Terrell Brown opined:
>[TB] Brandon has it right on. Minneapolis schools don't
>have a 50% failure rate.
There is presently a graduation rate of only 48% in the
MPS high schools. Would you care to explain how failure to
graduate translates into success?
> Its very clear that students who stay in the same school
> and show up for class are successful. We have a huge
> number of students who change schools, primarily because
> the family moves, many times during their elementary school
> years often multiple times during a single school year.
> That is not the fault of the teachers in a specific school
> of the Minneapolis Public School District.
Nobody has claimed that it is. The failure of MPS to
either keep the child in the same school or ensure that a
smooth transition from one school to the next takes place
ia quite another, and is a shared failure of the system and the parent.
> We also have a number of educational options.
<snip>
Terrell goes on to suggest that parents dissatisfied with
the state of MPS should either remove their children to suburban schools (where he
admits there may not be sufficient
room) or "get off their duff and create charter schools."
For one thing, most parents are already working 40 hour
weeks (and more in some cases) and paying taxes to fund a
system that is not serving their children. When in their copious free time </sarcasm>
are they supposed to do this?
It is not quite as simple as walking down to the Office Max and buying "Charter
Schools for Dummies", as you would be aware if you had examined this option. For
another, the state
had to be dragged kicking and screaming into approving a charter school law and
presently does not approve more than a handful a year. No wonder a lot of parents have
turned to home schooling!
I was also appalled to see the familiar "no money for
rich white kids in private schools" race card being played,
and by a candidate calling for tolerance to boot. If you take
a casual drive around my neighborhood you will see several
private schools, none of which cater to the kind of kids who
attend De La Salle, Breck, or Benilde-St. Margaret's. All of
these schools cater to minority children of poor households, precisely the kind of
kids most at risk in the MPS.
The notion that the public schools are wasting their money on social work and
health programs that should be handled by the county is correct, but the notion that
vouchers
will suck the money from the public schools is absolutely contrary to experience and
fact. As I said in my other post today, vouchers have in fact increased the amount of
money available per capita in the public school systems where they
have been tried, and tend to benefit small private schools that don't cater to the
kind of upscale clientele their opponents would like you to believe they do.
The bottom line is that vouchers would restore accountability in a very direct
way to the public schools by the pitiless but efficient mechanisms of the market. They
would spur the creation and growth of private schools in the
neighborhoods that need them most, and save thousands of children who are presently
being ill-served by the city's
public schools.
Charter schools are not the answer, neither is "open" enrollment nor is greater
integration of the county's social welfare services into the schools. Only putting
real choice in the hands of the parents will solve the problems of our city schools,
and it is high time we tried it - or do we really want to wait until things are as bad
as they were in Cleveland and Milwaukee?
_______________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy
Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more:
http://e-democracy.org/mpls
