Letters to the editor for Feb. 27, 2009

The $9.2 million for expanding the Cedar Lake bike trail through downtown Minneapolis to the West River Road will be tax dollars well spent.

This is not simply a nice amenity to an existing trail, but a viable and important expansion of our bikeway system to accommodate the expanding number of commuter and recreational riders. This extension will prove to be particularly useful in the downtown area, where traffic and parking is concentrated.

The increase in bicycle riders was quite noticeable when gas was more than $3 a gallon not so long ago. The cleaner air, and reduced congestion due to increased bicycle use, will benefit us all. This is the kind of project that will pay for itself, many times over.

BRIAN MALLON, MINNEAPOLIS

The Star Tribune's conversion to advocate for conservative tax policy is nearly complete ("Consider a tax swap to spur business," Feb. 24). Every suggestion made concerning the tax swap will steer our state tax structure to a more regressive model.

Yes, many businesses are hurting, but they can easily avoid paying corporate tax in years of recession by reinvesting in their business. Even more unbelievable is that all of the taxes proposed will have the effect of reducing the earning power of middle-class Minnesotans. This is precisely the core problem of this recession. The pressures reducing effective income -- such as rising health-care costs, loss of retirement savings and the crushing expense of higher education -- have already guaranteed a long recession.

Do you think you can simply transfer tax liability from the corporate sector to the masses and we can fire right out of this mess? The Gov. Tim Pawlenty approach of cutting taxes on wealthy "job creators" indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire economic collapse. The consumption, borrowing and saving habits of the middle class will determine when this recession can be reversed. Engineering a more regressive tax system will have the opposite effect. Job creators are dependent on the financial health of the middle class. Our economy, having exported most of its manufacturing, depends on consumer spending. Unless government can find a way to ease health-care costs, make education affordable and address a looming retirement crisis, the job creators are swimming upstream.

As parents of fourth- and seventh-grade Minneapolis students who attend the FAIR school, we are saddened by Superintendent Bill Green's proposal to remove Minneapolis from a decadeslong collaboration with the West Metro Education Program (WMEP). During our eight years with children in the Minneapolis and then WMEP schools, we have seen the districts do the best they could in an environment marked by a growing disinvestment in public education. Funding for public education in Minneapolis is woefully inadequate. We've met fantastic teachers and administrators, but even these committed professionals eventually realize that high-quality public education -- or for that matter, mediocre public education -- cannot be run on the cheap.

Green points to the high cost of Minneapolis' participation in WMEP. It's a valid concern; this is an expensive venture. But to claim WMEP has failed to meet its goals is patently false, and Green knows it. A simple comparison of test scores offers a telling insight. Reading proficiency? Minneapolis overall scored 49 percent, compared with WMEP at 77 percent. Math proficiency? Minneapolis scored 46 percent, compared with WMEP at 67 percent.

But schools are more than test scores, and our experience at FAIR has been nothing short of fantastic. Our children have benefited from attending school with a student body and educational staff that are racially, economically and culturally diverse.

Data shows us that WMEP has achieved significantly more success in addressing the achievement gap than has the Minneapolis school district. But it is costly. We think it would be more honest if Green simply acknowledged what the data shows: Quality costs, and Minneapolis has decided it cannot afford excellent schools.

WMEP may be expensive, but it is far from a failure.

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In suggesting that Minneapolis withdraw from the West Metro Education Program schools, Superintendent Green argues that neither the Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Resource school nor Interdistrict Downtown School have met integration target rates (Star Tribune, Feb. 24). He argues that there are no FAIR or Early Language Learning students enrolled.

What he fails to reveal is that neither school is allowed involvement in who goes to the schools. Neither play any part in determining which students are sent from the member districts to learn in the schools. Instead, Green and the other superintendents allot students to the schools through a set of rules they have determined.

FAIR and IDDS have done exceptional work providing unparalleled learning opportunities for the students who the member districts send there. There is no doubt that they would also excel at teaching any other students that were sent there. If Green thinks other students should have benefited from FAIR and IDDS, he should have done the responsible thing and made the changes that would have brought them there. Instead he proposes taking away another public school option from families -- one that is a proven success!

ERIKA CHARLESWORTH-SEILER,