[Mpls] Doug Grow's Mythology

[Michael Atherton]

I often wonder how the public can face the failures
of the public schools (a 47% dropout rate in the MPS
is pretty shocking) without vocal shock and dismay,
but an understanding of psychology has helped.  
People or groups of people can often ignore blatantly obvious
discordant perceptions of reality with simple 
rationalizations and adherence to mythical ideals.

A common one in America is anyone can escape poverty
though hard work and perseverance (the Horatio Alger
myth).  While we can always come up with anecdotal
stories of the poor immigrants who became a multi-millionaire,
to understand the true nature of social mobility you have 
to look at measures of aggregate success not special cases.  

It follows that you cannot characterize the effectiveness of
the public schools by emphasizing individual successes. To
do so belies the ultimate failure of the MPS.  No matter
how motivating examples of individual successes or the
aggregate achievement of White middle-class students, the 
MPS must be judged on the success rates of all of its
students.  A 47% dropout rate should be just as shocking 
and horrendous to us as the racial lynching of three individual
Black men and we should not be able to rationalize this
statistic away by claiming that "it's the parents" or promoting
Horatio Alger mythology as Mr. Grow does in his column
this week:

http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5236897.html

Educational success for minorities will not be achievable
until both White and Black citizens acknowledge that 
it is the responsibility of the MPS to insure that all
the children of Minneapolis are educated.  I believe that
White parents should honor their progressive liberal
values by channeling their efforts to save their neighborhood
schools into efforts to reform the whole system so that all 
children in Minneapolis can be successful.

Michael Atherton
Prospect Park