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Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Criminal graduation rates

Minnesota is a nice place to live, but not for everybody. Black students have less than a 50% graduation rate, compared to over 80% for white students. This kind of gap is shameful.

I don't really know the best way to fix it, though. A graduation rate that low represents a breakdown on all levels, and it's going to be hard to fix them all.

posted by MN Politics Guru @ 17:57

1 Comments:

At 7:14 PM, June 21, 2006, Blogger Da Man said...

In your earlier post of Katherine Kersten's Korner (KKK--I get it!), you criticized Kersten's Father's Day message about black men abrogating their responsibiities as fathers to their children. It featured the conserative African-American author Joseph Phillips, who wrote a book entitled "He Talk Like a White Boy: Reflections on Faith, Family, Politics and Authenticity". In fact, you were quite dismissive of Phillips' message, citing irrelevant issues such as gay parenting, and pooh-poohing the fact that Phillips is black.

"Mr. Phillip's race is unimportant to me. Unlike most people, when I say that I am color-blind, I mean it. The facts of "black illegitimacy"--as you put it--don't have much to do with his message."

Now the news comes out that black high school graduation rates are scandalously low in MN, and most educators would agree that "black illegitmacy"--single mothers raising their children--is a huge factor in the breakdown of black educational achievement. And suddenly, race is now an issue to you.

Why the sudden turnaround? Now can you look at Mr. Phillips' message more objectively, before dismissing it out of hand?

 

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