Bruce F. Vento: “I support charter schools. In fact, I call my colleagues' attention to the fact that the City Academy, the first charter…”

“I support charter schools. In fact, I call my colleagues' attention to the fact that the City Academy, the first charter school in the Nation, existed and was developed in my neighborhood community on the east side of Saint Paul where I hail from. We opened our doors there in 1992 to 35 students. The State of Minnesota, of course, has been a center for this under Governor Rudy Perpich, governor at that time. He instituted a Statewide program that, in fact, capitalized on this. But this legislation, which I voted against when it was considered in the House initially, had some fundamental flaws, all of which I think have not been cured. This is, of course, a case I think of symbolism over substance. This measure authorizes the use of funds for planning, design, and initial implementation of the charter schools. In other words, the funds allocated in this legislation are intended to help with startup of the schools. This ignores, of course, the needs of districts such as mine and States such as mine which already have strong charter school systems in place.”