What is up with all the segregation within the elementary schools?? (Minneapolis: home, neighborhoods)

[Bennie Flowers]

There are some schools within walking distance from eachother that have a completely different racial makeup. How are White children supposed to learn about new cultures when they are in a school with predominately other White children? Will this hinder their progression with tolerance in the future? Minority students are taught mainly by White teachers and they are still exposed to the White majority outside of school. What about the other Children??


Demographical Statistics

[URL]http://datacenter.spps.org/sites/2259653e-ffb3-45ba-8fd6-04a024ecf7a4/uploads/FY09_by_race_school.pdf[/URL]

[Anneee]

You're absolutely right and this is an area in which Minnesota is terribly lacking, not only in blending kids of different races, but also kids of different abilities. As has been said many times on this forum, Minnesotans tend to stick with their own.

And they don't realize that their way of doing things is different from the rest of the world. I guarantee you that you'll get at least one response saying, "But you're wrong! My kid's school has a black child!"

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by Anneee

You're absolutely right and this is an area in which Minnesota is terribly lacking, not only in blending kids of different races, but also kids of different abilities. As has been said many times on this forum, Minnesotans tend to stick with their own.

And they don't realize that their way of doing things is different from the rest of the world. I guarantee you that you'll get at least one response saying, "But you're wrong! My kid's school has a black child!"

I disagree, actually. While Minnesota as a whole is pretty lacking in diversity, that's more of a function of the fact that outside of Minneapolis and St. Paul and some of the suburbs it's very heavily white. Still, while there could certainly be more integration of both schools and neighborhoods, you don't find the same kind of segregation in the Twin Cities schools that you do in many big cities. In a lot of urban school districts you find very few white kids in the schools; the schools are both economically and racially segregated, with middle and upper class whites and non-white families either moving out of the district or sending their kids to private schools, leaving behind only the poorer and mostly "minority" kids. That's not the case in the Twin Cities schools, where you do find kids of all economic backgrounds and races. In general (and I'm talking only TC, as I don't know enough about any other part of the state) people have also historically been a lot less concerned about things like interracial dating, etc., than in many cities; that's less of an issue these days then it used to be, thank goodness, but at one point Minneapolis was a place where people could go to get away from the higher levels of both formal discrimination and more informal intolerance found in many regions. In more recent years, the Twin Cities have developed a reputation as being very friendly to GLBT-headed families. At one point I remember reading that my home neighborhood of CARAG (in Minneapolis) had the fourth highest percentage of GLBT couples with kids in the country. Not sure if that's true or not, but growing up I knew people with gay or lesbian parents. (also had plenty of friends with parents of different races, and now have many friends who have married people of different races and of different cultural backgrounds, so I'd say there's plenty of evidence that not everyone in Minnesota "sticks with their own.")

And as far as kids growing up in the city, it would be pretty tough to get through life without spending time with kids of other races.

None of that is to suggest that there isn't room for improvement. I think kids of all races and ethnicities can benefit from diverse schools and neighborhoods. I just think that the Twin Cities (well, at least most areas of the TC) are pretty accepting of diversity, and I certainly wouldn't say that Minnesota as a state lacks behind the rest of the country as far as tolerance goes. It is a far whiter state overall than anywhere I've ever lived, but again, much of the actual core cities are diverse, although some neighborhoods are obviously far more diverse than others, and the schools themselves are struggling with figuring out how to balance the desire for community schools, access to magnet programs, etc. while still trying to achieve at least a reasonable level of diversity in each school.

[uptown_urbanist]

Forgot to add: I took a look at the statistics (which are for St. Paul Public Schools) and at least some of the major differences appear to be due to magnet status. Maxfield, for example, a mostly black school that is actively geared towards serving black children. In the words of the principal, "My vision for Maxfield is to create school where every child is learning and learning is fun! I see Maxfield much as the African American Community sees our Historical Black Colleges, called HBCU’S. From such institutions including the Norte Dams and Princeton’s, students are groomed to be learners who are confident and knowledgeable and successful in their chosen endeavors." We can debate whether seeming self-segregation is appropriate or not in a public school, but it's not an example of Minnesotans or white people not wanting to be around minority students. Some of the other schools don't have a large percentage of white students, but still have diverse student bodies. Mann seems to be the most overwhelmingly white school in the district, but it appears that that's because it's a small neighborhood school in a heavily white neighborhood.

Again, not to say there's not issues that could be better resolved, but did want to point out that the school issue gets complicated because of the mix of magnets (some with cultural/ethnic bents), community schools, and other school options. I think most parents would prefer diversity in their schools, but not at the expense of other things. The school systems are doing their best to figure out how to balance all of these complicated issues and to make sure that all kids have access to quality schools.

[knke0204]

People are still complaining about segregation?

oh man.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by knke0204

People are still complaining about segregation?

oh man.

Come to the Atlanta forum sometime. Some of the conversations there have been rather eye-opening to me.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

Forgot to add: I took a look at the statistics (which are for St. Paul Public Schools) and at least some of the major differences appear to be due to magnet status. Maxfield, for example, a mostly black school that is actively geared towards serving black children. In the words of the principal, "My vision for Maxfield is to create school where every child is learning and learning is fun! I see Maxfield much as the African American Community sees our Historical Black Colleges, called HBCU’S. From such institutions including the Norte Dams and Princeton’s, students are groomed to be learners who are confident and knowledgeable and successful in their chosen endeavors." We can debate whether seeming self-segregation is appropriate or not in a public school, but it's not an example of Minnesotans or white people not wanting to be around minority students. Some of the other schools don't have a large percentage of white students, but still have diverse student bodies. Mann seems to be the most overwhelmingly white school in the district, but it appears that that's because it's a small neighborhood school in a heavily white neighborhood.

Again, not to say there's not issues that could be better resolved, but did want to point out that the school issue gets complicated because of the mix of magnets (some with cultural/ethnic bents), community schools, and other school options. I think most parents would prefer diversity in their schools, but not at the expense of other things. The school systems are doing their best to figure out how to balance all of these complicated issues and to make sure that all kids have access to quality schools.

I agree. Keep in mind too that if you have a community with neighborhood schools you are naturally setting the school up for some segregation as neighborhoods tend to be segregated as well. There have been efforts to have a better blend in the schools however, most parents want their kids going to school with the kids in their neighborhood, not being bussed across town. It has little to do with segregation and a lot to do with parents wanting their kids to have friends to play with in the neighborhood. I know that the Minneapolis schools have programs to bus kids out to some of the suburbs, Burnsville is one of them, but they don't get a lot of kids that want to go-they don't want to spend all that extra time on the bus, they don't want to move away from their friends. I don't blame them.

[Slig]

I've looked at statistics of some of the Minneapolis schools and there are instances where the racial makeup of the school is alot different than the makeup of the neighborhood. An example of this is Washburn High School. It's located in the Tangletown neighborhood in SW Minneapolis which is 90% White, yet the student body is only 26% White, 51% Black, 12% Hispanic, 8% Asian and 3% Native American. The reason for this is the majority of the kids living in the neighborhood either go to South, Southwest or private schools. This may be the kind of disparity the OP is talking about.