[Mpls] Doug Grow's Mythology

[David Brauer]

On Feb 14, 2005, at 7:33 AM, Michael Atherton wrote:

> a) Nothing has been done about the problem of there
> being a disproportionate number of inexperienced teachers
> in minority schools. A problem that everyone acknowledges
> is a contributing factor to the poor performance of
> minority students.

I agree with this. It would be good to see a district official and/or 
School Board member tell the list what's up with this.

> Keep in mind that the MPS have one of the largest achievement
> gaps in the country and this isn't due solely to the proportion of
> poor minority students.  There are other places in the country
> that are doing better.  In fact, there's one just down the river.
> http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/100_largest/Table16_2.asp
> If you access this webpage, try comparing Cincinnati (which is
> 57% Black) to Minneapolis (which is 31% Black). Not that these are
> definitive statistics, but they do indicate a need to analyze the
> reason for the differences.

Though I think this stat is worth investigating, it is far from 
definitive. Cincinnati may have different standard for flunking out or 
pushing out students. The rules are different all over, and can make 
apples-to-apples stats like this almost meaningless. For example, 
federal No Child Left Behind rules let states set the Acceptable Yearly 
Progress standards to determine a "failing" school. In Michigan, the 
state simply defined the standard downward so no schools failed.

Also, achievement gap and dropout rate aren't the same thing. One thing 
to remember when comparing Mpls to elsewhere is that we have one of the 
nation's largest "income gaps" between whites and non-whites. That is 
not necessarily Mpls's fault - long-time residents earn considerably 
more than average, and our minority community (still quite small be 
urban standards) are mostly newcomers and quite poor. (Steve Brandt is 
an expert on this and can perhaps check/amplify my memory.)

In other words, a big reason Mpls has the achievement gap it does may 
be in basic demographics - thus, city schools have a bigger mountain to 
climb, stat-wise, than some other places.

This is not to suggest Michael is wrong - we shouldn't tolerate failure 
- but it perhaps also proves Steve Cross's larger point that there are 
larger societal pressures that shouldn't be ignored when evaluating 
schools.

David Brauer
Kingfield