Journal of a Black Teacher

By Don Allen - Journal of A Black Teacher  Let’s be honest : starting a new charter school in the Twin Cities should not be a Herculean task, especially when the public schools are doing most of the recruitment work for you. Want 1,000 students in your brand-new charter school? Here’s your blueprint: serve children, teach them to read, show up with structure, and maybe, just maybe, don’t treat families like they're lucky just to be in the building. The truth is, public schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul have stumbled into a crisis of confidence, and it's not just about underfunding or teacher burnout. It's about the chronic inability to meet the basic academic needs of Black, Brown, and low-income students. Parents aren’t blind. They see the chaos. They feel the disrespect. They notice that Johnny is still reading at a second-grade level in seventh grade. And when public schools send home grade reports that look like participation trophies, families know what time it is: i...

Written by Don Allen as an exemplar for 7th grade English and the unit: The Marvel and DC Universe through the Lens of Postmodernism. Students took the following steps to complete their superhero origin stories. Beginning (Describe how your character started as a normal person.) Before he ever picked up a pen, Wolfgang Allen was a quiet boy growing up in a small flat above a bookstore in London. He loved words but didn’t realize they could be powerful. He read everything, from comics to cookbooks, because reading made the world feel less confusing. Teachers noticed he was a thinker, but his writing was always rushed and full of errors. He often asked himself, “Why does writing matter?” Then one day, something changed. Middle (Describe the event that changed them.) On a rainy afternoon, while cleaning out the bookstore’s attic, Wolfgang found an old journal that belonged to his grandfather, a teacher and writer during World War II. Inside was a message scribbled in ink: “If you can writ...

“It is unabashedly ambitious, and yet completely accessible to those willing to put in the time and effort.” Course Evaluation by Don Allen, Ed.S., M.A.Ed., MAT.  Hamline University's "Academic Writing for Graduate Students" (GED 8005-1), taught by Professor Julia Reimer in the Summer of 2025, provided me with a foundational experience, helping me to develop my scholarly voice and enhance my graduate-level writing skills, including experimenting with journal and book writing in tandem with authoring a critical dissertation. As a doctoral student who has been a Piper for 15 years (10-years in graduate school), I took this course seriously and with enthusiasm, I can attest with certainty that GED 8005-1 is more than a support course, it is a required academic rite of passage that needs to be permanently integrated into the Ed.D. program for all subsequent cohorts. I was a little nervous at first because I didn’t want what I thought was a random course to deconstruct my GPA....

A vote of No Confidence with resignations is the next step.  By Don Allen, Ed.S., M.A.Ed., MAT Maybe it’s not politically correct to say this, but when is change actually change, and not just a cosmetic illusion designed to pacify people living in struggle? For the past two weeks, I’ve been driving 30 minutes south of the Twin Cities, past Hastings, Red Wing, and into the fringes of rural-urban comfort. The deeper I drive into the suburbs, the clearer things become—literally and metaphorically. McDonald’s restaurants are immaculate. Gas stations are well-lit and clean. Digital marquees actually spell words correctly. The young people working in these places reflect the communities in which they live. And yes, there are big houses, massive yards, dogs running free, and even cornfields stretching toward the sky like everything around them has room to grow. But when I turn back toward Minneapolis or St. Paul, the mood shifts. It’s not just aesthetics, it’s infrastructure, spirit, and ...

By Don Allen - Journal of A Black Teacher (2025) Author Note Don Allen is an educator, researcher, and writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He founded the Journal of a Black Teacher and is a doctoral candidate in education leadership. He specializes in charter and public schools and community reform in historically underperforming and under-led learning organization systems in urban areas. Abstract This editorial addresses the tragic and preventable death of an 11-year-old boy in North Minneapolis. It challenges the performative politics of local leadership, particularly leaders of color, and the silence of historically influential organizations like the NAACP and Urban League. It calls for a public reckoning, a radical reimagining of public/charter school education, safety, and community accountability with a data-informed investment in the children and families of North Minneapolis. Editorial Opinion There is no excuse… none, for an 11-year-old to be shot and killed in his own neig...

What was the cost of Nerd stereotypes for Black Boys in the United States? ( Photo : Google Search, educational purposes - Fair Use.)  By Don Allen - Journal Of A Black Teacher (2025) In the 1990s, Family Matters, a Black sitcom about the bumbling, brilliant, and painfully awkward Steven Q. Urkel, was viewed by millions of American families. Urkel was TV's most recognizable face, known for his squeaky voice, oversized glasses, high-water pants, and irrepressible fixation on science and Laura Winslow. Yet underneath the laughs and the catchphrase "Did I do that?" There is a greater cultural implication: Urkel inadvertently caused science to be uncool among a generation of Black males. Urkel was not just a character—he was an ambassador of the "Black nerd," and not a likable one. He was solitary, pesky, emasculated, and continuously rejected. He was seldom cool, never heroic, and most frequently the punchline. During a time when Black male heroes on TV were few, U...