[Mpls] Racism & Minneapolis Public Schools

[Socialist2001 at cs.com]

Last evening I was a guest on Voices of the African American community on 
KMOJ, hosted by Spike Moss. And I have been invited back to participate in an 
on-air discussion of educational issues within the next few weeks.

I believe the Minneapolis school district can rapidly close most of the 
academic achievement gap between whites and African Americans by making some 
changes in how education is done in the schools.  Example: create positions for 
inexperienced teachers that are evenly distributed throughout the schools.  In 
some areas the learning curve for teachers is pretty steep during their first 
five years as a regular classroom teacher, such as behavior and classroom 
management. Students in many of the high-poverty, high-minority schools have been 
overexposed to new teachers, and most of the new teachers are not getting 
adequate supervision, training, and support.  

Another reason the district is failing to adequately educate African American 
students is the promotion of "colorblind" discrimination in the form of 
'ability-grouping' and part-to-full time curriculum tracking as early as 
Kindergarten.  Students within an early elementary grade-level are divided into 
different classrooms according to perceived ability for reading instruction, and are 
exposed to quite different types of instruction. The "high-ability" students 
learn higher order reading skills than the "low-ability" students. The rest of 
the curriculum in the "mixed ability" classroom is hard for students to keep up 
with if they don't get the higher order reading instruction.  The designated 
low-ability students usually fail to thrive academically, develop low 
self-esteem, and in many cases are diagnosed as having an Emotional / Behavioral 
disorder.  Just a few years ago it was reported that about 25% of African American 
students fall a couple years behind grade level expectations and are diagnosed 
as having Emotional-Behavioral disorders.

I believe that outcomes for a majority of MPS students would improve 
dramatically if the general student population was learning high order reading skills, 
not just a minority of students designated as gifted and talented. And of 
course, the teachers, and especially the least experienced teachers need adequate 
and appropriate supervision, training and support.

The problem isn't that white teachers want to undereducate black students, in 
my opinion. However, teachers do discriminate based on their perception of a 
students academic ability, and lower-income and nonwhite students are seen as 
"low-ability," and their failure to thrive academically is attributed to 
student background characteristics and not the educational setting. That's an 
environment which generates negative stereotypes of African American students and 
positive stereotypes of white students.

I don't agree that we will close the gap by going back to racially 
segregating the schools. When racial segregation in the schools was legally enforced 
(1890s to 1960s) some black students had access to high quality educational 
programs, but overall whites, and especially middle to upper class whites had much 
better access to high quality schools and academic programs. The process of 
racially segregating the school system that began in the 1890s reduced pressure 
on the political establishment to ensure that a high quality education is 
accessible to all on an equal basis.  

We saw substantial progress toward closing the test score gap when the school 
system was moving away from color conscious and "colorblind" separation of 
students during the 1970s and early 1980s. That was a reflection of the pressure 
of a mobilized and militant civil rights movement, and the access to a 
quality public education was a high priority demand.

What the Minneapolis school board supports is not a "new civil rights 
movement" but an anti-Civil Rights agenda.  

-Doug Mann, King Field 
Mann for School Board 
www.educationright.com
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