In a message dated 8/12/2003 2:51:17 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> This list (hopefully) is not just a venting place for white people. > Without a true discussion of racism and power dynamics in this city > this thread should be done... The 1994 edition of the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines racism as "a belief that some races are by nature superior to others; also: discrimination based on such belief." Slavery and government-sponsored racial segregation were justified on the grounds that people of African descent are by nature inferior to people of European descent, and most of the people who got rich by superexploiting people of African descent happened to be people of European descent. In my opinion, racism (the belief system) is consciously promoted in order to justify race-based discrimination and "colorblind" discrimination that generally gives whites privileged access to education, housing, jobs, and services. And the K-12 education system is the primary vehicle through which racism (the belief system) is perpetuated. And, in my opinion, the net effect of reforms implemented by the Minneapolis School Board since the late 1980s has been to widen the education achievement gap and created a climate in the schools which generate negative stereotypes of African-Americans, Indians, and other students of color. Back in 1997 I testified in favor of a proposed Diversity Rule, a mandate from the state which would have required school districts to collect and break down data on test scores and other measurable education related outcomes (e.g., graduation rates, suspension rates, etc.) by race, income, gender, native language, disability and so forth. The adoption of this rule would have forced the Minneapolis Public Schools to produce a report card that shows whether it is making progress toward 'closing the gap.' Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Carol Johnson testified against the proposed Diversity Rule, arguing that it was a lot of unnecessary red tape, and that the money require to implement such a mandate could be better spent on other things. However, the Minneapolis School District has since come up with a much more complicated accountability system that doesn't tell you whether the district is making progress toward 'closing the gap,' and has no value as a tool to measure the effectiveness of programs and staff in relation to the goal of 'closing the gap.' Self-identified white supremacists, such as the Governors of many states in the Deep South during the 1960s argued that there was no point in trying to "close the gap" because on average Blacks were inherently less intelligent than whites due to a higher concentration of stupid genes and/or a culture of poverty that has a stupefying effect and is more deeply embedded in the culture of blacks than in the culture of whites. The very same line of argument was generally used by opponents of the diversity rule, including members of the Minneapolis School Board, and by most letter-to-the-editor writers who missives on this subject were published by the Star-Tribune. A 1966 report entitled "Equality of Educational Opportunity," also know as the Coleman Report, advanced a "culture of poverty" hypothesis that was subsequently employed as a key argument in the Court room by school districts that did not want to desegregate their students. Based on an analysis of available data about the schools and student populations, sociologist James Coleman and others found that "Schools bring little influence to bear on a child's achievement that is independent of his background and general social context; and that this very lack of an independent effect means that inequalities imposed on children by their home, neighborhood, and peer environment are carried along to become the inequalities with which they confront adult life at the end of school." In other words, the goal of "closing the gap" is unrealistic, so why bother? I think there is a great deal of evidence to show that it is possible to make a great deal of progress toward "closing the gap" despite the effects of inequalities imposed on children by their home, neighborhood, and peer environment. There is evidence that average differences between blacks and whites in test scores, graduation rates, and other education-related outcomes decreased to a considerable degree during the 1970s and mid-to-late 1980s. And a review of data by the Education Trust (Dispelling the Myth Revisited) revealed the existence of high-performing, high-poverty, high minority, public schools that doesn't square with the idea that schools with a high concentration of poor and minority students inevitably get poor results due to the stupefying effects of a culture of poverty and race-based discrimination. -- see evidence that school policies matter http://educationright.tripod.com/id173.htm There has been a huge increase in the educational achievement gap since the mid-to-late 1980s. And there was also a big shift in K-12 educational policy signaled by the release of a report entitled A Nation at Risk (on April 26, 1983), which warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity" produced by liberal educational policies of the 1970s. Just a coincidence? The experience of the 1970s and early 1980s demonstrated that it was possible to made a lot of progress toward closing the gap, so it was necessary for those who opposed those awful "liberal policies" of the 1970s to shift their ground. Those liberal policies of the 1970s presumably eliminated part of the academic achievement gap at the expense of the 'best and the brightest.' That was the supposition made in "A Nation at Risk." No other conclusion was possible without abandoning the idea that the intellectual abilities of people of African descent are by nature inferior to those of white people of European descent. The Minneapolis School District, like big city school districts across the country have implemented a reform agenda promoted by the federal department of education since the early 1980s, and eventually by all of the state departments of education and the leadership of both major parties. The net effect of these reforms has been to widen the academic achievement gap, and in no other major city has the gap increased so much as it has in Minneapolis. I think that a lot of people in Minneapolis, perhaps a sizable majority, want the schools to have an accountability system that is aligned with the goal of closing the gap and want school reforms that will close the gap. That's why the superintendent and school board members say that improving student achievement and closing the gap are their top priorities, but... -Doug Mann, King Field School Board Candidate in 1999, 2001 and 2002. 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
