Among the letters written to editors of the Star Tribune and published in the Wednesday, February 4, 2021, edition, are two in which the writers take issue with staffer Patrick Condon’s opening an article (Star Tribune, “A solution to educational equity?,” February 2, 2021) with the words, “Minnesota’s long and well-documented history of shortchanging students of color...” Both Nat Robbins and Todd Otis suggest that factors outside the control of public school teachers and staff may be responsible for the low academic proficiency rates recorded by students from numerous demographic groups, so that use of the word “shortchanging” is biased and unfair to hardworking teachers.
This is an old argument of the education establishment and its apologists that would never be used in analogous situations for attorneys and physicians:
Imagine an attorney telling a client, “You have a legal problem, so I cannot help you.”
Consider the inanity of a physician telling a patient, “You are ill, so I cannot offer you any medical care.”
These replies would be the equivalent of a teacher and other school staffers saying to a student, “You come to me for an education, but I cannot provide it to you.”
The reality is that the public schools of Minnesota shortchange all students.
Teachers have low knowledge bases and little ability to stimulate student interest via subject-focused class discussion. They hand out too many boring worksheets, assign too many group and individual projects for which students have little informational background, show too many videos for unexplained purposes, and give too many “free days,” even in schools at which most students academically lag many years below level of school enrollment.
Students from grade 2 forward lack knowledge that they should possess in mathematics, natural science, history, government, economics, literature, English usage, and the fine arts. They have poor vocabulary development and slim grasp of fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, and probability necessary to succeed in algebra, geometry, pre-calculus, and calculus courses. Because of the knowledge-deficient, skill-deplete approach to curriculum and mediocre teaching, students do not gain the necessary knowledge and skill base to achieve at a high level on the ACT college readiness exam; few students show college readiness for all categories tested, and students from families facing dilemmas of finance and functionality tend to record a score in the 9-14 range, not even reflecting middle school capability.
Students do not read broadly and deeply across a full liberal arts curriculum. Students move forward from grade 5 having little knowledge of any subject area. Curriculum and teaching is not much better in middle school and high school; only students who take Advanced Placement (AP) courses learn anything of substance, and then only in the off-chance of getting a teacher qualified to impart college preparatory curriculum.
The legal profession declares that all clients wronged or charged with crimes deserve representation. Physicians make herculean efforts to save gravely ill patients. Teachers and other public school staff make no analogous effort.
Curriculum in Minnesota is weak for all students. Teaching quality at the median is poor to mediocre. Despite claims otherwise, little effort is made to provide skill remediation. Few staff members are available to reach out to families of students struggling with dilemmas of life at the urban core. Funds are wasted in abundance on offices and departments created in the pretense that if they bear hopeful names, they will solve vexing problems.
Middle class students and those from families who have college degrees make up some public education deficiencies in conversationally rich environments or with private tutoring. But no student receives sufficient factual information. Every student is shortchanged. Those who must depend entirely for their information and academic prospects on the public schools are shortchanged most of all.
We must confront the public education establishment and its apologists by specifying the deficiencies and identifying those culpable while working to overhaul the system for knowledge-intensity, quality teaching, aggressive skill remediation, family outreach, and thorough restructuring of the education bureaucracy.
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