Doug Mann wrote:
>Kari Tauring stated that the district is doing a good
>job educating most
>students, and that the financial problems faced by
>the schools were due in part to
>underfunded federal mandates, and proposed that the
>district wean its self
>off of federal money.
>I stated that a large majority of students in the
>Minneapolis public schools
>are not getting an adequate education, and that K-12
>education policy promoted
>by the federal and state governments, and carried out
>in Minneapolis, is
>based on the false premise that the academic
>achievement gap was being closed at
>the expense of high achievers during the 1970s and
>early 1980s. The net effect
>of reforms carried out to fight a "rising tide of
>mediocrity has been to widen
>the education achievement gap, in my opinion. Like
>the weapons of mass
>destruction in Iraq, evidence of a rising tide of
>mediocrity in America's Public
>Schools during the 1970s and early 80s is not
>supported by such data as reading
>and math scores on National Assessment of Educational
>Progress exam..
TN
I was at this meeting, and I had a problem with both
of these candidates for very personal reasons.
My 10 year old son was diagnosed with Asberger's
Syndrome while he was in Kindergarten. He initially
attended school in Duluth Mn, at Congdon Park
elementary (a small neighborhood school which recently
recieved the No Child Left Behind blue ribbon award,
whatever that is) and got just about the worst
education a special needs child could get. The School
refused even partially mainstream him despite evidence
of academic performace that often outdid his peers in
Math and Science. He spent all of his school time in a
specialized class for autism.
I later found out that Congdon Park was doing "what it
had to do" to comply with NCLB.
In the 3rd grade, my son moved in with me and began
attending Cityview elementary, which has probably the
best special ed department in the city. Far from
spending an entire day in an Autism room, my son is
fully mainstreamed, often gets the highist scores in
class, tested in to their Gifted and Talented program
and participates in the school band and orchestra. He
loves the school and is getting a much better
education perhaps than most kids in the country.
Cityview located in the McKinley neighborhood, and
becuase of it's location and the makeup of the student
population, most of the activists (only some of whom
are parents) are always trying to change it, and tend
to be obsessed with discipline and improving test
scores. They did adopt a nutty "uniform" policy
becuase of this. This is a very small piece of the
picture when it come to getting a good education.
Kari Tauring generally talked about weening ourselves
off of federal money so that school wouldn't have to
comply with NCLB. The 800 pound gorilla here is that
there is no reward for complying with NCLB, it's
purely punitive. You only loose money if you don't
comply, and even if you do, there are many other ways,
like being in an "unsafe" neighborhood that can cause
the money to be yanked, so why play in to the issue a
all?
As I understand this, (and I'm not sure I did) she
also talked about making sure that money was evenly
spread to the small neighborhood schools and not to
the programs...she wasn't too enthusiastic about the
magnet programs in Minneapolis...something that MPS
actually does extremely well.
I was proabably one of the few people in that room
that Doug Mann could have won over. He demonstrated a
real understanding of educational issues and really
showed me that he saw through NCLB. Unfortunatly, he
then launched in to a liteny of what was wrong with
desegragation, public education and how basically
screwed up the system was...he also addressed foreign
policy issues, not really something you can do from
the school board.
The problem with both of the candidates presentations
is that the job of a school board member is to
advocate for and improve public education. If you're
going to run for the school board you should really
believe in public education, appreciate where it goes
right and try to first understand, and then work with
others to fix the problems. If you have a personal ax
to grind, or you don't really belive in public
education there are other elected offices for these
purposes.
I concluded that if either one of them were elected,
and their policies were put in to place, The great
education my son in getting would be diminished.
Unfortunately, that's pretty much how I feel about the
current school board as well.
Tamir Nolley
Holland
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