[Mpls] School Choice: Minneapolis

[Michael Atherton]

David Weinlick wrote:
 
> I find it interesting that your earlier was that Hale was very 
> different than the rest of the district in terms of racial 
> diversity.  However, your comment about test scores seems odd 
> in that context, as 59% in math is close to the district average.  
> In fact, I'm not sure what school choices one would make if you 
> require high test scores and a low percentage of white students.  
> If everyone looked for schools using that standard, we would have 
> an exodus from most of the school district into just a few schools.  
> Not very many Minneapolis schools do have significantly higher scores 
> in math.

True enough.  One of the reasons we decided against the MPS was 
the discovery that our upper middle class White neighbors had
little interest in quality mathematics programs.  Our concept 
of quality education is very different from theirs and probably
yours.

As to the difficulty of finding a school where there are both 
high math scores and high percentages of minorities, it's due to
the District's decision of not providing a school for gifted children.
If you assume, as I do, that intelligence has similar distributions
across races, then a District school for gifted children would have
approximately the same proportions of minorities as the District as
a whole, i.e., high test scores and a low percentage of White
students, but the District has decided against establishing such
a school, preferring instead to deliver gifted services via pull-outs.  
In my eyes, an absurdly stupid decision given the negative bias
against academic achievement among Black teenagers.  

As a side note, I like the idea of an International Baccalaureate 
Primary Years Program at Whittier.  However, it will only be
successful if they provide strong after school tutorial support
(time-on-task is critical) and a strong parent involvement program.
Even still, we are not willing to offer up our children as sacrifice 
in an experiment to the god of diversity as many liberal parents
seem to be willing to do.

Dorie Gallagher wrote:

> ...parents need to step up to the plate with support for
> education...I believe a lot of the dropout is due to family and 
> environment more than schooling. 

This might be believable if the MPS didn't practice social
promotion (the practice of advancing students to the next grade
regardless of whether they've mastered necessary skills).  This
policy guarantees a high dropout rate.  As I said, parents may be
responsible for a student's success, but the schools are responsible
for their failure.

Michael Atherton
Prospect Park