Journal of a Black Teacher

We are still waiting for a change that isn’t built on the corpse of another Black man. The evolution of our intellectual trauma continues.  The chart below is from Minnesota's Spotlight on Poverty https://spotlightonpoverty.org/states/minnesota/ By Don Allen, Journal of A Black Teacher (2025) The tragic murder of George Floyd under the knee of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sparked global protests, forced America into a national reckoning on race, and ignited a multi-billion-dollar industry around social justice. But we must now, years later, ask a hard and perhaps uncomfortable question: Would Black society be any different if George Floyd had died of old age? The answer, while layered in nuance and painful truth, is not as clear-cut as the mainstream narrative would suggest. Since Floyd’s death in May 2020, hundreds more Black men across the country have been killed in encounters with law enforcement. According to Mapping Police Violence, over 1,000 people are ki...

By Don Allen, Journal of A Black Teacher (2024) Lexile Level explanation  - parent guide (MDE) In fact, phonemic awareness development might be quite tough for underserved students in the Twin Cities and even within Black and Brown communities due to a generational achievement gap and inequity that exist in our educational systems. Many students in these communities come from generations of individuals who have not been in a place to support their own students due to socio-economic barriers: underfunded schools, large student-to-teacher ratios, and a lack of early childhood education opportunities. Often, this gap leaves parents unable to provide the resources needed for their children's literacy development. Phonemic awareness perhaps is the most critical requisite for early reading, dependent on rich, language-based environments that may not have been consistently provided to under-served students at home or via school experiences. Other disadvantages that can also counter these ...