Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is leaning on her experience as a former school board official to buoy her Senate bid in a contested primary, but her record and the district’s turmoil under her tenure paint a different picture.
A review of public records and archived news reports spanning back more than two decades to when she was first elected to the Minneapolis School Board in 2005 reveal Flanagan voted for budget cuts, teacher layoffs, and school closures in response to deficits and shrinking enrollments while also supporting costly administrative expenses, such as a new $37 million district headquarters.
She missed roughly 15% of votes during her time on the board that spanned from 2005 through early 2009 and again briefly in 2010, a period in which Minneapolis Public Schools also struggled to meet health and academic goals, manage administrative scandals, and face allegations it was “failing” poor and minority students.
Flanagan, a progressive supported by the likes of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), is facing Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), a more centrist primary opponent, to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) in this year’s midterm elections. Democrats are favored to keep the seat, but Republicans are increasingly bullish they can make inroads in the Democratic stronghold after a fraud scandal that has rocked the state.
Flanagan has used Senate fundraising pitches to highlight her achievement as the youngest school board member to serve at 25 years old and how she used the position as a launch pad to eventually become Minnesota’s second-ranked official.
“I fought every day to make sure every kid got the education they deserved,” Flanagan said in a social media post last year. “We need leaders who will fight for all of us in DC, not puppets for the wealthy and well-connected.”
In a statement, the Flanagan campaign reiterated the age achievement and criticized Craig’s former role as an executive of a medical technology firm prior to first being elected to Congress in 2018 and her influence over how the company spent its PAC money.
“When Peggy Flanagan was making history serving children as the youngest member of Minneapolis’ school board — even before becoming a mom herself — Angie Craig was leading a corporate PAC that she bragged gave more money to Republicans than Democrats, including Mitch McConnell,” spokeswoman Alexandra Fetissoff said.
The Craig campaign did not provide comment.
The Senate GOP’s campaign arm tied Flanagan’s school board record to the ongoing fraud scandal facing the Walz-Flanagan administration to critique her broader political career.
“Over $9 billion in fraud occurred under Flanagan’s watch as lieutenant governor,” NRSC Regional Press Secretary Nick Puglia said. “Her failed political career is marked by scandal, incompetence, and pushing left-wing priorities that hurt Minnesota kids. Minnesotans deserve better in the U.S. Senate.”
Teacher layoffs, a superintendent buyout, and a new HQ
Flanagan’s tenure occurred before, during, and after the Great Recession, the longest economic downturn since World War II that lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. Like public school districts across the country, Minneapolis was not immune to tough budget choices.
But what Flanagan’s campaign promotions about her board experience omit are the votes to slash budgets, lay off teachers, and close entire schools as the district struggled with declining enrollments, as well as costly scandals and a new headquarters that ballooned in cost to more than $40 million.
In the summer of 2005, the board voted unanimously for a reduced budget for the upcoming school year and 546 fewer teachers due to lower enrollment, class size increases, and other funding changes. The Minnesota Star Tribune would later report the district was ultimately able to rehire two-thirds “of the more-experienced tenured teachers,” who comprised a majority of the layoffs.
At the budget meeting, local officials said more state and federal funds were needed. Flanagan “asked the staff and public to contact the governor and legislators, calling on them to properly fund our schools,” according to the meeting’s minutes.
In early 2006, the board agreed to pay $179,500 and the remainder of a leased Cadillac as part of a settlement agreement for then-Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Thandiwe Peebles to terminate her contract early over allegations of misusing district resources and staff for personal use, according to public records and the Star Tribune. The decision cut short an independent investigation.
In June that year, Flanagan and two others on the seven-member board missed a vote on adopting a budget for the ’06-’07 school year that included layoffs, this time for 307 teachers. The following month, in July 2006, the board in a vote supported by Flanagan, laid off another 12 tenured teachers.
In 2007, Flanagan voted with the board to close six schools and for three additional layoffs, contributing to flared tensions with teachers by the end of the year and threats to strike over policies and larger class sizes, according to the Star Tribune.
After the board brought Flanagan back in 2010 to serve the remainder of a former member’s term, she voted with the board to construct a new $37 million school district headquarters, a cost that would later jump to nearly $42 million, according to the Star Tribune. The board insisted that consolidating district personnel to a central location would provide long-term savings and promote environmental sustainability.
The next month, in November 2010, Flanagan voted with the board to shutter its latest school.
That same year, a state auditor determined Minneapolis and another school district paid millions of dollars in combined contracts to an alternative learning center whose leader improperly diverted $3 million from 2003 to 2007 to enrich himself through a separate firm he controlled, according to the Star Tribune.
Several reports from the paper also showed that the district missed state and federal academic targets during Flanagan’s time on the board and received a D+ rating for its elementary school lunches from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
State math and reading tests in 2008 showed the district had deep disparities between white and nonwhite areas, according to the Associated Press. Then-School Board Chairman Tom Madden in 2009 — between Flanagan’s board terms — declared the district was “by and large failing nonwhite kids.” A study of the ’07-’08 school year from New Teacher Project, published in 2009 and reported by the Star Tribune, found Minneapolis faced four times more staff instability from teacher layoffs than New York and 16 times more than Chicago.
Flanagan missed 20 board meetings throughout her tenure, or about 15%, including the absent budget vote in 2006, according to attendance records.
GOP BETS MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL WILL BUOY LONG-SHOT BID TO FLIP SENATE SEAT
As lieutenant governor, she’s faced criticism for failing to hold state-mandated quarterly meetings on lawmaker safety before the politically motivated shootings of two Democratic state lawmakers last year, one of which killed former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband. In her role, Flanagan chairs a panel tasked with evaluating and developing security proposals for Minnesota’s Capitol complex.
“We have met, we have made recommendations,” Flanagan said last year. “We have continued to put out reports, and all I can say is that going forward, we will make sure that we’re meeting with greater frequency.”