A second feature of recent coverage has to do with MPS enrollment, which declined by 17% from 2017 to 2022. MPS and media outlets pointed to several potential causes. All parties, however, have curiously played down the effects of charter schools and “open enrollment,” which account for roughly one-fifth of MPS’ lost student population over the last half decade and, more importantly, have siphoned 19,000 students, over 35% of the city’s entire student body, out of the city’s public schools. Why the relative silence on this matter?
Beyond this, other potential causes of recent disenrollment have not all had the same degree of impact. Though definitive data is unavailable, the biggest culprit is likely implementation of MPS’ Comprehensive District Design (CDD). Ostensibly undertaken in the name of racial equity, the CDD was, in truth, a boondoggle, uprooting thousands of students and hundreds of educators and shuffling them to new schools throughout the city — all in the midst of the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic.
More alarmingly, the School Board openly acknowledged the plan was unpopular among Minneapolis families prior to its enactment, admitting that the district anticipated losing up to one-third of its entire student body as a result of the CDD. While that worst-case scenario has yet to materialize, more than 4,200 students left MPS in the two years since the CDD’s enactment — nearly 13% of the entire student body and an increase in disenrollment of nearly 250% from the two years before implementation.
