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What Happens When You Don’t Want to Be on the Losing Team?

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Meanwhile, anyone bold enough to ask why the results never change is treated like a disruptive guest at a dinner party, tolerated, but only if they promise not to mention the burnt turkey. Welcome to the team no one actually wants to be on. By Don Allen - Journal Of A Black Teacher I know what loss feels like. I’ve carried it, survived it, and learned from it. Nothing teaches you the anatomy of disappointment like seeing systems fail the very children they claim to uplift. Since the beginning of 2025, while working on my dissertation and digging through mountains of Minnesota education data , I’ve come face-to-face with a truth that is impossible to ignore: we are losing, and far too many people seem strangely comfortable with it. When you look at the numbers coming out of the Twin Cities , reading proficiency , math proficiency , chronic absenteeism , and behavior incidents , you don’t see hope. You see patterns. You see neglect disguised as progress. You see the same “solutions” rec...
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Black America and Space: We Risk Becoming Spectators Once Again

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Oh, STEM and STEAM …the magic buzzwords that every underserved school district has been chanting like a spell for the last twenty years. Walk into any school brochure, PowerPoint, or grant application, and you’d think kids in underfunded communities are basically building Mars rovers between lunch and sixth period. Administrators proudly point to a donated 3D printer gathering dust in the corner, or a “ STEM Day ” that happens once a year, right between standardized testing and whatever crisis comes next. Yet after two full decades of promises, slogans, and colorful STEAM posters taped to cracked walls, what do we really have? Students who can’t take home a functioning laptop. Classrooms with broken microscopes. Robotics teams that never got off the ground because the coach quit after the second week. Teachers who get “training” that amounts to a YouTube video and a prayer. If this is STEM, then no wonder Black America isn’t preparing for orbit; we’re still trying to get working Wi...
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Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Let’s Unschool Minnesota’s MCA Results to Look at School Site and District Leadership because, It's Not the Students!

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By Don Allen, JOABT Every Fall, Minnesota parents, teachers, and policymakers await the release of the MCA (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments) results. And every year, the story remains depressingly consistent: public and charter schools in the Twin Cities have campuses that have never once broken the 70% proficiency barrier in reading, math, or science. Disclaimer : In some schools that sit on the fringes of districts where the dominant culture is the majority, those schools have seen good numbers. The further you move into the Twin Cities, the lower the numbers dip. Let’s be blunt, this is not the fault of the children. This is a direct indictment of site leadership, district leadership, and charter management organizations that continue to run schools without accountability, vision, or urgency. For too long, we’ve accepted the easy narrative that blames “the kids” or “their families”  for not being 'academic.' We hear the same tired talking points: poverty, trauma, abse...
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Location: Fridley, MN, USA
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Why wasn't No Kings Day "present" among Black Americans?

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Fanon (Franz) would argue that the struggle extends beyond mere access to another's system of meaning; it encompasses the pursuit of entirely new systems. In this light, the absence of Black bodies at No Kings Day is not merely a void; it serves as a silent manifesto. By Don Allen for Journal of A Black Teacher (2025) When we explore these photos from the so-called "No Kings Day" festival, lit with parades, costume wear, and street festivals, what becomes noteworthy is not only the massive number of white participants, but also that this spectacle contrives to reinforce a sense of monarchy and nobility aesthetic that was historically denied to black people. It is therefore no surprise that to many black people on these shores, this festival feels peripheral, even alienating. Fanon declares that "the colonial world is a world cut in two" - an exclusion that moves well beyond the material, to the structural and psychic levels. In other words, African people in Ame...
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Location: Minnesota, USA
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The Administrator’s Favorite Color Was Five

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In the Twin Cities and across the nation, public education has been plagued by what can only be described as passionate incompetence. This phrase captures the disconnect between good intentions and ineffective outcomes. Over the past five years, administrators have rolled out initiative after initiative, promising transformation: new literacy models, equity frameworks, technology rollouts, social-emotional curricula, and testing reforms. Each was championed with passion, urgency, and rhetoric about “student-centered change.” Yet, despite the energy and resources poured into these programs, the results are precise: proficiency rates remain stagnant, achievement gaps persist, and families, teachers, and communities continue to feel the weight of systems that do not deliver. Passion without competence is no solution, and the failures of these past half-decade reforms demonstrate that schools cannot afford more recycled promises dressed up as innovation. What is required now is competence,...
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Location: 1607 51st Ave N, Minneapolis, MN 55430, USA
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Dark Days for the First Amendment: It’s Less Safe to Laugh

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By Don Allen for Journal of A Black Teacher The First Amendment has always been America's shield and its sword. But recently, its shield has begun to bend at the pretense of selective outrage, and its sword is only brought out when it is convenient to do so. Take two recent controversies. Jimmy Kimmel is a satirist who has pushed the boundaries of his comedy and has been canceled, losing his late-night show. What did he do to become intolerable? Did he tell a joke a little bit too close to home? Or was it merely that when comedy attacks the wrong power structure, it shifts from being simply entertainment to being seen as a "threat"? While the why is relevant, what really hits is the chilling effect: comedians are left wondering whether being funny is now a liability. At the same time, an employee of Hennepin County joked about the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on her Facebook page and went further to issue a dangerous call to violence. In my opinion, her lan...
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Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Overdue Conversations: What Should Black Teachers Teach Black Students About Political Violence?

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Classroom Discussion Questions: Put students in small groups or discuss as a whole class : Why do you think leaders like King, Malcolm X, and Newton were targeted by violence? How does political violence affect communities beyond just the leader who was killed? What lessons from these leaders can we apply to our lives today? Can love, unity, and service really be stronger than violence? Why or why not? How can young people carry forward the unfinished work of these leaders? By Don Allen, Ed.S., M.A.Ed., MAT  Black teachers shoulder a profound responsibility in today’s society. Our children are growing up in an environment where violence is a pervasive reality, manifesting itself through various forms—whether it stems from governmental actions, extremist groups, or even within our own neighborhoods. Failing to address this harsh reality leaves our young people ill-prepared to navigate the complexities and dangers of the world around them. By engaging in open and honest discussions a...
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Location: Minnesota, USA
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