I am convinced that it is possible for the Minneapolis Public Schools to
eliminate most of the academic achievement gap between black and white
students, and between poor and 'middle class' white students. And it can be
done without lowering the bar for high achievers. It's been done before.
A report commissioned by the first Bush administration and completed in
1990, the Sandia report, concluded that America's public schools had made
tremendous progress toward closing the academic achievement gap without
lowering the bar for high achievers during the 1970s and 80s. The Sandia
Report was also suppressed by administration of George Herbert Walker
leave-no-child-behind Bush and quietly released by the Clinton administration
in the early 1990s. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress
shows that the performance of high achieving students steadily improved while
the test score gap in reading and math steadily decreased during between 1971
and the late 1980s. The gap in reading scores between white and black 13
year-olds, for example, declined by about 50% during that period. (sources:
Berliner and Biddle, 1995, The Manufactured Crisis, pages 24-27; and "Long
Division," an article which appeared in the September / October 2001 issue of
'The New Crisis', the NAACP's magazine)
Since the late 1980s, most of the progress toward 'closing the gap' achieved
in the previous period has been wiped out. This change from closing the gap
to opening the gap can be explained as the result of a major shift in
educational policy, and not as the result of an unrelated change in student
behavior, black culture, parent involvement, summer vacations, etc.
The truth is that the goal of 'closing the gap' was abandoned in the wake of
a propaganda offensive launched in 1983 with a report entitled "A Nation at
Risk." A blue ribbon panel of K-12 education experts selected by the Reagan
administration issued that report, which concluded that America's public
schools had gone too far with efforts to 'close the gap,' and claimed that
the educational needs of high achievers were being neglected.
The post 1983 shift in educational policy included the promotion of
'ability-grouping' in elementary schools. The public schools in Minneapolis
and other big cities began to track most students into nonacademic curriculum
programs.
The foregoing discussion of educational policy is relevant to the Minneapolis
Issues list because I plan to run for a seat on the Minneapolis School board
this year. My platform: close the academic achievement gap by eliminating
nonacademic curriculum tracks, desegregating inexperienced teachers,
desegregating students by redrawing school attendance boundaries, and
aligning the criteria for evaluating the district programs and staff with the
goal of 'closing the gap.'
I also urge the Minneapolis Branch of the NAACP go back to Court to recover
its right to sue the state of Minnesota and local school districts for
failing to provide 'an adequate education' to all on an equal basis. It is
clear that the settlement did not resolve the problem and did not even create
a framework for solving the problem.
As part of the settlement, the NAACP lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice,
which means that the NAACP may not sue any party to the settlement through
the state court system. However, the dismissal with prejudice can be
converted to a dismissal without prejudice, which would restore the NAACP's
right to sue, if the NAACP goes to court with evidence that the state has
violated the agreement. Praise Bill Green for calling attention to a rather
obvious, and serious violation of the settlement agreement in an interview
with our own Britt Robson (recently published in 'City Pages') The State
agreed to appropriate money for desegregation in the Twin Cities metro area,
but the state legislature cut that money from the budget adopted during the
2001 session.
-Doug Mann
Kingfield
Doug Mann for School Board <http://educationright.tripod.com>
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