Let me say right off the bat that I’m not a big fan of demographics. I realize the information gathered in the process can be useful, but I’m very skeptical of anyone trying to predict the future. None-the-less, I arrived early for a recent school board meeting, called to reveal the results of the district’s most recent demographics study. Being an early bird, I was able to grill the demographic firm’s spokesperson for a while, before everyone else came. I could tell I touched a nerve a bit, when I observed, “The field of demographics is a bit like meteorology, isn’t it?”
“No, no--this field is much more accurate than predicting the weather!” He defensively responded.
Maybe, maybe not. Predictions generated by the Red Plan’s demographics study actually turned out to be a shade less reliable than weather predictions in Duluth. The Red Plan was like a rosy forecast of a long stretch of milder than usual weather, that instead turned into a string of frigid nor’easters.
This meeting seemed important, given the fact that ISD 709--after running up a bill of half a billion dollars on sparkling new facilities--has been steadily bleeding enrollment. Maybe she had a legit reason, but I was disappointed that the Chair of the Board, Judy Seliga-Punyko, was a no-show.
Demographers always bring a hefty tool box of facts and figures to the job. They use scientific methodology and big, complicated-looking formulas, like this one included in the district’s most recent study: Sc,t,x = Sc - 1, t - 1, x + (BP1, x *Rc,x). One divisional formula from the study’s “sophisticated forecast model” was too long and complicated to even print in this format.
In reality, these studies often produce findings that are very obvious or a bit iffy. This passage from the current study, (slightly embellished), is typical: “Future enrollment could be effected by development trends and demographic changes. (Findings from this study also indicate future enrollment in AA could be effected by development trends in liquor outlets and an increase in more citizens old enough to buy booze.) The existing housing inventory is a strength directly tied to employment opportunities. (Our scientific analysis has also determined that the existing homeless inventory is a weakness directly tied to employment opportunities!) If newer residential areas are developed and affordable housing and employment choices remain, households will continue to choose Duluth Public Schools as a good place to raise a family.
(Welcome to Duluth: just move dem der youngins right into the schools, y’all!)

Getting our money’s worth

I don’t want to be too nit-picky, but taxpayers did pay a fair amount for this study. The cost was reported as $42,000, but the company’s proposal exceeded $54,000, with additional reimbursable expenses for travel, etc. Did we really need to spend that kind of dough for someone to tell us the school district’s future enrollment “could be effected” (I think they meant “affected”) by the economy and changes in demographics? Did it really take a major study to determine that our city’s housing will be negatively or positively affected by employment opportunities?
As far as the last line goes, I assume they meant to say people will continue to choose Duluth public schools as a good place to get an education for their kids.
That claim, of course, is very debatable.
Far fewer students have been enrolling in the public school system than the Red Plan demographers claimed. Public schools have in fact seen a precipitous drop in enrollment over the past decade or so. Duluth citizens haven’t been choosing the public schools, so the word “continue” in that sentence would be more appropriately substituted by “begin.”
The best news from this new study is that this loss of enrollment has nearly, theoretically, bottomed out. The study predicts enrollment will soon stabilize “between 8,200 and 8,350 K-12 students.” The Red Plan’s study infamously predicted the district’s enrollment to bottom out “between 8,998 and 9,329 students.”
On the heels of what was clearly an inaccurate claim eight years ago, it certainly takes a leap of faith to believe the latest prognosis. According to this study, enrollment dropped 181 students last year. Adjusting for a slight bump in March, the loss so far this year is 167. March enrollment, at 8426, is only 76 students above the range of this latest low-point prediction.
A nine-student gain is predicted by the study for this year, meaning a jump of 176 in two months. Apparently the district intends to employ its handy, new student-replicating machine.
A glaring analytical deficiency in the current study is that it minimized the effects of a competitive educational marketplace. As Board member Welty pointed out during the meeting, the study completely missed “a big elephant in the room.” Mr. Welty pointed out that Edison Charter school is in motion to open a new high school within a few years, a contingency the demographer running the meeting--Robert Schwarz--was clearly unaware of. No mention of this fact had been included in the study. In answer to follow-up questions about what the district could do to head off what is likely to be another significant loss of enrollment, Mr. Schwarz declared, “It is the opportunities provided by the district to the students that will determine whether they want to stay or go.”
Isn’t that the obvious problem? The public schools haven’t been able to offer what some parents want. Class sizes are still too big and despite a large influx of funding over the past two years, the district still couldn’t even manage to come up with $864,000 to re-implement a seven-period Middle School day in this year’s preliminary budget cycle.

“Which schools were those?”

Another thing I found surprising in my pre-meeting grilling of Mr. Schwarz was that he was startled when I asked him if his findings had verified the district’s predictions about overcrowding. Last year, the district announced the stunning news (considering we had just made a multi-million dollar investment in buildings) that five of the nine elementary schools would be overcrowded within the next few years. “Which schools were those?” Schwarz asked, looking a bit flummoxed as he frowned and paged through his study.
I replied, “It surprises me you don’t know, given the fact that that projection is supposedly what prompted this study.”
Even though Mr. Schwarz was apparently kept in the dark as to the purpose of his study, his company’s demographic projections did not verify any pending overcrowding problem.
Another thing I couldn’t resist asking Mr. Schwarz (who was beginning to wish someone nicer and much less inquisitive--say, Board member Rosie Loeffler Kemp--would show up in the room), is if he had looked at the Red Plan’s numbers.
“Why were those numbers so far off? They used the Cohort Survival Method and the Housing Unit Method. Are you aware of those methods? Are they legitimate in your field? Did you use those Methods?”

The Duluth Pothole Method
 
Apparently these methods are quite commonly used, but Schwarz described them as a little more broad and scattershot. He talked about his company’s “statistical analysis regression models” and “geo-codes.” He said his company (RSP & Associates) didn’t “take pictures from 100,000 feet,” but used much more detailed information, breaking the district down into “nearly 600 planning areas.” He said RSP worked exclusively with school districts and that he himself had driven up and down “70% of Duluth’s streets.” He repeated this claim during the meeting, prompting Member Welty to wryly observe, “I hope your car’s axles are still ok.”
Mr. Schwarz told me his company did not look specifically at the Red Plan study.
“That wasn’t what we were hired for.” He said.
“What is the time span of your study? How far back did you go, how far into the future did you project?”
“Five years back, five years ahead.”
Five years ahead is a little more reasonable that the Red Plan’s fifteen-year fortune telling. It is illuminating, however, to go back a little further. I’ve been interested in (and doubtful of) the Red Plan’s demographics from the beginning. Besides widely missing the mark on student enrollment projections, the study is riddled with seemingly contradictory statements.
“First and foremost,” the Red Planners found, “Duluth (public school) enrollment has declined because there are fewer adults to have children. The current generation, Generation X, is 60% smaller than previous generations. This trend has decreased the number of school-aged children per household…The good news is the end of the tunnel is in sight…When looking at enrollment history…you can see that kindergarten classes are larger than the older elementary grades.”
I’ve never been able to reconcile fewer kids per household with the “good news” of larger kindergarten classes. (Enrollment figures show students weren’t coming from other venues.) Further, if we had reached the end of the tunnel in ‘07, why aren’t we seeing an enrollment bump today? Those kids would be in eighth grade now, and our elementary schools should be crowded. Apparently the murky red tunnel had a loop in it. The newly completed demographic study concluded: “The majority of enrollment decrease will happen at the elementary level.”
   
Don’t these studies come with any guarantees?

In a 9/28/14 article, the Duluth News Tribune broadly grouped all the factors contributing to the loss of ISD 709 student enrollment into one sweeping statement: “The years of student decline can be attributed to many factors, including changing demographics, expanding educational choices and, more recently, the tumult caused by the district’s long-range facilities plan.”
Teasing these factors out show that the influence of each appears to emerge and waver progressively along a linear line. The peak of Duluth’s population was around 107,000, in the early 1960s. This was the baby boomer time, and there were a lot of kids. The loss of more than a fifth of the town’s population between 1970 and 1990 clearly correlates to a drop in public school class size.
A reduction in family size was the next factor to begin eroding public school enrollment, but that, too, is no longer the factor it once was. New families are moving into Duluth, with young children. The non-white demographic of the town is growing, with families of larger, average size than white families. (Records from area hospitals show that births bottomed out in 2002.)
Competition from other educational venues (including surrounding districts) was the next factor that started eroding public school enrollment. This trend began before the Red Plan, but accelerated as soon as Mr. Dixon came to town. The growth of charter schools, private schools, online education and home schooling remains the biggest challenge to Duluth public schools, a challenge exacerbated by the fact that the school district dumped millions of dollars into a very disruptive and ultimately poorly marketable consolidation plan. We no longer live in a world in which you can build whatever you want and people have no choice but to send their kids.
One of the least recognized problems from market conditions driving change--families leaving by choice, rather than enrollment declining due to natural, historical demographic changes--is that the remaining student demographic is altered. The families leaving are often heavily invested in education. They’re leaving because they care. They believe in, and are very supportive of education.
The loss of these families from the public school system is embedded with many intangibles beyond money. Their concern provides healthy accountability in schools. These families also, by-and-large, have resourceful connections, making them effective advocates for the schools in the community. The drain from market competition is leaving the public school system with a more challenging-to-teach student body and fewer resources to do the job.
Compare the Duluth public schools’ March enrollment figure of 8426 students to the 16,483 students in the Rochester, MN, public school system (as of fiscal year ‘13, the most current figures available.) Rochester is not that much larger than Duluth, but its public schools are clearly competitive. There are a lot of affluent people in the hometown of the Mayo Clinic who could afford to send their kids to private schools.
The insidious result of the hustle Johnson Controls played on the Duluth school district is that it left in its wake just the reverse of what it advertised. The school board was sold on the concept that the hustle would solve all financial woes, by making the public education system an irresistible magnet in the marketplace with big shiny buildings. Our current demographer, Mr. Schwarz, exuded confidence that the negative numbers the Red Plan actually created are near an end, but fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…
I’d rather put my money on the risky forecasts of the weather people.