Sunday, March 05, 2006

Black Flight: The exodus to charter schools

MINNEAPOLIS--Something momentous is happening here in the home of prairie populism: black flight. African-American families from the poorest neighborhoods are rapidly abandoning the district public schools, going to charter schools, and taking advantage of open enrollment at suburban public schools. Today, just around half of students who live in the city attend its district public schools.

As a result, Minneapolis schools are losing both raw numbers of students and "market share." In 1999-2000, district enrollment was about 48,000; this year, it's about 38,600. Enrollment projections predict only 33,400 in 2008. A decline in the number of families moving into the district accounts for part of the loss, as does the relocation of some minority families to inner-ring suburbs. Nevertheless, enrollments are relatively stable in the leafy, well-to-do enclave of southwest Minneapolis and the city's white ethnic northeast. But in 2003-04, black enrollment was down 7.8%, or 1,565 students. In 2004-05, black enrollment dropped another 6%.

Black parents have good reasons to look elsewhere. Last year, only 28% of black eighth-graders in the Minneapolis public schools passed the state's basic skills math test; 47% passed the reading test. The black graduation rate hovers around 50%, and the district's racial achievement gap remains distressingly wide. Louis King, a black leader who served on the Minneapolis School Board from 1996 to 2000, puts it bluntly: "Today, I can't recommend in good conscience that an African-American family send their children to the Minneapolis public schools. The facts are irrefutable: These schools are not preparing our children to compete in the world." Mr. King's advice? "The best way to get attention is not to protest, but to shop somewhere else."

They can do so because of the state's longstanding commitment to school choice. In 1990 Minnesota allowed students to cross district boundaries to enroll in any district with open seats. Two years later in St. Paul, the country's first charter school opened its doors. (Charter schools are started by parents, teachers or community groups. They operate free from burdensome regulations, but are publicly funded and accountable.) Today, this tradition of choice is providing a ticket out for kids in the gritty, mostly black neighborhoods of north and south- central Minneapolis.

While about 1,620 low-income Minneapolis students attend suburban public schools, most of the fleeing minority and low-income students choose charter schools. Five years ago, 1,750 Minneapolis students attended charters; today 5,600 do. In 2000-01, 788 charter students were black; today 3,632 are. Charters are opening in the city at a record pace: up from 23 last year to 28, with 12 or so more in the pipeline.

According to the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute, Minneapolis charter school enrollment is 91% minority and 84% low-income, while district enrollment is 72% minority and 67% low-income. Joe Nathan, the center's director, says that parents want strong academic programs, but also seek smaller schools and a stable teaching staff highly responsive to student needs. Charter schools offer many options. Some cater to particular ethnic communities like the Hmong or Somali; others offer "back to basics" instruction or specialize in arts or career preparation. At Harvest Preparatory School, a K-6 school that is 99% black and two-thirds low income, students wear uniforms, focus on character, and achieve substantially higher test scores than district schools with similar demographics.

Since the state doles out funds on a per-pupil basis, the student exodus has hit the district's pocketbook hard. The loss of students has contributed to falling budgets, shuttered classrooms and deep staff cuts, and a district survey suggests more trouble ahead. Black parents in 2003 gave the Minneapolis school system significantly more negative ratings than other parents, the two major beefs being poor quality academic programs and lack of discipline. Preschool parents, another group vital to the district's future, also expressed disillusionment: 44% expressed interest in sending their children to charters. Charter school parents, in contrast, appeared very satisfied: 97% said they would be "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to choose a charter again.

The school board has promised to address parent concerns, but few observers expect real reform. Minneapolis is a one-party town, dominated by Democrats, and is currently reeling from leadership shake-ups that have resulted in three superintendents in the last few years. The district has handled budget cutbacks and school closings ineptly, leading some parents to joke bitterly about its tendency to penalize success and reward failure.

Parents are particularly angry about seniority policies, which often lead to the least experienced teachers being placed in the most challenging school environments. Nevertheless, a few weeks ago the Minneapolis school board approved a teacher contract that largely continues this policy, along with other union-driven practices that perpetuate the status quo.

Black leaders like Louis King have had enough. He has a message for the school board: "You'll have to make big changes to get us back." He says the district needs a board that views families as customers and understands that competition has unalterably changed the rules of the game. "I'm a strong believer in public education," says Mr. King. "But this district's leaders have to make big changes or go out of business. If they don't, we'll see them in a museum, like the dinosaurs."

Minneapolis families seeking to escape troubled schools are fortunate to have the options they do. That's not the case in many other states, where artificial barriers--from enrollment caps to severe underfunding--have stymied the growth of charter schools.

The city's experience should lead such states to reconsider the benefits of expansive school choice. Conventional wisdom holds that middle-class parents take an interest in their children's education, while low-income and minority parents lack the drive and savvy necessary. The black exodus here demonstrates that, when the walls are torn down, poor, black parents will do what it takes to find the best schools for their kids.

Source






'Rubbish' humanities research projects knocked in Australia

The humanities have become so corrupted by nonsense and propaganda they should be thrown out of the contest for public research funding. Paddy McGuinness, the journalist asked by former federal education minister Brendan Nelson to vet "wacky" grants at the Australian Research Council, said the humanities could be excluded from the council's funding scheme with "little loss to society". "The intellectual rigour of the sciences is increasingly absent from the humanities and social sciences," McGuinness writes in this month's issue of Quadrant magazine, which he edits. McGuinness said yesterday he could not talk in detail about the 27 research projects he believed were unworthy to share in November's $370million round of ARC funding.

Dr Nelson vetoed seven projects but did not identify them. "There was a lot of polemical, Windschuttle-the-bastard type stuff, then some very silly feminist and queer studies projects etcetera," McGuinness said, in a reference to revisionist historian Keith Windschuttle, who has challenged the work of a number of prominent academics. "Those from so-called political economists were rubbish," McGuinness said. "There was even somebody wanting to do a thing about Cuba, and what a wonderful place it is."

Some academics criticised the appointment of McGuinness as part of a right-wing political assault on the independence of the ARC. The contrary view is that the council process lacks accountability and is open to cronyism.

McGuinness said he and another outside appointment to the ARC quality and scrutiny committee, former High Court judge Daryl Dawson, had been treated with contempt by the "academic establishment" that ran the committee. "I'm used to academics attacking me but Dawson was very insulted ... he has refused to have anything more to do with it," McGuinness said yesterday. "I don't think I'll be asked (to serve on the committee) again."

Sir Daryl could not be contacted for comment, but a member of the committee, who declined to be named, challenged McGuinness's account. "He must have been at a different meeting ... that wasn't the tenor of the meeting at all." ARC chief executive Peter Hoj said McGuinness was entitled to his views. But Professor Hoj opposed a division between so-called hard and soft disciplines. "It would be counterproductive ... we shouldn't look at technology apart from its social and economic implications," he said. "You just have to think about nanotechnology."

McGuinness said he did not oppose research driven by pure intellectual curiosity but closer scrutiny of research quality was inevitable as universities succumbed to lower standards and managerialism. He said the ARC did a good job in doling out research money for the hard sciences. "There are more objective criteria - it's not just a postmodernist saying postmodernism is wonderful." The ARC system wasted the time of scientists by involving them in the review of humanities proposals, he said. "They don't know what they're doing - they just accept the so-called experts' recommendations. "When the experts are the same kind of people as those they're recommending, it's just mutual back-scratching."

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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