Creating stable middle class neighborhoods should be the top priority of our political and civic leaders — a goal requiring quality public schools, reasonable taxes and low crime rates. The simple fact is that Minneapolis and St. Paul will not be healthy without a large and growing middle class.
But the reality is that people often leave depressed inner city communities quietly without much fanfare. Who can blame them given the quality of the schools and the level of crime and violence that exist in parts of our city? Along with most people reading this article, I would never expose children to the risks that exist in many parts of our city.
What's ironic is that public schoolteachers and elected officials know this. These public servants often talk of their support for public schools while disproportionately sending their children to private schools.
Some studies show that public schoolteachers are twice as likely as the general public to send their kids to private schools. Other studies have shown that over 30 percent of the members of Congress send their school age children to private schools, while less than 10 percent of the general public use private schools.
The recent effort by the Minneapolis school board to reduce suspensions in early grades and equalize suspensions across racial lines will have one certain effect — more chaos in the classroom. The school system will, of course, deny that the new policy will be harmful, presenting it as necessary to close the achievement gap and a learning opportunity for students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.
The reality will likely be another nudge for middle class parents to either move their families out of the city or their kids out of the public school system.
This effort to reduce suspensions, which has backing from the highest office in the land, results from the disproportionate number of black kids who are suspended. The implication is that white teachers are, at best, racially insensitive, and at worst racist.
Why this supposed racism doesn't reveal itself with respect to other racial or ethnic groups remains a mystery. The sad reality is that black children disproportionately come from deeply dysfunctional families and communities that significantly affect their behavior and thus the classroom learning environment.
The next steps are predictable. Teachers will be expected to go to workshops to reframe dysfunctional behavior as a cultural norm that is acceptable. This will quickly turn into both soft and hard pressure for teachers to tolerate and normalize that behavior. And as with violent crime, — where the civil rights establishment pays lip service to black victims of crime while protecting the rights of criminals — most of the children who will be hurt by this new school suspension policy will be high-risk learners in need of a stable learning environment.
Who will champion their needs?
Parents understand that they have one chance to raise their children, to provide them with a good foundation and the social capital to be successful in life. Parents with options are not going to take risks with their kids. Many will quickly sacrifice any values they may have about exposing their child to class and race diversity for the stability and quality of private or suburban schools.
The best solution to this problem is for inner city leaders to respond as my parents did when they said to me: "If you get in trouble in school, I'm going to be on your teacher's side."
That clear message from all segments of the community would do more to improve inner city classroom behavior than policy changes, teacher workshops, and counseling could ever hope to.
Peter Bell is a senior fellow at the Center of the American Experiment and the parent of two public schoolchildren.
