During one family engagement night last year, my son’s ninth-grade class competed in a contest called a policy slam. Working in teams of three, students were given two sets of data that, analyzed together, revealed a social issue. Students then created policy prescriptions to address the problem they found, detailed in short PowerPoints.
The numbers revealed that as educational attainment rose, crime rates fell. Reasoning that curbing dropout rates was crucial, the winning team proposed combating institutional racism in schools so kids would stay enrolled.
The kids at this public charter school in Minneapolis, Venture Academy, know way too much about systemic racism. The schools they opted out of struggle with nation-leading racial achievement gaps. There are mainline district schools in my city where you can count on one hand the number of black and brown students and kids, like mine, with disabilities who can read and compute proficiently.
As a consequence, many of my son’s classmates started high school several grade levels behind in math and reading. More than 90 percent qualify for free or discounted lunch, 26 percent are learning English, 26 percent receive special education services, and 6 percent are homeless.