if you're familiar with the Minneapolis school district, you know that we've divided our district into three areas.

And we've done that for a number of different reasons. But one of the reasons is that there would not be busing or transporting of children throughout the district, that they would be transported within a certain section of that district.

We have staffed those districts or those areas with a superintendent and staff to work with the community itself, the parents, the students, and other interested parties, to not only desegregate that part of the city, but to implement alternative programs that would fit into the basic needs of the children in that area.

And that is in conjunction with the parents. The parents choose the type of educational program their child should go into. The only requirement that the school board has is that each plan be racially balanced.

Now, that's-- so there's a lot of freedom of choice. That doesn't mean that there are mandated busing programs, that all of the transporting programs are not determined by the school board saying that you must do this.

OK, then in order to apply these programs and the different educational choices, we either paired schools or clustered schools and offered in the pairing and clustering the options, the choice of parents accepting the conventional kind of education, the continuous progress, the open, the free, and of course, lately, the fundamental.

And we found that it worked quite well. And that throughout the city in many areas that those choices were selected and that racial balance was being accomplished. I'll give you one example of that.

The west area, which is in the western part of Minneapolis, is in compliance. There is no school that has over 35% of any one minority nor 42% of more than one minority. So they're in total compliance.

In that area there is pretty close to 20,000 students. So that means that almost one third or over one third of our school district is in compliance. And much of that is done on a voluntary basis.

We also have racial transfers. We have magnet schools and magnet programs that draw children in for certain parts of the day or for full days. The Anderson School itself created a problem because of the high concentration of Native American students, Anderson School in elementary level and Phillips School in the junior high school level. We do not have basic problems at the senior high school.

All right then, now, in our report-- in our last report to Judge Larson, Judge Larson said that, I'd like to know why you're 35, 42% plan is not working when only 26% of your student population is a minority.

It seems to me that there should be a way that you could come into compliance and I would like to have you submit a plan to me to show that 3542 can come into compliance. If not, an alternative plan that I can study and can make a judgment on. So that's the process we've gone through the last month or so.

Now, in the process of hearing the plan for 3542 by each area superintendent. The superintendent came in with what he called his preferred plan, which would allow for a variance of 50/50, 50% of any minority.

Now, in the meantime, the Native American population of our city brought legal interpretations to the board that they are preferred, that they are-- they can be exempted or should be exempted from the desegregation plan, that they're not a minority and that the education of their children is that they-- the education of their children can best be done by keeping them together in large numbers.

OK, we do have a federally-funded program that allows us to do that in many schools. It's a Title IV program, where we cluster large numbers of Native American students. We have about 52 of our schools that have Title IV programs.

Now, the question is whether we as a board, a local government, because that's what we are, can justify or can do this or have the jurisdiction to do that or whether the court has to rule on? That is the question. So in the meantime, we still have to go ahead and to comply with the court order. And that's what we're attempting to do.

So what Dr. Arveson is saying is that within the 3542, he is coming up with a preferred plan that will say that we're recommending to the court that we be allowed to have a racial balance of 50/50, which would allow large clusters of Native American students to still be maintained in certain schools.

He's also saying that within doing that, that we can then allow some other variances, as an example. Some of the schools that are voluntarily desegregated are asking for plans to include real estate operators and others to help pull people into their communities so their schools can be neighborhood schools and be integrated schools.

Now, that's part of the plan to allow some of the neighborhoods that have demonstrated they are attempting to do that and show some results to do that. The other is, is to have some more volunteer, what we call programmatic clustering and programmatic pairing so that the choices can still be there for those schools that have never been, at this point, involved in the desegregation plan.

And we have a number of those schools in Northeast Minneapolis, in Southeast Minneapolis, not in the southeast alternative area, but the southern part of Minneapolis, which would include Hale, Minnehaha, Cooper, Winona, and those schools, Longfellow. They are now being brought into the desegregation plan. So that basically is Dr. Arveson's preferred plan.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: How many schools right now are out of compliance with the 3542 ratios?

HARRY DAVIS: If I'm correct, there's about 13 schools, and they're divided primarily amongst the north area and the east area. But most of them are right on the fringe, where some programmatic pairing or some voluntary selection of alternatives can bring those schools back into compliance. The four primary schools that are out of compliance are Wilder, Anderson, [? Hale-- ?] no, Hale and Bethune.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Now, you mentioned that neighborhoods have come up with some voluntary plans that they would like to implement. There's one in particular that Northeast Minneapolis community volunteered to the board at a meeting two weeks ago. And I believe you accepted it and are going to bring it to the judge. Can you explain how that program works and what the situation is in that neighborhood?

HARRY DAVIS: Well, actually that's called the Pillsbury plan. And that plan is over a year old. That plan that they-- the members of the PTA of Pillsbury and members of the Pillsbury community at Pillsbury school community came to the school board over a year ago with a plan that they would like to have-- to try voluntarily to see if they can integrate their neighborhood.

It include-- and it included a programmatic pairing with Bethune School. And Bethune School had what they call a talented youth program. And they had a modified contemporary, which included some continuous progress.

They had met with some of the parents in the Bethune area to see if their children would be willing to come to Pillsbury School to participate in their program. They in turn got parents in their neighborhood to take a look at the talented youth program and to transfer their students there. So that was a two-way voluntary busing program.

On top of that, they met with the area superintendent and myself and explained the plan to us, and then called in a number of the real estate dealers that were servicing homes, or selling homes, or renting homes and so forth in that neighborhood.

They sat down with them and asked them if they wouldn't make a special effort to get with many of the companies that were through their affirmative action programs were recruiting minority people and encouraging them to move to Minneapolis. And when doing so, to show homes in that area to those people.

It has worked, not to an alarming extent, but it has worked. They have about four or five families that have moved in the area. They have 16 students that have made the transfer back and forth and that are now being transferred-- transported on a volunteer program.

And they've extended their program from Pillsbury area to Lowry and to Waite Park, which takes in quite a section of Northeast Minneapolis. They demonstrated in over a year's time that some of that was on their better judgment, and they were sincere about it, and they were making an extended effort to work this voluntary program out.

And now, I presented the program to the board and asked them to consider it. Of course, in the consideration, we were talking about a time limit with a backup plan to say that if it doesn't take shape by the end of this period of time, then we would refer back into the original plan.

So it is working up to this point. We hope that it's going to work better with more time. The people that are working are very intense. Some of the minority parents that are there that are working with them their children are going to Pillsbury and other schools. So it seems to be a logical way of attempting to do something on a voluntary basis.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Would you agree then that part of the problem or possibly reaching compliance or a solution is to start to mix up some of the housing plans? That housing may be the root of the issue here. I think Superintendent Arveson has said that on a couple of occasions.

HARRY DAVIS: Well, when people move to a city, they look for a number of things, transportation, and one of the most important things are the schools. What kind of a school is in their neighborhood? What is the reputation of that school? Can it provide the kind of quality education their students-- their children need? So school is a very important part of a city.

Unfortunately even with open housing and with all the laws, and rules, and regulations, we do not have integrated housing patterns. Now, that can come about by two or three different reasons.

Number one, the Federal Housing that's in those communities are not integrated. And so therefore, that's the fault of some of the housing authority, which means the Local Housing Authority and the Federal Housing Authority. The other part is that some of the minorities that live in the city cannot afford to move in some communities.

But if we look at the projections and the increase in population, particularly in Minneapolis, it shows a large increase in the black community of people that are moving in that are at the middle and upper middle income level. So those homes in Waite Park, and Pillsbury, and those areas would not be a problem.

So then the next thing we have to do is in terms of convincing the real estate people that the neighborhood is sincere in attempting to induce or to encourage minority people to move in that community. Now, so that does say the housing-- the people that have the ability to make the changes in housing patterns can do it if they affirmatively do so.

We, two years ago, the Minneapolis School System or the Minneapolis School Board, went to Judge Larson and named-- and asked him to name HUD and HRA in the desegregation plan. He accepted that. So at the present time, they are part of the defense in the overall litigation for the class action suit.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: That goes back to the 1972 suit that was brought against--

HARRY DAVIS: That's correct.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: --the school district.

HARRY DAVIS: Right.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Going back. Now, on Thursday the plan goes to Judge Larson.

HARRY DAVIS: Now, that's been postponed.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: It has been postponed now.

HARRY DAVIS: We will not bring the plan to Judge Larson until the 30th.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Until the 30th of this month?

HARRY DAVIS: Correct.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Well, how many children are bused to school currently to achieve desegregation? And all the busing goes on within the districts that you mentioned. So we don't have Crosstown busing?

HARRY DAVIS: That's correct. For desegregation purposes only-- now, I can be wrong. And when Dr. Arveson gets here, he may have the figures. There's about 12,000.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: About 12,000?

HARRY DAVIS: Right.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Out of the how many total? Is that about one fourth?

HARRY DAVIS: That's about-- well, let's see. Right at the present time, we have just below-- or let's say we have round figures of 50,000 students.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Elementary, and secondary students?

HARRY DAVIS: Right. For other programmatic programs, there's about 22,000 students that are transported for overall. Now, that means that we have a school policy that says, any elementary child that lives beyond 7/10 of a mile can receive a bus ride to school.

Any secondary student that lives beyond two miles can be transported by bus. So there's a large percentage of those children that are bused. So that's included in the 22,000. And then of course, you talk about the other transported students for programmatic-- for voluntary programmatic changes. And that would also be included in the 22,000.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: All right, if by the fall of 1978 Judge Larson says that the district must meet the 3542 guidelines, the strict guidelines, and will not permit the variance to the plan that superintendent Arveson has offered, how many additional students would that mean must be bussed? Will it be a great percentage?

HARRY DAVIS: It will be a fairly good amount of students. I can't give you the exact figures because that includes the closing of schools. That would include the closing of Pillsbury and Lowry, which means that the number of students there, about 1,800 students there in that area.

You're talking about the closing of Howell School in South Minneapolis. Minnehaha, where you're talking about another 1,200 students. So you may be talking about the additional transporting of maybe between 4 and 5,000 students.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: The time is 10:21. My guest this morning is Harry Davis of the Minneapolis School Board. We're hoping against hope that Superintendent Raymond Arveson arrives so he can answer some of your questions.

If you do have a question however for Mr. Davis at this time about school desegregation or other issues facing the Minneapolis Public School District, phone us at 221-1550. That number in the Twin Cities once again is 221-1550.

Mr. Davis, do you have any reservations about Dr. Arveson's plan? There was I think a record setting meeting when it was introduced two weeks ago to the board. A record setting meeting in length. And there was a lot of discussion and controversy, to put it mildly. Did you voice any disapproval then? And do you have any reservations now?

HARRY DAVIS: Well, I think the plan can work. I think that, in my own opinion, I think Judge Larson will either accept the plan or a modification of the plan. Judge Larson has never kept us to any particular program and has been very helpful in modifying our plan and accepting modifications.

My only reservation that I would have is that there are a number of schools in the city of Minneapolis that have not participated in the overall desegregation plan. And some of that allows some flexibility, which in some cases I agree to when I see the intent is there. But I think that there are other schools that should participate in the desegregation plan.

One other option we have is that the fundamental school program has attracted a lot of students. In fact, we established two fundamental schools last year, Barton and Cleveland. Barton in South Minneapolis and Cleveland in North Minneapolis.

And they now have waiting lists of over 200 students. So you're talking about maybe Barton school with 600, another 200 is 800. And you're talking about Cleveland, which is a little larger population.

And we're talking about opening up larger fundamental schools, which will be centralized in those two areas and would attract students from all over the area. This will help tremendously in drawing off of the compulsory transporting system to a voluntary transporting system.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: And when we discuss the fundamental schools, we're talking about schools where basics are stressed to the exemption of some of the other programs that some people view as superfluous or extraneous to reading, writing, and arithmetic? So you're using some of these programs as a lure actually to achieve--

HARRY DAVIS: Yes. That's correct.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: --these goals.

HARRY DAVIS: I think one thing I'd want to make very clear, because although there's a great stereotyping of the different options, all of the options, all of the alternatives require the knowledge of the basics, that the basics are primary. They are top priority in any of the educational programs that we offer.

The fundamental program in comparison with the continuous progress in the Open School stresses more of the contained classroom with grading, with homework, with things of that sort more than the Open School would.

The continuous progress in the Open School talk about hands-on situation after the classroom learning process has been accomplished. So that you're talking about going out, letting children see industry business, people working, looking at it, having an opportunity to do some of that themselves, being creative in art, and music, and drama, including some of those voluntary programs that add to the incentive of a child learning.

You have to create some interest in some children so that they will learn. And that's what the alternative programs are attempting to do. At least, that's what we're attempting to do. And after five years of experimentation in our southeast program, we then extended it district-wide. And in my opinion, it's working very well. But we do stress and our top priority with any educational program are the basic skills.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: All right, we'll get back to programs in a moment. But I see that we have a caller standing by. So I'm going to ask Mr. Davis to put on his headphone, his equipment there so he can hear the question. And welcome you to our program. Good morning. Do you have a question for Mr. Davis?

AUDIENCE: Yes. What is the underlying purpose of desegregation and transportation of children? Is it quality education that is thought? If it is quality education, why cannot-- that must be because some schools have better teachers.

That being the case, why can't these better teachers be transported instead of the children? Also, what justification is there for involving our children in a social issue which for the first time involves children when heretofore we've always protected them from this sort of thing?

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: All right, thank you for the question.

HARRY DAVIS: Well, the first part of your question. The quality education is the main issue or the main priority of the Minneapolis School System. In complying with the court order, which said that we were in violation of the 14th Amendment, that we could not have segregated schools, that we then had to provide quality education and desegregate and integrate our school systems at the same time.

So therefore, it doesn't say that any segregated school system is not of quality, but in trying to comply with the court order, we have to provide quality as well as integration. And so that's what we're attempting to do.

The second part of your question is using the children for a social issue. The children today will be the adults tomorrow. And therefore, they will be able to say that we will provide equal opportunity of educational opportunities, and employment opportunities, and opportunities for all people.

And they will understand that. And they will not allow for violation of a constitutional right of any person. So those are the issues. Yes, the school has taken on the social issues. And it should be the responsibility not only of the school system, but of the housing authority, the mayor, the city council, the governor, the legislature, and the Congress.

But right at the present time, the main focus is on the school system. And we as educators feel that that's not fair, but we are attempting to fulfill our obligations to the court and to the students to provide them quality integrated education.

And we're trying to do that and still maintaining their knowledge of the basic skills so that when they get out of school, that they can adjust in society to raise their family and earn a living as well as anyone else. And that's what we're attempting to do.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: All right, thank you for that question. The time is 29 minutes after 10 o'clock. I see that we have another caller standing by. Good Morning. Do you have a question for Harry Davis of the school board?

AUDIENCE: Yes, I do. I'm reasonably optimistic that the longer-term solution can be through integrated neighborhoods, and particularly after the Land Use Planning Act the legislature passed in 1976.

But if that's to be so, it seems to me that the integration plan has to be couched in longer-term, that is a five-year plan, and it probably has to include adjacent districts, as well as the Minneapolis school district.

And if so, it would seem it would be possible to commit to a 3542 Plan and also achieve reasonable stability for the children that are being placed in the various schools. I would like to hear some comments on those points.

HARRY DAVIS: Well, I believe that, yes, we must-- we must submit and we must get down to the issues of providing a five-year plan. And we are doing that. Yes, the housing patterns and the development of communities are basically essential for the schools to remain integrated.

We, in the future, if the enrollment continue used to decline and the minority enrollment continues to increase, must include other parts of our community, the suburban areas or some adjoining suburban school districts. But right at the present time, you see, we as a school district have no jurisdiction over that. And that has to be determined by a jurisdiction that's higher than ours.

I would like to see us maintain neighborhood schools, and that the neighborhoods themselves provide the children through an integrated effort. But that's going to call for a joint effort of more parts of government than just a school district.

In the city of Minneapolis, we have offered the city council, the mayor, the park board, the library board, and the housing authorities opportunities to meet as a joint legislative body-- a local legislative body to talk about legislative issues, to talk about problems of each government body, and to try to find out ways of relating, and helping, and assisting each other.

We do have now, before the legislative session started in January, we did meet. Those five bodies met and came up with a legislative proposal to the legislature for this session and for the next session.

We did meet with the Minneapolis delegation and the Hennepin County delegation to talk over the plans for implementation of legislature that would help us not only with the economic development and the maintenance of the city itself, but the help and support of the school district, as well as the other parts of government.

AUDIENCE: I think that's excellent. Do we have-- have we requested them the plans of the adjacent school districts as well?

HARRY DAVIS: We made a voluntary effort to Golden Valley, I think you remember that, about a year or so ago, when Golden Valley was having financial problems. We met-- and I was one of the school board members that met with some members of the Golden Valley School Board.

Our superintendent met and talked with theirs. And we thought that we had some very similar programs to Golden Valley. Their middle school and our attempt to move into middle schools were very similar.

And of course, they're actually very adjacent to us. So we're-- they're just like part of the city. But unfortunately the board met and did not approve the approach that we had taken and offered then to go into an arrangement with Robbinsdale in Crystal.

AUDIENCE: Their board or our board?

HARRY DAVIS: Their board. Our board would have approved the venture.

AUDIENCE: Oh, OK.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Thank you very, very much for your question. Let's move on to another caller now. The time is almost-- well, no. It's not. It's 27 minutes before 11:00. I was going to say it's 25 to 11:00. Good morning. Do you have a question for Mr. Davis?

AUDIENCE: Yes. Dr. Davis, I was wondering. The fundamental program that you talked about is primarily limited to the elementary schools right now. Is there any thought been given to providing that option at the junior high and senior high levels?

HARRY DAVIS: Yes, yes. And fact of the matter is that, if we convert the Cleveland school in North Minneapolis to Jordan Junior High School, it would be a K through 8. And so that would gradually increase to move into the 9th, 10th, and 11th, and 12th grades.

AUDIENCE: How about in the South Minneapolis area?

HARRY DAVIS: At Barton school, there is a great demand for it. And we hope that we're going to be able to change it to the same thing to K through 8. And then gradually move it into 9, 10, and 11 as the children graduate and move along.

AUDIENCE: OK, thank you very much.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Thank you for the call. Let's pause to give out our number one more time. Should you have a question for Mr. Davis, and we're still hoping that Dr. Arveson will arrive shortly, the number is 221-1550. And we're discussing school desegregation in Minneapolis and any other issue that you are concerned about now facing the district.

Mr. Davis, we touched on the situation in the Indian community at the Anderson School Complex, where they have several programs. First of all, they are technically out of compliance with the 3542 Plan.

And leaders in that community contend that they want to foster and encourage the Indian traditions and culture in the education process. Could you elaborate a little bit on the situation there and what their proposal is? And are you sympathetic to it?

HARRY DAVIS: Well, they have a very good Title IV program at Anderson School.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Now, this is Title IV of a federal act that we're talking about.

HARRY DAVIS: That's right. Indian Education Act. And that does go along with the maintenance of Indian teachers, advisors, aides, and to continue the Indian Education and culture. We have-- as I said, we have other schools that way too.

But this program at Anderson is an excellent program. And it's showing some very concrete results. Unfortunately the increase in the Indian enrollment has gone beyond 35, and the overall attendance or the percentages of attendance both of more than one minority is up around 54%.

Now, Anderson School is a three school in one. It has the conventional educational program, the continuous progress, and a modified open, which is we call the A, B, and C. Now, those three areas are well-supported by Indian students. They're well-supported by other students that voluntarily come into that area also.

It isn't a full school. The school is not at capacity. And that we can move other students in to bring it into-- closely into compliance. But our concern there is that it will soon, because of the great increase of Native American students, is that it will become-- it will get out of compliance. And we cannot continue to do that.

We have-- one of our plans is to probably allow some of that to spill over into Jefferson, which is not too far away, but it's in another area. It's in the west area.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

HARRY DAVIS: The program.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Excuse me. Maybe we should point out exactly where the Anderson Complex is and what area of the city it's in.

HARRY DAVIS: OK. It's right around-- right off of the downtown area in the area of the Northwestern Hospital, around 26th and 13th or 14th Avenue.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: And Jefferson Junior High is a couple of miles west of Anderson.

HARRY DAVIS: Yes. Jefferson Junior High will be over on East Hennepin, right off of Franklin. Now, in terms of distance, that's not too far. In terms of student population, there are some of the Native American population goes over very close to Jefferson.

And there wouldn't be a lot of transportation involved in terms of shifting some of those students to Jefferson, and of course, shifting some students that are farther east of Anderson, majority students into Anderson to bring it off the balance.

But our concern there and what-- one of the resolutions that we passed in terms of a preferred program for the Native Americans is that we would allow concentrations-- heavier concentrations, that any school that was 15% Native Americans would have a variance of 5% and any student-- in any program was 35% would allow a variance of 10%. So there would be some variance that would allow the kind of Title IV program to continue.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: All right, very good. We should welcome Dr. Raymond Arveson, superintendent of Minneapolis Schools, who has arrived in our studio at this time. And I'm going to give out our number one more time. We had a couple of callers who dropped off during that last exchange. And it's 221-1550.

Dr. Arveson, earlier Mr. Davis eloquently spelled out what's come to be known as the preferred plan that you're offering under the 3542 minority percentage plan that's going to Judge Larson. I understand now on March 30.

RAYMOND ARVESON: Yes, that's true. The court date is set for March 30.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: At which time you'll hear it. Maybe we could have you go back to your preferred plan and run over it a little bit and explain why you think that we need some of these variances.

RAYMOND ARVESON: Well, as you indicated, Director Davis has outlined the preferred plans. I could just indicate the rationale for recommending these kinds of plans. When Minneapolis first began considering the desegregating of their schools and looked at percentages of minority population, they were in the neighborhood of 11 and 12%.

And by the time the first court order was issued, they had risen to 17%. The demographics of the city of Minneapolis have continued to change over the years. Not that we've had such a great increase in the total numbers of minority students in our schools, but we've had a decreasing population overall.

The declining population has taken our student population from the 70,000 level down under $50,000 in a period of about 10 or 11 years. And it's going to continue to decrease. So this year, we really did a study on what our enrollment was going to be like in the coming years because this, we said, was a year of planning and decision-making regarding what our school districts should look like in another five years. So we've been about five-year planning.

And a part of that was to look at the projection of enrollments for minority students, and non-minority students, as well as our total enrollment. And we could see that we were going to move to the point where we had between 35% and 40% minority population within a matter of four or five years.

Guidelines such as had been set in 1972 and then revised in 1975 no longer seemed applicable. And in fact, we have termed them being unrealistic. And we think they are. It would almost be impossible to balance a district with a minority population that was between 35% and 40% at a guideline that said you can't exceed 42%. That would just be unrealistic.

So I think now that it is realistic to ask for a modification of the percentage guidelines, and we've chosen to call this a 50/50% equity plan because we think when a school is balanced with an equal number of minority and majority students, that that really is a balanced plan. It's up to us as a challenge to really integrate that school then. And in terms of what's happened in Minneapolis, we now think that that's sound.

The other part that our board of education, and I think wisely so, had asked us to do, and that was to try to come up with a plan that would have stability over a period of years so that we didn't have to be thinking about changing students from one year to the next.

I think parents want to know where their students are going to be going to school in future years. So we were very anxious to do that. And I think with our preferred plan now we can say that it has more than reasonable stability for a period of four or five years.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: All right, we have a caller standing by. Good Morning. Do you have a question for Superintendent Arveson or Mr. Harry Davis of the school board?

AUDIENCE: Are you addressing me?

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Yes, sir.

AUDIENCE: I do believe that it's difficult enough to get parents to go to PTA meetings and so forth and just question what is going on with their children's education without spending all this money.

I went by Washburn High School and I counted 15 buses waiting for all these students to be transported hither and thither. Is it a matter of-- and I've also observed-- I'm 54 years old. I've also observed even bank clerks who can't add or subtract or anything.

Is the-- is the whole thing a matter of mixing so-called Native-- I'm a Native American of two generations, and-- but Native Americans, and Negroes, and Caucasian skin?

Some people call them Black. I prefer to call them Negroes. But I do not see any percentage in wasting all this-- it costs an enormous amount of money for buses for one thing. I guess they get about four miles to the gallon.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: OK, OK. Let me interrupt you. Let me interrupt you there, sir.

AUDIENCE: I think the--

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Let's see if we can sift out a couple of questions from that comment. First of all, I don't think that anyone would argue that busing students, of course, costs money.

And the district is caught in a situation where enrollment is declining and you actually have less revenue come in-- coming in rather to pay for programs, including busing. What sort of costs are being incurred, Superintendent Arveson?

RAYMOND ARVESON: Well, of course, the kind of costs that are being conferred are now involved, we have calculated. I would guess we're spending in the neighborhood of $2 to $3 million a year on transportation right now that might be involved in transportation for integration purposes.

We've estimated that under our preferred plan that we're going to have some increase in transportation, but not a great deal. Under the plans that we would have to use under a 35 to 42% plan, we would definitely add more busing costs certainly in excess of $1 million more in transportation costs.

HARRY DAVIS: But I think there's another dimension to that too. Our policy, as I stated before, that any child-- elementary school child, primarily those in the lower grades that live beyond 7/10 of a mile, can be transported. So there are a lot of students transported that way.

Any secondary student that lives beyond two miles can be transported. And that would make any difference if they were going to their neighborhood school or if they were going to a school for desegregation or integration. That would be included in the transportation costs.

The other point is that every school district in the United States, rural and urban, transport students. And what we're trying to say, that if we transport a child, the necessary thing is that what they obtain at the end of the line, it's got to be of quality.

RAYMOND ARVESON: Yeah. And of course, one of the things that we've done with transportation is we've provided a broad range of alternatives or options for parents so that they've had an opportunity to select the school and the option that they wanted.

One of the things we ought to mention, and we started with our declining enrollment, is that one of the things this has caused us to do is to close some school buildings. That immediately places a greater geographic distance between some students and their closest school.

And as director Davis has well-said, that means that we're going to have to transport some more students. I think the Minneapolis district perhaps has been more careful in use of its transportation than almost any other district. There are some districts who transport students from a shorter distance home to school than the Minneapolis district does.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Earlier Mr. Davis mentioned that there isn't any crosstown busing that the city is divided up into sub districts, if you will. I'm not sure what the exact terminology is.

RAYMOND ARVESON: Areas.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Areas. All right, we have another caller standing by. Good Morning. Do you have a question for one of our guests?

AUDIENCE: Yes, for Dr. Arveson. We are concerned about the meeting of requirements, but I'm concerned about the quality of education as well. A second grade reader vocabulary test in the city just picking one out of the below average, the average, or above average.

The city average is 23%. Longfellow is 17% above average. [? And ?] I'm talking about. How is it 27% above average? Cooper 19, Hiawatha 32. But at Anderson C School, we have 21% above average. Andersen B, we have 7% above average. And Andersen A, we have 8% above average. What about the quality of education?

RAYMOND ARVESON: Of course, the quality of education is of utmost importance to us. It sounded as if you were reading from the publication that we have, called profiles of performance, where we do list the test results on a school-by-school basis throughout the district.

The most recent one, of course, is the reports, the testing results from the fall of 1977-- from 1976, pardon me. We've just been looking at the results. And they are not published for the fall of 1977.

That would be this current school year, the 77, 78 school year. And we're finding that we have quite a dramatic increase in test scores over and above what we had the previous year. We think we do have quality education.

Now, whenever I say that, I always stop to point out, that doesn't mean that every child is doing as well as every other child in the language arts, or in mathematics, or in any other academic or basic skills type of course.

We're always going to have some students who have different styles of learning, who have learning problems that we have to work with. And so we're going to have different kinds of results. But our overall average in the Minneapolis schools on our test scores rank in the top 10% of major cities in the country. And I think that spells out quality education.

AUDIENCE: A second question then. Also, what about the after school or the before school activities? Our area school had floor hockey, music programs, extended day programs. Things that the kids are able to take advantage of. Now, they would not be able to take advantage of this in the case of busing.

RAYMOND ARVESON: Well, we've always had an activity bus for students who want to participate in activities. Now, I'm not sure that all students avail themselves of that. And some parents, of course, particularly with younger children, where they are on buses, want them to come home right after school. But there are activity programs and there are activity buses that take children home after those events are over.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: OK, thank you for your question. Time is 10 minutes before 4:11 AM. I want to give out our telephone number one more time. It's 221-1550. Our guests are Dr. Raymond Arveson, superintendent of Minneapolis Schools, and director Harry Davis of the school board. It's 221-1550.

Dr. Arveson, is there any evidence that parents dissatisfied over the uncertainty of what will happen in their neighborhood next fall if their children will be going to this school or that are considering moving to private schools? Is there a jump in a private school attendance? And can that be related to this situation?

RAYMOND ARVESON: Certainly. We had-- in the hearings that we've had, we've had some expressions of that kind. They were expressions of people not wanting to have their children bused too great a distance. There were expressions of uncertainty, saying that they wanted to know where their children were going to go to school and how long they were going to be in that school.

And we had some people reporting that if their particular school were changed in grade structure or students were bused from that school, that some of them would be looking to go to non-public schools or to move outside of the district.

I think that's been something that has been heard any time you talk about busing transportation routes and so on in almost any circumstance. So one has to weigh that, and then look at it from what has happened afterwards. And our experience has been that there has not been a really great change on that in previous situations.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Mr. Davis.

HARRY DAVIS: Well, I think I'm sure that there's always an exchange or an option to go to a private school or a parochial school. But if you look at our district, our district is declining in enrollment.

If you look at the suburban areas that immediately touch Minneapolis, most of those school districts are declining faster than we are. So there can't be a great movement to any of the suburban areas coming from Minneapolis or their enrollment would stabilize.

Bloomington is closing schools, Saint Louis Park, Edina, all the way from going around to Golden Valley and Brooklyn Center. So I would say yes, there is probably some movement. I think people make that choice. And there should be a choice for private or public schools.

But overall, I think that we can provide, and are attempting to provide, and will through our performance-- our performance programs or our profiles program continue to keep the people of the public informed of how well we are doing. And we're doing that for a number of reasons, not only to keep the public informed, but to compare from year to year if our programs are successful.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: All right, we have a caller standing by. Good Morning. Do you have a question for one of our guests?

AUDIENCE: Yes, I do. Many times I have heard from people in Minneapolis and the outlying areas that the busing is done to assure some of these kids in the inner city area of getting what they call a quality education.

I have wondered if maybe a lot of the busing money couldn't be spent-- couldn't be poured into the inner city school giving those very teachers who should be there of a very high quality a higher salary? And this would keep them in the inner city school. It would assure the kids of a quality education.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: All right, thank you very much.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. I know.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Could one of you speak to that?

RAYMOND ARVESON: Well, I think this has been an argument that's been advanced under the banner of separate but equal for an awful long time. And we know that that has never been the case.

And we know that we can have quality education in any school. That's true. But we think, in Minneapolis, our philosophy is firmly rooted on the fact that quality-integrated education is what we want and that that is the soundest kind of education.

HARRY DAVIS: It's our responsibility to provide every school in our district with competent, dedicated teachers and staff with materials and facilities equal in every school.

We did in our earlier part of our integration program offer opportunities for balance of teachers with higher educational degrees with length of service and mix them up. We openly offered teachers to move into inner city schools. And that has been done.

In our profile of performance, you will see that the inner city schools are continually improving in terms of their test scores. So there is a degree or there is emphasis put on every school. And of course, the inner city schools as well as any school has to be-- education has to be of quality.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Is that the acid test, if you will? The performance testing results.

HARRY DAVIS: Well, I think that's one of the chief criteria, but it certainly isn't the only thing. I think the evaluation of our own staff members is equally valid, our teachers and our principals indicating the level of performance of their students.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Dr. Arveson, in the brief amount of time that we have left. We've talked about declining enrollments. We've touched on it a number of times. Maybe we probably should have done this early, but explain how the public school system is funding and-- is funded? It is on a per pupil basis. And is that why you're getting less money and the need for budget cutbacks and this sort of thing that we read about?

RAYMOND ARVESON: Yes, sir. Minneapolis-- or Minnesota funds its educational programs on the basis of pupil units, which means the number of pupils. So when the number of pupils declines, that means that there's a lesser amount of foundation payment. If we're getting $1,000 per student and we lose 3,000 students, that's $3 million that we have to subtract from our budget.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: What's the outlook for teacher cutbacks this spring? Are many teachers going to be getting pink slips?

RAYMOND ARVESON: We are going to decline on our projections about 3,000 students. And unless attrition, which is the normal retirement and the number of people who would leave a system, unless that takes care of our loss, we will have to notify some people.

And contrary to what it's been in other years, where we have notified only probationary persons, this year, for the first time, we're going to have to do like some of our suburban neighbors and go into the ranks of tenured teachers primarily at the secondary school level. We're going to have to notify, I suspect, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 to 80 tenured teachers this year at the secondary school level, that they may not have a position.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Will this be the first year that you have had to cut teachers and not been able to reach your cutback goal through attrition?

RAYMOND ARVESON: It's the first year that we will ever have notified tenured teachers in recent history. Last year and the year before, we did notify probationary people, and then ended up re-employing all of them as we had sufficient attrition. We don't know whether that attrition is going to come this year, but as I say, this is the first time that we've ever notified tenured persons.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: Any help from this session of the legislature?

RAYMOND ARVESON: Well, I met-- I was there yesterday as a conference committee was meeting. And they're going to be meeting next week. We're sincerely hoping so. The House version of the bill of the Education Bill this year would give us some badly needed assistance. Not enough, but we would certainly welcome it. And we're certainly hoping that that point of view will prevail as they make their final deliberations and pass the Education Bill.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: What are the differences between the two measures?

RAYMOND ARVESON: Well, one of the prime features-- we've been talking about declining enrollment. One of the prime features in the House Bill is another factor for declining enrollment. It has been a three-year factor. And they, in the House Bill, raised it to three and a half years. That is not in the Senate Bill.

We would like to see that declining enrollment factor carried. We had hoped that it would be not three and a half, but four years averaging for declining enrollment, which would make quite a difference. But it is being carried at three and a half. And we hope that can prevail. There are some other pieces in there that relate to special education and the funding of some other programs.

NEAL SAINT ANTHONY: All right, very good. Thank you very much to our guests, Mr. Harry Davis of the school board and school superintendent Ray Arveson of the Minneapolis school district. Thank you both for being here very, very much.

And to our listeners, thank you for listening this morning. And a brief look at temperatures shows that at 10:00 AM it was 30 Fahrenheit, winds south at 25, gusting to 35. And won't you stay tuned for options in education next on these listener-supported stations of Minnesota Public Radio.