Journal of a Black Teacher

I’ve taught for 15 years. I know what a classroom should feel like: welcoming, with whiteboard markers, curiosity, a little chaos, and a whole lot of learning. What it should not feel like is a pulpit. Yet that’s precisely where Minnesota seems to be steering our schools with its new ethnic-studies mandate . By Don Allen, Ed.S., M.A.Ed., MAT (ABD) Abstract The new requirements for Ethnic Studies in Minnesota , which are slated to go live during the 2026-27 school year, come with a liberationist pedigree that all too often reads like empty pedagogy that substitutes slogans for scholarship. This is a call to “disrupt,” “dismantle,” and “challenge systems,” but it never answers the most fundamental question every teacher must pose to every lesson plan: does this help kids read, write, compute, reason, and flourish? As Frantz Fanon cautioned, “each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.” This mandate forces politicized ideas into a scho...

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...

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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...

“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...