[Mpls] the word from SE

[Michael Atherton]

Kevin Reich wrote:

> Are schools such as Pratt a way for MPS to be
> competitive in an aggressive, success-assuming and
> growth-oriented way?  What part of current MPS
> proposals are road maps to reclaiming/growing "market
> share"?

Boy, this is galling!  I feel as though I'm living
a modern version of the Emperor's New Clothes.
Well I guess that propaganda is very effective here
in Minneapolis.  You just have tell people what they
want to believe and they'll run with it no matter how
many times you try and tell them the truth.

Pratt is not a model for success!  It's a model 
of misrepresentation and public manipulation!  
This years' 3rd Grade Basic Skills Test results
were 63% for Math, 63% for Reading (down from
the previous years' 100% for Math and 94% for 
Reading).  The new scores are lower than the school 
where the District wants to send Pratt students if
they close Pratt (Tuttle: 66% and 77%).  Are
Pratt parents excited about sending their kids
to a "better" school?  No way!  They want a school
that their children can walk to. For whatever
contribution to intellectual development that makes,
which is most likely no more than the mythology of the 
One Room School House.

There's nothing special about Pratt.  They
don't do anything different than any other 
Minneapolis Public School.  If White parents want
the Holy Grail of Public Education they should
do what they've always done and send their children
to predominately White public schools.  Or if you
want to be really revolutionary you can do what
Black parents are doing and send your children
to charter schools, where they really are doing
something innovative.

Using Bill Kahn's argument ("It's the Parents,"
or "It's Poverty") the drop in test scores at 
Pratt is just what you'd expect given an increase
in the proportion of minority students. An augment 
that I don't agree with.  What it says to me is 
that the teaching methods you use for middle
class kids do not necessarily work well for children
of poverty and not that poverty disables children from
learning.

Michael Atherton
Prospect Park