Minneapolis Schools and Black Youth

02/10/2007
By Bruce H, Scroggins

I read what was written in the Insight, Spokesmen Recorder and the Minneapolis Star Tribune; I also read several apologies by Don Samuels, my conclusion follows. I have one question, up front: we are talking about YOUTH?, we are angry about, OUR YOUTH, aren’t we?

Recriminations, fault finding, innuendos, facts and false facts, statistics and false statistics, the whole gambit and more, all by men and women, who have been throwing their hodgepodge of explanations, excuses and wild remedies, mixed with a measure of clairvoyance, up against the wall. Some have struck the right cords and some simply have been self serving of their particular pet peeve, some have blindly been offering angry statements, with a hidden agenda behind their outrages statements.

The Blatant truth is MPLS Schools have not kept the faith with, closing the achievement gap, between Black Youth and White Youth first and foremost, in there measuring stick of where they want to take all of the Youth of MPLS, there was at one time a ray of bright light, during the last Superintendents leadership, she set a course and charged every one with a hand in Education, to shut up and put up, above and beyond, their degree’s and there Unions, their likes and dislikes aside, at last she rubbed many the wrong way and they collectively undermined her and staked out her demise.

But be that as it may, back to our youth, Minneapolitans have been given a charge and it has been treated like, a tweak here and a tweak there, is the standard operating procedure and then wait to see the results of their throwing up on the wall, to see what stuck, calling strikes and balls, as if this were a game, it’s like refusing to smell to see if it’s sour, but instead pouring the sour milk into the hot coffee, to see if it’s curdled, what’s happened is everyone has and experiment, every one wants to try their experiment. Others have vested them selves in trashing the system in place, when they sell out to one plan, but won’t find funding to increase their private plan, or make its availability and choice more readily available to the public, in other words grow your own solution, Charter Schools are one. Vouchers are another, both need private funding source, not public money taken from the model that is working, even if not well for all Youth and talk of taking away the public schools money, is punitive and was sold to those who purport to be behind this plan, are in err, private funding, for private schools, I repeat is the answer, not public Schools present funding.

Charter Schools offer a new course, but have there problems, what with keeping qualified teachers and such and keeping there Charters in compliance and more.

But let me say, here’s a agenda, I abhors, its groups who want to tear down the public Schools, they have concluded there no good and they want to undermine every step of the engaged supporters improvements, they attack funding and ignore, those who have vested interest in improving their Schools, like parents and groups concerns are scoffed at, mostly behind closed doors.

The PTA’s, NRP, Head Start, MPLS School Boards, past and present have charted courses, that have brought failure and improvements, the wild cards have been Mayors, Governors and legislatures, they have been supportive and have been the prime one’s pulling rugs out from under, great Ideas and Educators, over the years.

Around the Nation there have been great successes in education, achievements in New York, Harlem, what I’ am trying to say is, the Good ideas, that have been put into practice and have worked, those working plans are not duplicated down to the base boards. Many times I’ve heard of fact Finding groups sent from one group, they examine the working programs of the successful groups, but who’s in the fact finding group, usually Administration, Middle level management, implementation staff, but what is needed is the Students, Parents and Unions, they need to explore how they can implement this new model and work together with Administrations and when this is done and done right, they will truly have to get a working model and make it work, but one or the other holds the other hostage to their hidden agenda, usually the Administration and the Union and it’s ends, when either never gets off the ground, or it fails and both parties end up pointing fingers and the community and parents never know what happened.

Because it laden too heavily from the top down, partnerships have not been honestly strengthen.

Public School lack their strongest strength and that is an engaged Parent, the Schools rely on there Educational abilities far too much, when just one engaged parent can make one good educator ten time better. So focus on the parents presence in the schools, this is an engaged model, proactive model, the re-active, arrestive model of education if fraught with problems and is failing forward.

Teachers have to stop waiting at the Schools for the children to come and go too the homes and meet the parents, stop with privacy talk and start talking to the parents, in front of their children, these teacher are going to spend one of the largest periods of time, investing in your child’s brain, each day of the School year, they have a right to come to the home, like a friend and there not separate and outside, of your child’s life, they are intricately involved in their lives for a considerable length of their developmental life, but this idea is new and it’s not without merit and parents should be allowed to attend there children’s schools at least one day a month during the school year, maybe say, 3 or 4 hours of the day, they can volunteer and be a check on there child’s development, not just teacher parents night, or lurching from crisis to crisis, or come dumb founded about what a parent didn’t know.

If we can set aside the job for the National Guard and the Reserves, we can set aside time for parent to see to their children, on a regular basis and it should be mandatory attendance, with pay, just like their children are required to attend.

Now these ideas again are new and can be incorporated into our society, parents not ask to be involved, they are required to be involved, required, like by law required.

At any rate we are talking about our Youth, let me repeat that OUR YOUTH, all of them, every color, every beating heart, is our responsibility, not just and angry sound bite, from one warrior in the wilderness.