It doesn’t matter what color skin you happen to have the deck is stacked against a ‘yes’ to this question. It is even more so if you are black. Stats don’t lie! Last year 69% of black students failed state reading tests, and 78% failed the state math tests. That is completely unacceptable. Whose fault is it? The teachers? The students? The parents? The administration? The system? The academic plan? The answer is everyone and everything is a complete failure. It doesn’t matter what little successes that a board member might be able to point out, it still is a colossal failure worthy of a class action lawsuit by all parents that have had a student in a Minneapolis School over the last ten years. There are talks to create an agreement between members of the black community and the Minneapolis School system to affect some change in policy to address the poor results by black students. This is all wrong-headed. What really needs to occur is a wholesale change in the way MPS does business. Very simply put the following needs to occur.
Longer school days
Longer school week
Longer school year
Mentoring and Tutoring services for struggling students
Discipline policy that focuses on the root problems of behavior issues and is a signed agreement between parent, student, and teacher.
Get rid of specialized programs that are target specific in nature and create an all-inclusive approach (ie get rid of programs such as Welcoming Schools).
Realize that these suggestions alone are not an end all be all solution, but it’s a very good start. All residents of Minneapolis should require this to be part of the referendum agreement before the voters this November.
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