Tonic Immobility: Our Black Children in Black Charter Schools - there's a Rat in the School Building

 “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”

 ~ Harold Pinter

This is part one in an eight (maybe 10) part series on Twin Cities charter schools, human capital, organizational communication, problem-solving, and nuanced leadership to assist me in answering my dissertation question, “Why are Twin Cities charter schools failing Black Students? Is it a characteristic of charter schools in general, or is it something about how these particular Twin Cities charter schools are being run?”

Photo: RAT. 

By Don Allen - Editorial Opinion

(Sunday, November 5, 2023 | Written for The Independent Business News Network-IBNN)

     For anyone who knows me you know I enjoy looking into the blind spots. I have found in these blind spots a place to look at how school systems can coexist to achieve the maximum daily growth for students, parents, teachers, and community members. Of course, this would mean a drastic change, and in my school environment culture, change is feared. A year ago today, I would have laughed at you if you told me that in the Fall of 2023, I would be a middle school teacher inside the charter school complex of the Twin Cities. I was prepared for it. I like change, but when I looked into the blind spots of the charter school, a giant Rat of despair looked me in my eyes and said, ‘...change is harder here.’

Big Picture     

     There are certain female frogs in warm climates that play dead when a male frog comes to court them. The female frog's legs are stretched out in front, both back and front, to give an illusion of death or, from the human eye, signs of rigor mortise setting in. The male frogs just hop away and hope for a better day tomorrow. This phenomenon is called ‘Tonic Immobility’ - a temporary state of motor inhibition believed to be a response to situations involving extreme fear. Many parents and charter school systems operate in a zone of extreme fear, be it a parent sending their children to a local Twin Cities charter school that has a history of low proficiency, student fights, and low organizational health. The solution, in most cases, we are at the point of needing to shut many charter schools down and reset. On the other hand, there are charter schools doing great with children of color in the Twin Cities that we, as educational leadership, must research and model in our buildings. The paralysis and muscle rigidity in response to changing educational outcomes or the perception of leadership and best practices need to be analyzed with a progressive problem-solving model to reset poor internal and external organizational health. The question of why some Twin Cities charter schools are not meeting the needs of Black students is complex and multifaceted. It's important to note that not all charter schools in the Twin Cities or elsewhere are failing Black students, but disparities in educational outcomes persist in many schools. In my teaching career, I have worked with some of the most innovative, progressive, and student-centered teachers and principals in Minnesota and across the United States. I was trained by a group of top educators from Washington, D.C.that successfully dismissed the notion of Charlotte Danielson's model for classroom teaching and replaced it with an aggressive model that re-trains educators by delivering multi-platform lessons at the student's pace and sequence; every student will achieve mastery, therefore, changing the mindset of the student, and increasing the student's chances of self-actualization (Maslow, 1943).

     When Black parents send their children to a charter school, the idea is that their child will get a better education in a Black charter school compared to local (Twin Cities) public school systems. While there are successful Black charter schools that cater to the Black community, there are just as many that do not. In Black charter schools, Black children are always the majority. According to The Black Charier School Effect: Black Students in American Charter Schools (2012) by Monica R. Almond (Claremont Graduate University), the majority of charter schools enroll disproportionately high percentages of minority students, with Black students being the largest minority group. Her findings indicate that 70% of all Black charter school students attend 90%-100% minority charter schools, while only 34% of all Black traditional public school students attend 90-100% minority schools (Almond, 2012).

     So why are some Twin Cities charter schools failing Black Students? Is it a characteristic of charter schools in general, or is it something about how these particular Twin Cities charter schools are being run? Is tonic immobility and the fear of change or the acceptance of substitutions a better option than successful daily desired results? It’s a hard call, and I will investigate to complete my research because there is a way out for our local charter schools to become successful because the current daycare format is denying a generation of our babies the opportunity for success.

References

Almond. (2012). The Black Charter School Effect: Black Students in American Charter Schools. The Journal of Negro Education., 81(4), 354–365.

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-96.