Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan Schools / District tackles its growing diversity

Why is minority student performance always portrayed as being the schools fault? Compared to inner city schools, there are greater expectations of parents and kids. So some kids were mean...like that's something new. But the article equates some mean students with a bad school and 'what the school is doing wrong.'

If students/parents transplant themselves from inner city schools - which usually have lower standards - of course they are not (at least initially) going to perform as well. That is not the sole responsibiltiy of the school district - the parents must play a major role in bridging that gap - and a don't mean by lobbying the school to take away resources from the other students.

"Low-performing students will benefit from teachers and other staff members who better understand their culture, said Mark Parr, the district's director of secondary education. " This is plain stupid. There is a difference between understanding a culture and being a whole school to meet the desires of a few. Whether these kids be immigrants or coming from the inner city, they MUST acclimate to the new situation, NOT the school district acclimate to them.

I find it interesting how the reporter and people in the stories almost always talk with the 'woe is me' attitude, demand changes, but fail to address how those changes affect the district as a whole or effectively reduce the potential of a majority of the students.

Information I heard in a speech on NPR stays with me: The largest single factor in predicting the academic success of a child is the number of skills he brought into kindergarten. In other words, early childhood education is so very, very important. Trying to "fix" a student even in junior high is 'way too late.
We should stress early childhood education.

The single biggest predictor is whether or not a student is on free or reduced lunch. Still, NCLB is what the Bush administration shoved down our throats.

It is utterly wrong-headed and irresponsible to expect the schools to discover some sort of magic formula that will guarantee equality of outcomes for all students. The schools are responsible to make sure each student has an equal *opportunity* to succeed, but the reality is that not all students will succeed. Blaming the schools because some students perform poorly is like blaming Ford Motor Co. because some people drive drunk.

"According to the district, about 81 percent of its white students achieved proficiency on the 2007 state reading tests, compared with 50 percent of black and Latino students"

How about the Somali's and Hmong? Oh, that's right, none of them are required to learn the english language. It's kinda hard to read the language if you cant speak it. Lets hope they can read STOP on a STOP sign as they drive around our State, 10 minutes after arriving from their 3RD world countries. Oh yeah, I see them driving everyday, and more often than not, they CANT read it....Why should they, there's no incentive to. Their given everything without being required to do anything. Of course, this is not a blanket statement, many are ambitous and hard working. Many are eager to learn and do so willingly, but many more are not. These statistics are not shown in this story because they are probably horrendous.

"My children got what I wanted for them — smaller classes, challenging classes, mostly good teachers," Williams said. "But we had to work hard for them to do even remotely well."

By George, she's got it! What a novel concept- hard work leads to success!
Incidentally, it's this kind of "reporting" that has lead to such a drastic decline in both the PP and Strib.(Yeah, I read it, but I no longer pay for it.)

Its all Ramsey Co. fault...
4 not working harder to edge u cate her chillren
U have taken a problem and given it 2 Dakota Co.

??????????
Well alright !

What a bunch of nonsense. This politically correct BS. Needs to stop.

Enough already!!

Yes lets run to the suburbs to get away from the inner city crap, Oh wait theres low income housing everywhere thanks to our knuckleheads in office. Our quality of life will go down.

Kay wrote:

Yes lets run to the suburbs to get away from the inner city crap, Oh wait theres low income housing everywhere thanks to our knuckleheads in office. Our quality of life will go down.

You are correct, Kay. Affordable housing has made Crooklyn Park what it is today.

The black and hispanic children’s grade are inferior because the "culture" (inner city, fatherless / baby mamma households) they come from is INFERIOR!

Poeple expected that the trash to smell better if they put a ribbon on it…? Amazing.

Suzette wrote:

Information I heard in a speech on NPR stays with me: The largest single factor in predicting the academic success of a child is the number of skills he brought into kindergarten. In other words, early childhood education is so very, very important. Trying to "fix" a student even in junior high is 'way too late.
We should stress early childhood education.

We should stress 2 parent households where ENGLISH is spoken

TheWord wrote:

The black and hispanic children’s grade are inferior because the "culture" (inner city, fatherless / baby mamma households) they come from is INFERIOR!
Poeple expected that the trash to smell better if they put a ribbon on it…? Amazing.

Good point. There seems to be a common misconception that if you label a set of behaviors s a "culture" somehow that makes everything o.k.

This was part of a national initiative since the 1990s to disperse urban poor into the suburbs with subsidized housing. I don't see how it has worked out that great if suburb towns are facing inner city crime problems now like mine does. They also forgot the fact that living in the suburbs is not exactly less costly for people in poverty but may be more expensive in some ways.
Things felt less sketchy in my old St.Paul neighborhood compared to the suburbs where I thought we were escaping to.

"I think we're pointing fingers at ourselves to say,'How can we do this better?' " Olson said.

"Low-performing students will benefit from teachers and other staff members who better understand their culture, said Mark Parr, the district's director of secondary education."

Ms. Olson, why are you asking the schools to take responsibility to close the gap? Until those underperforming "cultures" take responsiblity for preparing their children for school, this entire process is destined to fail. I think the teachers are doing an outstanding job. Stop beating up your teachers and administrators. Give credit, and blame, where it is due. I understand that political correctness prevents ths. How sad for everyone - including the underperformers. We are telling them that they are not smart enough, and it is obviously not within their ability to improve their lot.

Mr. Parr, why is it the teacher's responsibilty to "better understand" a culture of where education isn't prioritized? Why don't we instead expend our energy providing training to these underperforming cultures so they can better understand" our culture?

Ms. Williams, I'm glad your children were well served. I'm also glad that you now realize that education is hard work. For everyone - not jut students of color.

I only had to read as far as "cultural sensitivity training" to know where this article was headed. The whole idea makes me want to throw up.

Suburb Dad wrote:

This was part of a national initiative since the 1990s to disperse urban poor into the suburbs with subsidized housing. I don't see how it has worked out that great if suburb towns are facing inner city crime problems now like mine does.

It hasn't worked out great. It's very similar to a tumor metastasizing.

"Culture" Ha-hahahahahahahahahahahahaaaa aaaaaaaa!

This is a very good sign of the changes taking place in our state! How do you do one of those smiley face things? Anyway, it's about time that we as a society start to wake up and realize that our racist, suburban schools needs to spend equitably on education and not just provide a good education for all the spoiled, Republican kids whose parents drive polluting SUVs and live empty, shallow lives by spending all their time at the country club drinking martinis.

Mrs R: Empty, shallow lives are being led by suburbanites driving SUV's. We must need some laws to stop this travisty of justice. We are already having our income redistrbuted to the people of our inner cities but thats not enough for you good liberals. I don't want to own one of those little puddle jumping Prius tin cans that you like, that would be crushed by a Ford Mustang in an accident. I can't help it that you've ruined tha suburban schools too with all this open enment crap. You should just stay where you like it in St Paul, but let us have our fun in the burbs as we pay your way.