Minnesota is becoming more racially diverse, with minority children under 5 making up 30% of preschoolers compared to 21% in 2000. By 2035, over 40% of residents in the counties of Hennepin and Ramsey will be people of color. Minnesota has one of the largest achievement gaps in the country between white students and students of color. Test scores show little progress in closing this gap, with white students significantly outperforming black and minority students in both math and reading proficiency. Educators and advocates argue that closing the achievement gap will require addressing systemic inequities such as disproportionate referral of minority students to special education programs, as well as the impact of trauma, poverty and lack of support

1. 025METROmag.com024 METRO 09.12
This shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise, but according to the
most recent census data, Minnesota is becoming more diverse. Though
we’re still whiter than much of the country, a recent Star Tribune article
points out that minority children under five now make up 30 percent of
pre-school aged children in Minnesota—up from 21 percent in 2000.
According to Minnesota Campaign for Achievement Now (MinnCAN),
an advocacy group that addresses the disadvantages minority and low-
income students face in education, the number of black, Hispanic and
Asian Minnesotans will double in the next 30 years; by 2035, well over
40 percent of residents in both Hennepin and Ramsey counties (44 and
48 percent, respectively) will be people of color.
If our state’s well-documented achievement gap (the difference in
educational success between white students and students of color, and
between high- and low-income students) isn’t already cause for alarm,
this census data certainly should elevate the importance of addressing it.
Minnesota has one of the largest gaps in the country, and the Minnesota
Comprehensive Assessment test scores released last month show little
movement toward closing it.
Overall, Minnesota students fared decently on the tests (increasing
reading and math scores a percentage point or two), but the gap between
white students’ scores and those of students of color held steady. Sixty-
eight percent of white students were proficient in math and 82 percent
were proficient in reading. Comparatively, only about 33 percent of black
students were proficient in math and roughly 53 percent were proficient
in reading. In both subjects, black students were the least proficient
of the minority groups, but the closest any minority group came to its
white counterparts were Asian students in reading, with 67 percent pro-
ficiency. So, at the very closest, minority students were still 15 percent-
age points behind white students.
MinnCAN’s assessment of the situation,
published in a January 2012 report, seems to
remain true then: “The scores illustrate two
very different Minnesotas for our schoolchil-
dren,” it states. “In one Minnesota, children get
a solid education, and in the other, children fall
further behind as they shuffle through school.”
As the population of preschool- and school-
aged children of color grows, the number of
those children not meeting grade-level academ-
ic standards will continue to grow right along
with it unless something changes. This means a
greater percentage of the population will be on
a track leading to “abysmal outcomes” through-
out their lives.
That’s how Mary Tinucci describes the path
on which many underachieving students find
themselves throughout their lives. As founder
of The Lab, an arts and wellness program in the
St. Paul Public School system, Tinucci works
with high school kids in special education who
have emotional behavioral disorders (EBD)—a
population of students that consistently under-
achieves academically. The outcomes Tinucci
is referring to for these and other students who
aren’t making it in school include low high
school graduation and college entrance num-
bers, unlikelihood of home ownership and high
unemployment and incarceration rates.
“We’re doing good things. And we’re failing,”
says Adrienne Diercks, founder and executive
director of Project SUCCESS, a youth-devel-
opment program that works with students in
the Twin Cities from middle school through
high school. For Diercks, the solution to the
achievement gap will come from setting expec-
tations high for students, then “meeting [those
expectations] with equally high standards
around your actions and the resources you bring.”
Too often, Diercks says, low expectations
contribute to the problem. “Someone really
has to believe that kids can succeed,” she says.
“It sounds lofty, or maybe even hard to figure
out, but you see it in [educators’] actions and
words. Do they go up and talk to the kids?
What’s their body language? Do they look like
they’re listening? Do you really believe an F stu-
dent can turn themselves around and get A’s?”
Tinucci agrees that higher expectations are an
important part in righting the widening gap.
“We have a responsibility to hold a standard for
[students] that says, ‘We know you can do this.
We’re going to give you all the support in the
world to get here, but still the bar is [high],’”
she says, adding that standards shouldn’t be
set low simply because of a belief that students
can’t or won’t succeed.
Tinucci also notes the problem is a systemic
one, and therefore all the expectations in the
world can still fall short. The population with
whom she works is facing not just an achieve-
ment gap, but “an achievement chasm,” she
says. “My kids are just so wildly behind … It
begins in elementary school when kids start to
get referred to special education [because of]
behavioral issues. And who’s historically—and
maybe even still—likely to get referred? Black
boys … You can’t tell me that race doesn’t play
a part in who we’re referring to special educa-
tion because of behavior … I think adults are
less afraid of the white kid even at a second or
third grade level. For a white kid with behav-
ioral issues, far more interventions are tried
before the kid’s even referred to special ed. So,
as a result we have a disproportionate number
of black males in special ed. EBD programs.”
This is what has come to be known as the
school-to-prison pipeline, and civil rights
activists and sociologists like Nancy Heitzeg
(a professor at St. Catherine University) claim
the phenomenon is the result of “no tolerance”
policies implemented at schools, which incom-
mensurately target children of color. In an essay
titled “Education Or Incarceration” (Oxford
University Press, 2010), Heitzeg writes, “Youth
of color in particular are at increased risk for
being ‘pushed out’ of schools—pushed out
into the streets, into the juvenile justice system,
and/or into adult prisons and jails … In part,
the school-to-prison pipeline is a consequence
of schools which criminalize minor disciplinary
infractions via zero tolerance policies, have a
police presence at the school, and rely on sus-
pensions and expulsions for minor infractions.
What were once disciplinary issues for school
administrators are now called crimes.”
In addition to such systemic charges, the nar-
rowing of the achievement gap becomes diffi-
cult when the science behind it is brought into
the conversation, says Tinucci. When you take
into account all the factors students of color
and those living in poverty disproportionately
face before they even enter the classroom—ex-
posure to drugs and alcohol, violence, instabil-
ity, transient home lives, trauma—it’s a simple
fact that they are just too stressed to do well on
a math or reading test.
“We know that [for] any human being, when
stressed, cortisol runs through your body.
Too much stress for too long, with too few
resources or supports, has a wildly detrimen-
tal effect on brain development, on physical
health and on a human being’s ability to not be
hyper-vigilant,” Tinucci explains. “We have all
these kids running cortisol 24/7 for the sake
of their lives, or as a result of their lives … So,
as educators, we have to deal head-on with the
impact of trauma, loss, grief and stress on our
young people before and/or simultaneously to
educating them in reading, writing, math and
science. [These things] cannot be teased apart
if we want kids to succeed.”
Diercks agrees that many of these factors
contribute to the achievement gap. “It’s really
hard to overcome any barrier,” she says. “But
the barriers that come along with not having
enough food, worrying about money, not hav-
ing a car that works—that disparity between
the have and have-nots in our state is obviously
contributing to it.” She also sees a need for the
other side of the story to be told—the side that
shows strides and successes—if the gap is to
be closed. “We also have to look at the stories
of kids overcoming obstacles [in order] to go
higher,” she says. Too many students, Diercks
feels, only hear the negative stories, which
leads toasenseof imminentfailure,andtolowered
expectations—aprecursortotheachievementgap.
New efforts are being taken to address the gap,
according state education commissioner Bren-
da Cassellius. In an appearance on Minnesota
Public Radio last month, she said new ways of
measuring students’ progress, rather than just
their proficiency, will be introduced this year,
and, for the first time, the achievement gap
will be taken into account when measuring a
school’s success. The Minnesota Department of
Education has also started providing grants to
students from low-income families so that they
can attend free summer learning programs.
Though the causes and consequences of the
achievement gap are complex, as our state’s
demographics change, it cannot be ignored, as
it will become an issue not only for those un-
derachieving, but for everyone in Minnesota. If
the status quo in our schools continues as the
minority population moves toward a majority,
the idea of public education as equalizer seems
likely to become obsolete. We will find our-
selves in a state with too many people that are,
at best, woefully underprepared, and, at worst,
stigmatized by the system that is supposed to
be preparing them. +
Gap Year(s)
how Minnesota’s educational achievement gap will plague our future.
By David Doody
MORE >
thelabspps.com
projectsuccess.org
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33% OF BLACK STUDENTS IN MN ARE PROFICIENT IN MATH
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68% OF WHITE STUDENTS IN MN ARE PROFICIENT IN MATH
82% OF WHITE STUDENTS IN MN ARE PROFICIENT IN READING53% OF BLACK STUDENTS IN MN ARE PROFICIENT IN READING
infographicsource:2012minnestoacomprehensiveassessmentandtestscores