Here is an hypothesis: Nothing a school district can do directly will
ever narrow the learning gap posited by our community of statisticians (I won't
cite Twain or Byron, but assume they are measuring something real, but just
don't know it). What we are seeing is a culture gap beyond the resources of
school institutions to do much but give it greater visibility. Ergo, the federal
and state response: "Kill the messenger." That is if they reside in a city or
inner ring suburb of the metropoliton area. The suburban and rural folks either
don't have the problem or ran away from it in fear and loathing.
We take a great deal for granted our public schools and we always have.
If we choose to look at our schools as little mass production factories turning
out the latest Model T student or idealistically see them as a stepping off
point to excellence, we assume that it is possible for them to do the job. In
the face of poverty, both in intellectual resources and economic ones, does any
system have a chance of preparing young students to succeed in the world. I
say no--they can do the best they can with what they've got. To give them
something better to work with the other government agencies need to protect and
serve the raw material. We've got to give folks a hand or giving them a school is
sort of giving a modeling contract to a leper.
Here in Minneapolis, and the rest of the state once upon a time, we know
what is important. To thrive, children and families need security, both
physical and economic; unfortunately for some reason, those holding the purse
strings are seeing what they want to see in the statistics rather than what they are
actually measuring, and the rest of us are letting them get away with it for
one reason or another. If you ask me, this is Ronald Reagan's living legacy;
the smiling cowboy made it alright to ignore the things that must not be
ignored.
Bill Kahn
Prospect Park
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