The ad hoc committee on the Achievement Gap began meeting in January 2007 and has heard from a wide range of speakers. More than 50 people attended the Oct. 31, 2008 meeting to discuss what next steps the committee might consider. The questions were asked: Are we adding value and should we continue? And if we continue, what form should it take? The group did not reach a conclusion. Comments fell in five broad categories.....
For minutes of the meeting, see below:
Comments fell in five broad categories:
- Continue the forum to share information among interested parties.
- Create better information, networking, and outreach opportunities
- Promote more robust coordination of services
- Create priorities and advocate for specific initiatives. Popular ideas discussed included community schools, early childhood education and parent education
Continue the forum to share information among interested parties
Comments:
- Look around. Everyone is interested in getting together on a monthly basis. We are all here and there is nothing to be here for other than to hear what each other has to say.
- The forums have done a wonderful job of bringing people together who more than likely wouldn’t be coming together normally. Continue that.
Create a better information, networking and outreach opportunities
Comments:
- What are the key issues and who is doing what about those key issues? Maybe the University of Minnesota could map of all the efforts that are going on
- It is imperative for us to see who is doing what and how we can interact.
- It is not enough to hear from each other. We need to learn how to network.
- Draw a wheel with the child in the center, identify the key spokes on that wheel and figure out how we can work to mobilize this group to go out to the rest of the community and offer up education, awareness raising, and concrete recommendations
Promote more robust coordination of services
Comments:
- Foundation coordination: Get the United Way, Minneapolis Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Bush Foundation to discuss a concerted plan to end the Achievement Gap. Do they have some idea as to how they are going to bring all of the nonprofit agencies together with others who want to work on this? Or are we going to continue to be about this project here and that project there? Nobody is really coordinating it. We don’t have a sense of a whole community coming behind an effort. (NOTE: A Minneapolis Foundation representative said the Minneapolis Foundation, McKnight, Bush, St. Paul Foundation, and others are pulling together an early childhood business plan.)
- County involvement: Carol Miller said Hennepin County is focusing on supporting graduation. The Accelerating Graduation by Reducing Achievement Disparities (AGRAB) report is being released. County wants to make best use of the resources and the touch points with children and families to make a difference. It has a commitment to partnerships and setting policy frameworks to reinforce the importance of learning. A county resolution is coming on the topic.
- Schools need help: The schools can’t educate our kids in isolation. It requires parents, the community, churches, and local organizations. We have to limit the scope of our actions. We can’t just throw a bunch of darts at the wall. Look at the MPS strategic plan
- Community schools: Bring the county and the community and the schools to work more closely together. Is it the school building that becomes a central part of that arrangement? The notion of a community school has been discussed in various ways over the years. What are the possibilities of collaboration around community and school?
- Family Resource Center: Anderson school has a family resource center. There were four of them at one time, now there is only one left. It has a medical clinic, a dental clinic, a workout room and computer lab the community can use, and meeting rooms. The model does exist. It is worth a look-see.
- Overview needed: We need a strategic overview that links everything, not a laundry list. We need to see how they all come together.
Advocating specific initiatives
The largest group of comments offered specific ways to focus action:
- Early childhood: Promote Early Childhood Education, there is a strong consensus that ought to help the achievement gap. (One participant said if the group took that direction it needed to involve more direct service providers.)
- Community early childhood school: Serve children from birth to age 3 with ECFE, health programs and outreach.
- Parent/family support: This gets back to the support of our parents and our families. There is no training. We can’t just put the child in the center. We put the family at the center. It is the family that needs to be addressed.
- Abused/neglected children: Hurt people hurt other people. We can work with these children until we are blue in the face; if they go back home to an abusive environment or an environment where they are raising themselves, nothing is done. We need more than meetings, we need to take action
- African American males: There is a parallel between the number of incarcerated African America males and the number who are not making it through the Minneapolis Public Schools. I am curious about how city institutions and our public schools are addressing those issues, looking at alternative programming specific to that population.
- Racism: I am not so sure that we are seeing what the underlying issue is. The one thing we haven’t been attending to is our understanding of the legacy of segregation for our students. This group needs to take a deep breath. Maybe we need to put some study into the underlying issues. It feels to me we are building on a foundation that is crumbling
- Prioritize the least fortunate: Our top priority is children. The set priorities with them: The poor, the transient, and the ones who don’t have English.
- Prevention: I would like to work up stream to deal with causes and try to make the case that is compelling to those who make decisions about resources
- Health: We have to come up with no more than four areas. Get people on a committee. They could include nutrition, health care, early detection and pubic safety.
- Autism: More children being diagnosed with autism.
One commenter made a three-pronged recommendation:
- Make idea work of community schools EC to grade 3
- Learning about the root causes are
- Learning what other people are doing to make things work
Comments