Posts

Born Here, Shut Out Here: Minnesota’s Betrayal of Its Black American Communities

-
Image
By Don Allen - Journal Of A Black Teacher (2025) Minnesota’s newest export isn’t innovation or justice, it’s exclusion. And not just the old Jim Crow kind, but a slick, bureaucratic variety wrapped in buzzwords like “ equity ” and “ accountability .” Let’s call it what it is: the new racism , state-sanctioned exclusion of Black Minnesotans from economic opportunity, masked as progressive policy. Take the multi-billion-dollar Feeding Our Future scandal . According to reports, over half of the $1.8 billion billed through state programs was tied to fraud, waste, or abuse, source: KSTP News . Where was Minnesota’s Department of Education ( MDE ) during this free-for-all? Asleep? Willfully blind? Busy scrutinizing the wrong people? While fake meal sites raked in millions, actual Black-led churches across the state were feeding congregations daily with no help from the state. These churches, often run by Black Minnesotans born, raised, and educated right here, were left out of the fundin...
1 comment
Read more

Ad text. google.com, pub-9652347518196927, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0

-
 google.com, pub-9652347518196927, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
Post a Comment
Read more

Minneapolis Public Schools Lawsuit Will Expose the Failure of Affirmative Action for Black and Native Male Educators

-
Image
The lawsuit between Minneapolis Public Schools and the U.S. Department of Justice could be fixed overnight, if only someone dared to say the obvious: the district is too big to succeed. That’s right, shrink it. Fewer layers, fewer “executive directors of innovation equity leadership,” and more actual teachers who know their students' names. Instead of bloated bureaucracy and selective “diversity” programs that only help insiders, a smaller, leaner system might actually... function. Imagine that. The DOJ wouldn’t need to sue if we stopped outsourcing equity to policies that protect the privileged few. Cut the district, trim the egos, and maybe, just maybe, Black and Native male educators would be hired for their qualifications, not their connections. Wild idea, right? Common sense. Too dangerous for policy. Read the filing here PDF. By Don Allen (Editorial Opinion) Journal of A Black Teacher (2025) The lawsuit that the United States Department of Justice filed against the Minneapol...
Post a Comment
Location: Minneapolis Public School District, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Read more

Financial Literacy and St. Paul Kindergartener's: POOF!

-
Image
“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become.” — No Name in the Street (1972) The idea was to layer in financial literacy education from kindergarten onward. The lesson plan could have been as easy as having a piggy bank for every kindergartener to save a quarter (.25 cents) each week over the 10-month school year. I can't be upset Maryland's BlackFem; it's local decision-makers who continue to show malfeasance in decision-making.  By Don Allen (Journal of A Black Teacher - 2025) - Editorial Opinion I get the frustration. It's like watching someone skip the obvious local talent pool to roll the dice on an out-of-towner, only for it to blow up in a $900K lawsuit. I break this down step by step based on the details from the Star Tribune piece , and I'll weave in some context on why it might've gone sideways (and yeah, why ignoring the Twin Cities' deep bench of financial literacy pros feels like a head-scratche...
Post a Comment
Location: Maryland, USA
Read more

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

-
Image
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...
Post a Comment
Location: Minnesota, USA
Read more

Black America and Space: We Risk Becoming Spectators Once Again

-
Image
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...
Post a Comment
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Read more

Let’s Unschool Minnesota’s MCA Results to Look at School Site and District Leadership because, It's Not the Students!

-
Image
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...
Post a Comment
Location: Fridley, MN, USA
Read more