[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I must take issue with statements by Natalie Johnson Lee, Ron Edwards and
others who are widely recognized as leaders of the black community in their
response to latest controversy over Thandiwe Peebles performance as school
superintendent.
The district's best schools are heavily concentrated in the district's
wealthiest and nearly all-white neighborhoods. For a majority of nonwhite and
poor
white students, the public school options have been narrowed to low and
middle-tier public schools, dead-end curriculum tracks in some of the better
public
schools, and charter schools.
Pamela Taylor says:
I don't believe the comment about where the
best school's are located came as any surprise. With that in mind, how many
White parents from those neighborhoods have ever been seen protesting at the
school board about lack of anything? Minorities and poor white students have.
My point is, WHY do we allow the wealthy neighborhoods to get the best of
everything? Why has the MPS allowed that?
Doug Mann says:
Complaints about Peebles that are making the school board sit up and take
notice appear to be coming from white parents in the Southeast quadrant of the
city. That's where many of the city's middle and lower tier schools are
located.
That's where a majority of white students are not thriving academically in
the public schools.
"Look, my kids are in the Southwest area schools and Dr. Peebles has
basically left these schools alone. So if parents like me were only looking out
for
our own kids, we would too shut-up and color. Why risk bringing on a round of
retribution? But as a citizen, I want the whole district to succeed..."
Pamela Taylor says:
Take the above statement made by Lynnell Mickelsen
and mentally insert wealthy school parents. Shutting up and coloring is
exactly what those parents were doing when minority parents were saying what
Lynnell is now. Did anybody see the White parents protesting the School Board
about any problems in the minority community? Did they offer to give up any of
their children's amenities?
Doug Mann says:
I doubt that the school board and Peebles want to rile up the school
community in SW Minneapolis. There is a lot of support for the status quo
there, which is why the issue of closing the education access gap is not being
addressed
by the School Board, Thandiwe Peebles and her supporters, and the Star-Tribune.
Pamela Taylor says:
So, it appears that you are saying that when poor Whites are having issues, the
School Board must do something right away, which is to possibly consider firing
Ms. Peebles. So when did they become unimpressed with her skills and
abilities, when that is the basis on which they hired her? Who are they trying
to placate now? You say that Peebles doesn't want to rile up that community,
but by concentrating on schools other than those in that SW community, she has.
Ms. Peebles doesn't have the problem; it is the School Board who appears to be
in a quandry. Is it possible that Ms. Peebles was getting to the worst schools
first, and perhaps the extreme SW corner of Ward 13 that appears discontent was
next on her list? Minorities have waited for so long without seeing the
wealthy White parents jumping up and down on their behalf to make things in the
schools fair and equal, that I am failing to see the problem here.
Doug Mann says:
On the other hand, there is some support in SW
Minneapolis for the kind of
school reform agenda that I advocate. In the general election of 2002 the
highest level of support for my candidacy was in ward 13 (the extreme SW corner
of
Minneapolis).
Pamela Taylor says:
Until Whites and Minorities are joined together for the greater educational
good of ALL CHILDREN, not too much is ever going to change. And, until the
citizens of Minneapolis are joined together in an honest effort to reform the
practices of the School Board (i.e. vote some out, and change the
mindset/policies, etc.), it will not matter who is superintendent, that person
will be doomed before they start, and we will forever be paying out huge
severance checks as they leave, with only a pittance left in the bank for
education.
Yes, I believe their eyes are on the prize. It is the opposition whose eyes
have remained closed because they do not want to see what is coming at them.
Pamela Taylor (Lyndale)
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