Understanding the Wretched Quality of Education at the Minneapolis Public Schools for Which the Multi-Culpable are Culpable: >>>>> Part One: Skill Sets

As you scroll on down this blog you will read six enormously important articles to enhance your understanding of the societal environment in which the atrocious academic performance of students in the Minneapolis Public Schools abides.  I have identified the numerous entities in our society who are most responsible for this ethically abominable level of K-12 education.

 

In curricular matters, an excellent education involves two components:  skill and knowledge.

 

Part One of this two-part succession of articles focuses on the skill component.

 

Perpend:

 

In a district that has both an Office of Black Male Achievement and a Department of Indian Education,

these are the skill levels of African American and Native American students, with the given figures indicating percentage of students demonstrating grade level proficiency :

 

Math

                                            

African American 

 

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     20.8%     22.0%    19.1%

 

Female                 21.2%      20.7%    20.5%

 

 

Native American/ American Indian

 

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     19.9%     16.5%    16.0%

 

Female                 25.0%      21.9%    21.3%x

 

 

Reading

 

African American 

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     18.8%     18.5%    18.2%

 

Female                 24.0%      24.5%    23.4%

 

 

Native American/ American Indian

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     18.3%     13.9%    15.3%

 

Female                 23.6%      26.1%    25.9%  

 

 

Now consider the similarly lousy performance of students in other ethnic categories and the performance of Minneapolis Public Schools students as a whole for the academic years ending in 2014, 2015, and 2016:

 

Math

 

African (Somali, Ethiopian,

Liberian---  late 20th/early 21st

century immigrant populations)

 

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     24.2%     25.0%    23.6%

 

Female                 24.1%      25.9%    21.5%

               

 

Hispanic

 

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     32.1%     33.5%    32.1%

 

Female                 29.4%      30.3%    30.4%

 

 

Asian

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     44.1%     47.4%    45.4%

 

Female                 51.3%      53.4%    54.1%

 

 

All Students

 

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     43.1%     44.3%    42.9%

 

Female                 43.9%      44.5%    44.4%

 

 

Reading

 

 

African (Somali, Ethiopian,

Liberian---  late 20th/early 21st

century immigrant populations)

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     18.8%     19.3%    20.4%

 

Female                 27.6%      24.3%    23.2%

               

 

Hispanic

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     22.0%     22.9%    24.7%

 

Female                 24.5%      26.6%    27.6%

 

 

Asian

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     36.0%     33.8%    38.8%

 

Female                 44.7%      44.1%    50.6%  

 

 

All Students

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     39.2%     38.7%    39.6%

 

Female                 45.3.%    45.1%    45.8%  

 

 

Clearly, neither the Office of Black Male Achievement nor the Department of Indian Education at the Minneapolis Public Schools is addressing the skill deficits of their constituency.  This resonates with the assessment that I made in the Multi-Culpability series with regard to the complicity of the Minneapolis Urban League, the NAACP, the American Indian Movement, and American Indian tribal organizations in the system that produces an abominable level of K-12 education.

                                                             

And the aggregate figures are morally unacceptable, inasmuch as we are confronted with the stark fact that fewer than 46% of Minneapolis Public Schools students are attaining grade level performance in mathematics and reading.

 

Anyone who cares about K-12 education must realize that the unit of analysis must be the locally centralized school district and that the focus of one’s concern should be directed to local iterations such as the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

We get nothing right in domestic political policy until we impart to an excellent education to all of our precious children enrolled in locally centralized school districts.

 

And until we get that right, we are all culpable for the skill-depravity indicated in these figures for the Minneapolis Public Schools.