Can White Educators fix the Black-White Achievement Gap in Minnesota?

I understand teachers, EA's and TA's need to be paid more money, but I also understand the process across the board is skewed in favor of one group, one opinion, and one direction. I feel uncomfortable having people to think I would participate in a strike because of money. I don't want any parent or community member think I'm in the classroom for money and not to teach their children. Yes, I've learned how to live on $58 dollars until the next payday while making sure all my bills are paid, but I think if there wasn't a gap, and all students were performing and proficient at levels of 70 to 90-percent I'm sure the money-gate would open?

By Don Allen, Senior Editorial Columnist   

Don Allen - I have solutions, but who can I get
to listen in a state where historical assumptions
trump a solid ideas and work-ethic...sorry, I
just look like this. 

The most sensible answer is no. Before I dive into this head-first, we all must come to terms with the current situation in that many Black and Brown scholars are sitting in public school classrooms static; without station or agency in many buildings. The achievement gaps have risen to a point of no return and unless we try something different, the gaps will continue in this time of sensitivity and people being offended by everything, please don’t let my continued support of Black education and degrees be turned into a weapon of racism and hate by you…we have already have enough of that to go around. The data proves public schools are failing miserably. Parents know best and it’s time to let them decide where kids go and take the power away from the Teachers Unions set to strike. We must develop a system that surpass the current public schools in education outcomes for our children.

As an educator in the local public-school system I am bombarded with racial inferences that make me qualify myself, wear masks, and try to fit into a system that I am fully qualified to be in, but historical assumptions of the Black male educator makes what comes out of my mouth in support of education for all students that I teach is mostly received as arrogance from me; how dare me have Master’s degrees; how dare me make a suggestion about our processes in Professional Learning Communities.  How dare me make a space inside of an educational institution ruled by White privilege, where I am viewed as an enemy of a sacred realm, one that I should have never been a part of. Follow me closely here – I am not a victim, nor do I need to be treated as one, but when young Black students ready to graduate in 2020 come to me with tears in their eyes and say they did not get into local (MN) colleges because of their SAT scores, it triggers me to think we (educators in secondary systems) must do something very different and new.  

Recently, I had a great conversation with another Black male educator in parallel school district – I asked him what he thought about an all-Black and Brown public school? Not a charter school, but a full-blast Saint Paul or Minneapolis Public School with a focus on the Black and Brown body in literature, math, science, theory, and all of the disciplines and a few added that are in today’s Twin Cities public schools.  We might not need a bunch of social workers focused on ‘dealing with trauma’ because we can take trauma and use it as a driver to change outcomes for scholars in this much needed school construct. Then I asked a Caucasian colleague. The question brought mysterious and racially-charged comments of “What if there was an all-white school?” – to “You want segregation?” The main challenge and opposition was that segregating Black and Brown students from White students within a public school and championing education versus an achievement gap is somehow racist, and that racism – for the most part was perpetrated by White privilege. Many White educators that I spoke with questioned why an all-Black and Brown school was needed first place, and heinous act of privilege.  

Following the advice of Herb Shepard’s “Rules of Thumb for Change Agents” (1973), using Rule II: Start where the system is – that implies that one should begin by diagnosing the system. But systems do not necessarily like being diagnosed. Even the term ‘diagnosis’ may be offensive. And the system may be even less ready for someone who calls themselves a ‘change agent.’ It is easy for the practitioner to forget the hostility of jargon that prevents laypeople from understanding the professional mysteries.

So, can White Educators fix the Black-White Achievement Gap in Minnesota? So far that’s yet to be seen. After attempts to get an appointment with the Minnesota Department of Education commissioner, who had her assistant to call me back and quiz me about why I was important enough to meet with her, I understand I am not former MN chief justice Alan Page, but still, as she (the MDE commissioner) operating in a state with the worst achievement gaps in the United States since 1982, I feel the commissioner should sit down with my action-tank and get this figured out today. 

While I understand the frustration of white privilege, I also understand that institutionalized, systemic, and educational racism remain in systems not set up for Black and Brown students. I don’t hear anybody talking about dumping Pearson (the testing monopoly), nor do I hear anyone talking about retooling the teacher oppressive teacher licensing system. I don’t hear anyone complaining about the current tax dollars being thrown down the drain at layered-systems that do not have the ability to change the downward spiral in Minnesota’s proficiency numbers.

What a difference a Race makes…

If Minnesota’s achievement gap was only affecting Caucasian students, there would be a mass reconciliation of education at every level and all of its parts. The governor of Minnesota along with the Minnesota Department of Education would deem it a “Statewide Crisis” that must be addressed immediately; just like Minnesota reacted, and currently acts inside of the opioid epidemic – of course forgetting that Black and Brown people died high numbers over the last 25-years in Minnesota and not a damn was given until a few-to-many Caucasian children from the suburbs and rural Minnesota start overdosing did opioids become a central focus. Based on this alone, it seems that the achievement gap will only be addressed when it affects Minnesota’s educational ruling class, and it at Black male educators because we are not institutionally accepted.

Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT can be reached at ibnnews@gmail.com. Twitter: @DonAllen02

Black Americans must DELETE the term “African American”

Black Americans or African Americans
(photo: Google Search-Fair Use)

No, this doesn’t mean that Black Americans are denying heritage, but it brings about an opportunity to talk about Blackness and its meanings without inserting another culture that we’ve (Black Americans) have been 20-generations removed. Yes, Black Power; it’s the hour-to-tower!

By Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT

Let’s stick to the facts; when did the term African American become the term to identify Black American-born people? That moment unfolded in December 1988, in a lower-level conference room of the Hyatt Hotel near O’Hare Airport in Chicago. The Rev. Jesse Jackson was holding a closed session with the National Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH board and other high-ranking campaign supporters. The meeting was to be an “agenda-setting” session intended to send a signal about Jackson’s future and how he would harness the potential of the coalition he had built during his presidential bid. Anticipation was high from the media, with serious speculation about runs for mayor, governor, senator, or appointment to ambassadorships. The discussions were free-flowing, with most of the attendees wanting to tackle ongoing issues from apartheid and sanctions to labor unions to farmers, and even talk about planning for a third presidential race and what would be needed to make it viable.

After lunch, unexpectedly, the late C. Delores Tucker (best known for taking on rap music and Tupac Shakur) stood up and made a highly passionate argument for the use of “African-American” as opposed to Black. Her reason was clear and simple: “Nobody lives in Blackland!” Everyone has a spiritual and cultural connection attached to a place in the world that their ancestors called home, except black people. “African-American” would give us a connection to our heritage, our past and our future.

Most Black Americans do not identify with Africans and most genuine African-Americans (i.e., people who recently emigrated from Africa to the U.S. or who divide their time between two continents) do not identify with Black Americans. The Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie made this point very movingly in a recent talk she gave at the Free Library in Philadelphia as part of a tour she is on to promote her new book Americanah. “American,” Adichie explained in response to a question about what race she had in mind when someone was referred to simply as “American,” “is a mark that culture leaves, never a physical description.” She said that when she came to the U.S. she did not want to be identified with black Americans and even “recoiled” when a man in Brooklyn referred to her as “sister.” I’m not your sister, she thought to herself. I have three brothers and I know where they are, and you’re not one of them!

Many argued that the term African-American should refer to the descendants of slaves brought to the United States centuries ago, not to newcomers who have not inherited the legacy of bondage, segregation and legal discrimination. Dr. Bobby Austin, an administrator at the University of the District of Columbia understood why some blacks were offended when Mr. Kamus claimed an African-American identity. Dr. Austin said some people feared that Black immigrants and their children would snatch up the hard-won opportunities made possible by the civil rights movement (Source).

Do a google search on the term “African-American” if you want to see how many black Americans feel about it. Check out the Facebook page “Don’t Call Me African-American,” or Charles Mosley’s guest column in in the February 12, 2013 edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “By using the term ‘African-American’ to refer to black people,” Mosley writes, “columnists, readers, TV hosts and commentators perpetuate and embrace Jim Crow racial stereotypes, segregation and historical distortions. … Africa is not a racial or ethnic identity. Africa is a geographical identity.” In fact, you almost never hear blacks refer to themselves as “African-American,” unless it is to please a white audience, and there is a good reason for that: They do not think of themselves as African-American. They do not identify with Africa, at least not until we remind them, by referring to them as “African-American,” that they are supposed to (Source).

Black Americans are at a crossroad; when an African immigrant with no history or experience of racism or slavery associates with the mainstream, they are treated as model citizens. When Black Americans engage the mainstream system, we (in most cases) are considered “less-than” our African immigrant brothers and sisters -  its been that way for a long time. The suggestion would be that Black Americans take back the power of being Black in America and call us what we are: “Black Americans.”

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