Don Fraser: Closing the achievement gap in Minneapolis

By |

For more than 35 years, Don Fraser worked as a member of the Minnesota Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and Mayor of Minneapolis. Born in Minneapolis, Fraser was educated in the public school system and later at the University of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota Law School.  Today, Fraser works with the Committee of the Achievement Gap, a project of the DFL Education Foundation, which was organized to study the educational achievement gap experienced by children from high-poverty areas, with a focus on the Twin Cities metropolitan area.  Last Thursday, Fraser sat down with me at this Minneapolis home to discuss a recent report by the Committee on a number of strategies for closing the achievement gap. The following are selections from our discussion. See the entire interview below or archived here and here.  David E. Kaplan: Over your distinguished career in public service and into retirement, you’ve long been an advocate for education.  Why education? Don Fraser: I think my interest in education, with the intensity I now bring to it, came in the middle of my mayoral term. Continue Reading

Charter schools fail at most important task

By |

Minnesota’s charter schools are not opening opportunities for students. In fact, according to a recent report by the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota Law School, charter school students perform at a lower academic level than those at traditional public schools. Minnesota’s first charter school opened in 1991 – today there are more than 140 such schools serving more than 23,000 students. When they were envisioned, charter schools were touted as an alternative to underprivileged students who attended poorly run schools and didn’t have the means to move to another school or attend private school, said Baris Gumus-Dawes, a research fellow at the Institute on Race and Poverty and a co-author of the report. Gumus-Dawes noted that since 1991, little has been done to study charter school effectiveness. Continue Reading

Pushing against the achievement gap

By |

The high schoolers in Claire Hypolite’s chemistry class are clustered in little knots of desks, heads down and pencils flying as they grapple with packets of homework problems. They toss solutions and gossip back and forth in English, Somali, and Hmong while they work. Watching this entirely generic classroom scene, it’s hard to believe more than 80% of these kids were failing this class only a few months ago. Claire Hypolite came to Edison High School in Northeast Minneapolis eight years ago after completing her student teaching at North High and a doctorate in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She discovered she loved teaching while working as a teacher’s assistant in graduate school, tutoring undergraduate students, and teaching English in Japan. Hypolite chose to work in urban schools, she said, because “I connect with them more…To urban kids, entitlement means ‘you owe me, you have to help me achieve.’ With suburban kids, they look at a teacher and say ‘it’s your responsibility to let me be a star.’ Continue Reading

Race gap persists for Minnesota students

By |

“History tells us that Minnesotans are hesitant to acknowledge the racist nature of educational outcomes; rather the problem has been treated as a race neutral or personal responsibility issue,” said the annual report of the Minnesota Minority Education Partnership (MMEP). MMEP recently held its State of Students of Color and American Indian Students Conference and released its latest report documenting the educational outcomes of Minnesota’s students. The report specifically highlights disparities between students of color, American Indian students, and their white counterparts. While communities of color comprise about 14 percent of the total population in Minnesota, students of color comprise 23.6 percent of all K-12 education enrollments in 2008. The November 6 conference at the University of Minnesota’s Coffman Memorial Union welcomed teachers, counselors, educators, administrators, youth workers, policy leaders and community members who are interested in increasing the success of students of color in Minnesota’s educational system and to improve educational outcomes. Continue Reading

A plan to fight the achievement gap

By |

The racial achievement gap has bedeviled educators, lawmakers and community activists for decades. Many plans to close the gap have been tried, yet it still exists. In 2007, African-American students scored far below whites in national and state tests.The gap is not new: Since 1990, Minnesota’s African-American and Hispanic students have consistently scored well below whites in the National Assessment of Educational Progress.Many attempts to close the gap have been launched. State Sen. Patricia Torres Ray is working on a plan to coordinate these efforts.”The achievement gap affects so many people and the issue is so complex,” she said. “People are desperate for action. Continue Reading