Educating Minnesota

A Personal Education
When we moved to Minneapolis in 1975, my wife and I assumed our children would attend public schools. And mostly they did. Our eldest son attended Kenwood Elementary, Anwatin Middle, and, for his freshman year, the Central High magnet—a terrific program. But the district closed Central because of declining enrollment, and the magnet program moved to South High. Though South is now a huge success story, the startup year there was chaotic, so we moved our son to St. Paul Academy. That led us to enroll our next child, a daughter, at SPA as well.

We learned two lessons from that experience. One, instability in a school system is disastrous for families, disrupting the child’s educational (and social) experience and sending parents scurrying to find a more stable program. Second, both of our children, with their public school background, had no problem with the intensely rigorous accelerated curriculum of an elite private institution such as SPA. Our kids were at least as well prepared as those who had attended private schools since kindergarten.

Our next two children attended Kenwood Elementary from kindergarten through sixth grade. My wife and I cried when our youngest graduated. That’s because all of our kids had been well served by Kenwood’s cadre of gifted teachers and active parents, many of whom remain close friends to this day. After Kenwood, our kids attended various private and public schools—none of them offering a perfect experience, frankly. All of our kids were accepted at the colleges of their choice.  —J. P. L.

The School-Year Gap
Current average number of school days

Japan, 243
China, 230
South Korea, 220
Israel, 216
Luxembourg, 216
The Netherlands, 200
Scotland, 200
Thailand, 200
Hong Kong, 195
England, 192
Hungary, 192
Swaziland, 191
Finland, 190
New Zealand, 190
Nigeria, 190
France, 185
United States, 180
Minnesota, 173–177