Children Did Not Bring the Achievement Gap into Twin Cities Classrooms
"...If we treated education the way we treat sports, failing leaders wouldn't survive a season. Coaches who can't win get fired. Players who don't produce get pushed harder to improve. But in education, the most important playing field of all, we tolerate failure year in and year out." By Don Allen, Journal of A Black Teacher Walk into most Twin Cities schools today, and you'll see gleaming new lockers, polished hallways, and floors freshly waxed. They gleam like museum pieces of what "progress" is supposed to look like. This also depends on the location of the school. I had a friend who said his classroom was mopped twice in the 2024-2025 school year. His building served African American students in one of Minneapolis’ poorest neighborhoods. But scratch below the surface and you'll find that too many children still cannot read at grade level, do basic mathematical calculations, or pass science benchmarks. The truth is unavoidable: children di...