The rate at which public schools in Minnesota diagnose students as having Emotional Behavioral Disorders is about 10 times the national average, and the Minneapolis public schools diagnose over 20% black students as having EBD compared to less than 2% of whites.
It is unfair and wrong to say that disparities in educational outcomes are entirely the fault of the superintendent and the school system. However, that is not my position. I think that the educational achievement gap between blacks and whites is partly a reflection of differences in access to jobs, housing, etc., and that part of the gap is a reflection of what is happening in the classrooms, including differences in exposure to inexperienced teachers, the effects of curriculum tracking through in-classroom and between-classroom ability-grouping, with the curriculum being dumbed down for a large majority of students, and so forth. Superintendent Johnson and the school board members say the schools are not perfect, but that they are doing a pretty good job, and that the district has been making "progress." They have made progress in implementing educational "reforms" since the mid-1980s, but it has been many years since the district has made any progress toward closing the education achievement gap. Carol Johnson has been given credit for a narrowing of the test score gap for high school students (reported in at least one of the district's recent "report cards"), but that result was obtained by comparing test score averages from year to year without dropping the scores from students dropout (or are pushed out) of school. A lot of real progress toward closing the academic achievement gap was being made across the US from the late 1960s to mid-1980s, and a lot of ground has been lost since then. That's what data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (a federal testing program) shows. That's what led me to the conclusion that the ground lost since the mid-to-late 1980s is mostly a reflection of a C change in educational policy that occurred in the wake of a huge disinformation campaign that was launched with the release of the report of a blue-ribbon panel selected by the Reagan-Bush administration, "A Nation at Risk," on April 26, 1983, which warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity" in the public schools. In 1983, test scores and other measures of educational quality indicated that the schools had been closing the education achievement gap, and that was generally the strategic goal of the public school establishment. There was no authoritative evidence of declining performance on the part of high-performing students in the US, who were allegedly being overtaken and surpassed by top students in other countries. A study commissioned by the first Bush administration known as the Sandia Report, which reviewed data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, found that during the 1970s and early 1980s a considerable amount of progress was made toward closing the gap in basic math and reading proficiency between whites and blacks (and other minorities), between poor and middle class students, and between disadvantaged urban and advantaged suburban school systems. The Sandia Report also found that the performance of the nation's talented fifth had generally shown improvement in those areas during the 1970s and early 1980s. Performance levels for the talented fifth of 17 year olds were generally stable, and on average changed very little, but this apparent lack of progress by top students is a reflection of a huge increase in the high school completion rate, i.e., poorer performing students were lowing the average of the top fifth by staying in school. [Source: The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools, 1995, by David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle. Graphs illustrating the closing of the gap in reading and math proficiency for 17 year olds during the 1970s and 1980s are on pages 27 and 28] The Sandia Report was suppressed by the first Bush administration and has largely been ignored since its release soon after Clinton moved into the White House. Aside from posturing over the issue of school-vouchers, and since the late 1980s the Democratic Party has not opposed the Reagan-Bush education "reform" agenda, now being marketed as the "No Child Left Behind" reforms. -Doug Mann, King Field In a message dated 8/10/2003 5:56:44 AM Central Daylight Time, PennBroKeith writes: > << Over 20% of African American students are > diagnosed as having some type of Emotional-Behavioral Disorder and are > assigned to special education programs. > > -Doug Mann, King Field >> > > > Keith says; Offering this type of stat, with the implication that it is an > unreasonably high number relative to Whites, and thus reflects the failure of > the Super, is unfair and wrong. > TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
