Journal of a Black Teacher

  Socialization . The Internet . 

“When people talk about how education's getting better, they use words like 'growth' and 'progress.' They say things like ‘ student engagement ’ and ‘ pathways to success ,’ and let's not forget, ‘ credit recovery ,’ as if to say something was ‘lost’ in need to be rediscovered. These words sound good. Sometimes they are just used to avoid talking about whether students are really learning.” By Don Allen, Ed.S., M.A.Ed. MAT When people talk about education these days, they often throw around a lot of numbers. Attendance and graduation rates are usually the things they mention. You see these numbers at meetings in school newsletters and even on signs that say a school district is doing a great job with your child. The truth is, attendance and graduation rates do not really show how much a student is learning. Many schools think that if students show up and graduate, they are doing their job. They do not really think about what students can actually do after they...

For roughly twenty-five years, Twin Cities public schools have rotated principals, launched initiatives, renamed improvement plans, and held strategic retreats, while the core student achievement data has barely flinched. Reading gaps remain. Math proficiency drifts sideways. Graduation disparities persist. Apparently, what we needed all along was just one more principal with a fresh slogan. This OpEd argues that the traditional principal-centered model has not produced transformational results and likely will not. Instead of recycling leadership titles, it proposes transferring instructional authority to high-performing teacher-leaders supported by real-time data systems and algorithmic accountability. If the numbers haven’t changed in a quarter century, perhaps the org chart should. By Don Allen, Journal of A Black Teacher (2026) Editorial Opinion Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN…Straight talk: In many public schools in the Twin Cities, the role of the principal as the instructional leader n...

By Don Allen (Editorial Opinion)  Let us just say it loud: if we really care about fairness and economic justice, then Minnesota's Somali community should get $200 million in reparations. Yes, I said it. $200 Million.. To be honest, that might be a low price. Before anyone gets upset or writes a post on Facebook, let me explain. This is not about giving them money out of kindness. This is not about favoring them over others. This is about paying a debt that's long overdue. For years, Minnesota has said it is a place where people can come to start a new life. Many Somali families came to Minnesota running away from war and violence. They did not come asking for pity. For a chance to make a new life. What they got was a bag: some good things, but also a lot of suspicion and stereotypes. They had to prove themselves over and over again. They did prove themselves. They started businesses in neighborhoods that others had given up on. They made old stores and buildings look new again...

By Don Allen (2026) Creative Writing, Teaching and Learning.  One afternoon, I walked into my high school English class carrying a worn copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz   ( 1900 ), by L. Frank Baum . My students looked up at me like I had just pulled something ancient out of a trunk. I told them this wasn’t just a children’s story. It was personal. I first met this book in the 1970s, sitting in Mr. Boone’s sixth-grade classroom at Bancroft Elementary in Minneapolis. Back then, school had a rhythm to it. We read about tornadoes, silver shoes, and brick roads in the morning. By afternoon, we were in the gym, or home economics, or waiting our turn in woodshop. The day felt full. Stories felt like doorways. So when I opened Baum’s 1900 novel in front of seventy teenagers, I wasn’t just assigning reading. I was inviting them into something that once opened my own world. We read carefully. We asked questions. By the time we reached Chapter 5, the room shifted. That’s where the Ti...

Tragedy has become a trend, not a reckoning. We reward attention without memory and outrage without outcomes. This is not moral awakening, it’s cognitive dissonance on autoplay.” Editorial Opinion | Don Allen We are no longer informed by tragedy, we consume it. There’s a difference. Being informed requires memory, context, and follow-through. Consumption requires only attention. Scroll. React. Move on. What we are doing now is tragedy tourism : riding waves of human suffering as if they were trending destinations, stopping just long enough to feel something before boarding the next outrage flight. Think about how quickly we forget. A white woman stabbed to death on a New York subway, brutal, senseless, terrifying. It lit up headlines, dominated feeds, and then disappeared. No sustained conversation about public safety, mental health, transit systems, or how we protect everyday people navigating shared spaces. Just a spike in attention, then silence. Christians being killed in the cont...