Aug 11, 2017

A Disappointing Meeting Organized by S.T.A.N.D. Up at North Commons, 6:00-7:00 PM, Thursday, 10 August 2017

The meeting organized by the group, S.T.A.N.D. Up, held at North Commons on Thursday, 10 August 2017, was ultimately disappointing. 

 

Attendance was very poor, with only three students and five adults present in addition to organizers Khulia Pringle (Chief of Staff of S.T. A.N.D. Up) and Minister Toya (a pastor at a church in Roseville who presided over the meeting).  The students, who were engaging in their accounts of aversive experiences in public schools, had limited experience with the Minneapolis Public Schools.   One student did seem to have had numerous bad experiences in schools that included Minneapolis Public Schools institutions before having a turn-around experience at FAIR High School, which is not a mainline MPS high school but rather a charter school that has just been overseen by the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools for two years.

 

Those of us in attendance at the meeting began with self-introductions and then proceeded to watch a documentary focused on the school to prison pipeline, detailing the high suspension rates for African American students in public schools throughout the United States and the high percentages of African American youth who are thrust into systemic patterns that result in sustained periods of incarceration.

 

This is a grave problem, part of a situation in which the odds are high that young people facing problems of economic poverty, familial functionality, and schools with a propensity to suspend rather than to educate end up on the streets that lead to prison or early death.

 

Each audience member then paired with another participant to discuss the documentary and to give personal responses.  Adults generally expressed anger and disgust.  Students echoed those sentiments and gave accounts of schools wherein staff members were generally uncaring and lacking

understanding of the problems faced by young people facing significant life challenges.

 

…………………………………………………………………….

 

Literature passed out by the organizers summarizing the program of S.T.A.N.D. Up describes an organization that vows to fight for the education of students of color and those of low income who are falling through the cracks and who are susceptible to the school to prison pipeline.  The organization vows to train---  with monetary compensation---  parents and community members to be advocates for their own children and those who are not well-served by schools.  Staff members of S.T.A.N.D. Up pledge to offer information on schools that offer better educational experiences than others, to provide individual review of records and present experiences of students, to assist parents in formulating a viable educational plan for their children, to provide support for parents as advocates for their children, and to keep students on track once the plan is in action.

 

The focus of the discussion at the meeting, though, focused heavily on the suspension problem.

 

There was little focus on the programmatic details and the structural components of locally centralized school districts that deny our young people even a remotely acceptable, much less an excellent education.

 

Readers of this blog know that my own focus is relentless on the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools and that my nearly complete book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect, will provide 350 pages of facts, analysis, and philosophical observations pertinent to this iteration of the locally centralized school district, detailing the massive failure of the district to provide any student with a truly excellent education---   and for students of poverty and students of color providing morally abhorrent experiences.

 

Participants in the meeting organized by S.T.A.N.D. Up were given a useful book, Minneapolis School Finder, compiled by leaders of Community Engagement for the organization MN Comeback that attempts to identify schools that promise a better education than others.  There are some good summaries in this book given for schools according to demographics and overall performance, but the academic performance component in not disaggregated according to ethnicity and income.

 

The main problem with this compilation is an abiding assumption that there are really quite a few schools that offer students most in need a good education.

 

The brutal reality is that none of our public schools render an excellent education and very few get even close to good.  Students emerge from the public schools of Minneapolis knowledge-poor and skill-deprived.  

 

Neither the leaders nor the participants at this meeting organized by S.T.A.N.D. Up had a very good grip on details pertinent to the staff and program of the Minneapolis Public Schools.  They did not seem to understand the full brutality of statistics pertinent to student academic performance in the Minneapolis Public Schools, wherein levels are even worse than those for the state as a whole.

 

For the review of my friends at S.T.A.N.D. Up, I give the summary that I have provided elsewhere on this blog, as follows:

 

Percentage of Students Recording Grade Level Performance on MCAs:

Disaggregated Data for Academic Years Ending in 2014, 2015, and 2016

 

Math

                                            

African American 

 

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     20.8%     22.0%    19.1%

 

Female                 21.2%      20.7%    20.5%

 

 

 

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%

 

 

Native American/ American Indian

 

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     19.9%     16.5%    16.0%

 

Female                 25.0%      21.9%    21.3%x

 

                               

Asian

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     44.1%     47.4%    45.4%

 

Female                 51.3%      53.4%    54.1%

 

 

White/ Caucasian

 

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     76.7%     78.4%    77.4%

 

Female                 77.0%      77.9%    78.4%

 

 

All Students

 

                              2014           2015        2016

 

Male                     43.1%     44.3%    42.9%

 

Female                 43.9%      44.5%    44.4%

 

 

Percentage of Students Recording Grade Level Performance on MCAs:

Disaggregated Data for Academic Years Ending in 2014, 2015, and 2016

 

Reading

 

African American 

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     18.8%     18.5%    18.2%

 

Female                 24.0%      24.5%    23.4%

 

 

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%

 

 

Native American/ American Indian

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     18.3%     13.9%    15.3%

 

Female                 23.6%      26.1%    25.9%  

 

 

Asian

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     36.0%     33.8%    38.8%

 

Female                 44.7%      44.1%    50.6%  

 

 

White/ Caucasian

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     75.3%     74.3%    74.0%

 

Female                 81.0%      80.2%    80.0%  

 

All Students

 

2014         2015        2016

 

Male                     39.2%     38.7%    39.6%

 

Female                 45.3.%    45.1%    45.8%  

 

 

…………………………………………………………………….

 

The school suspension problem that is the key current focus of S.T.A.N.D. Up and that dominated the Thursday, 10 August 2017, discussion is grave.

 

But the root problem for this and all of our abiding educational and societal domestic dilemmas that produces those suspensions is the typically poor academic quality abiding in the schools of Minneapolis.

 

I will be working with my friends at S.T.A.N.D. Up to convey a deeper understanding of the low level of education provided to all students of the Minneapolis Public Schools, the precise systemic features that produce wretched academic results for students of color and those of low income, and the five point program (curricular overhaul, teacher training, tutoring, family resource provision and referral, and bureaucratic slimming) that will be necessary to transform the Minneapolis Public Schools into a model of excellence for the locally centralized school district.

 

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