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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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We Heard You Right the First Time
Wednesday 28 February @ 15:31:56 |
 BY ED FELIEN
Over 35 years ago, Eldridge Cleaver analyzed slave culture. He said there were two kinds of slaves: the ones that worked in the big house and the ones that worked in the fields. The ones that worked in the big house got all sorts of benefits: good food, access to education, a warm place to sleep, and they identified with their masters. The ones that worked in the fields got what they could, and they hated their masters. If the master got sick, the ones in the big house got sick right along with him. The ones that worked in the fields hoped he'd die. If the master's house caught fire, the ones that worked in the house risked their lives to save the master's possessions. The ones that worked in the field hoped it would burn to the ground.
 The irony of the Don Samuels controversy is that Samuels, quite unashamedly, talks about his family coming from the big house and about the privileges that were extended to them as a birthright. His black critics in North Minneapolis have jumped on that and accused him of identifying too closely with the white establishment; they've called him an Uncle Tom. And yet, when Samuels points out that an institution isn't serving the interests of young black children and should be burned to the ground, they rush in to save it. The double hypocrisy in this is that many of those critics are sending their own children to suburban, private or charter schools. In their own minds, they've already burned it down.
What's the problem?
There is still a huge gap between test scores for white and minority kids. No matter how many times the people of Minneapolis vote to increase their tax burden so that they can lower class size, nothing changes. Well, not quite nothing. Last year the Board actually voted to increase class size by four students per grade.
Why can't minority kids catch up?
Minority kids in Minneapolis have special problems.
Somali kids are refugees from a violent civil war where they may have seen members of their family murdered by rival clans.
Latino kids are often economic refugees. All white families have grandparents or great grandparents who came to this county to find a better way of life. They didn't have visas. There were no immigration quotas. Most of them did not speak English. But as soon as they landed on Ellis Island, they were Americans.
Hmong kids have a complex cultural history. Their parents fled their native land because in a war between the neo-colonial U. S. aggressor and a native people, they sided with the aggressor, and, when the aggressor lost, they had to return with him to the mother country as defeated warriors. Relations between generations are tense, and many of the children are confused about their cultural identity and find refuge in urban gangs.
Native American kids share the immigrant problem of social dislocation. Native culture is under assault and unemployment is high for Anishinabe and Lakota peoples, so families are constantly moving back and forth between the reservations and the cities.
African American kids are often immigrant children as well, even if it's only internal immigration from Detroit, Chicago or East St. Louis to the inner city in Minneapolis.
Most educators agree when a child is moved from one school to another (especially in the middle of the school year), the child loses one or two years of educational development. When whole groups of kids are moved for complex and different reasons, there will be inevitable alienation and chaos.
Most immigrant families face the added problems of poverty and racism. The kids see how their parents are treated, and they are quick to act out their resentment.
Tragically, violence in the home is often the accomplice of poverty and racism. Social scientists and psychologists say if a child is hit in the head they will lose 12 IQ points, and they will use violence in turn as their means of social interaction.
Finally, there are more single-parent families in the urban centers. With only half the number of parents looking out for a kid, sometimes a kid can get overlooked.
All of these factors make the problems of inner city kids different from the problems of suburban kids.
What's the solution?
First, obviously, we need smaller classes. Many of our kids need an adult to look them in the eye every day and actually see them. Some of our kids need one-on-one attention. We need to give it to them now, or we're going to be giving it to them in a correctional facility after they've ripped a hole in the social fabric.
It's true that a lot of our children are getting the attention they need. Many of the Minneapolis public schools are working just fine. But those schools do not, generally, have the highest concentrations of children under stress. The socio-economic profile of kids attending schools in Southwest Minneapolis, Prospect Park or Kenwood is probably closer to the suburban profile than it is to kids from the inner city.
Every referendum to raise property taxes to pay for smaller class sizes passes by wide margins, and yet, classes keep getting bigger.
What's happening?
It is a fact that a very stingy Republican Legislature for the last few years has cut funds for Minneapolis. Cuts in LGA (local government aid) hurt every agency in City government, but police and libraries most obviously. Cuts in education went to the heart of the Minneapolis system.
But there is another problem, and that problem is systemic and long-term. Every system develops a bureaucracy, and the Minneapolis Public Schools system has a bureaucracy that would make the ancient emperors of China envious. According to the 2005-2006 budget, we spent $1.5 million on two associate superintendents in addition to the deputy superintendent, the assistant to the deputy superintendent, the board liaison and the executive administrative assistant. The associate superintendents are a level of bureaucracy between the superintendent and the direct administration of the principals and the schools. In a school system that has shrunk as dramatically as Minneapolis' (from almost 50,000 students eight years ago, to 36,000 today, to less than 30,000 projected in five years), this level of bureaucracy is wasteful and without purpose. Take that $1.5 million and put it in the classroom.
There are probably many more examples of entrenched and obsolete bureaucratic waste, but the MPS budget successfully obscures any attempt to clearly separate administration from instruction. Teachers are "principals in training" or "mentors." They're doing a lot of things other than teaching. We need to get them back in the classroom.
The School Board needs to do a strict accounting and find out where every teacher is and whether or not they're in the classroom. They need to look at the bureaucracy and trim back the dead wood.
The system is, once again, in serious crisis. There's a $16 million shortfall next year and enrollment is headed south, which means less state aid in the near future.
In his article in the Star Tribune Monday, Feb. 26, Steve Brandt quotes the new academic chief, Bernadeia Johnson, as saying that it's necessary to have a high school of 1,000 students. Presumably, this is to guarantee students access to the arts and athletics. But students in our high schools now have to pass through metal detectors. There's armed security present. The kids are not safe. There is a danger of them being shot. That's the message of the security. That's the message understood by the School Board members I talked to for this article. That's the message the students understand. That is not a great learning environment.
South High School has segregated the magnet program students from the regular students. We have constructed a tower of Babel, where whole communities studying in the same building don't talk to each other.
We don't need high schools of 1,000 students. We need high schools of 100 students. We need high schools where everyone knows everyone else. We need high schools that reflect the neighborhoods. We need to fight for neighborhood schools. Big, mega-high schools don't work! They are dangerous and a breeding place for gangs and violence.
Don Samuels was right the first time. It ain't working. Burn it down and start over on a much smaller scale. Every child's education is a precious opportunity, and all children have an absolute right to feel safe and positive about their school.
Some Minneapolis schools are going to have to be closed in the next year. They have classrooms for 50,000 kids and only 36,000 students. What the administrative planners and bureaucrats want to close are the smaller elementary schools, and they want to make the high schools bigger. But that's the problem. We need to close the bigger schools and bring resources to the smaller schools. It would be better for the kids if we closed every high school in the city and made every elementary school K-12. Then we could have schools on a scale that kids could understand. But perhaps, that's thinking too far outside the big box for the new School Board.
The next meeting of the School Board to discuss school closings will be March 6 at 6 p.m. at 807 NE Broadway. ||
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