WHO'S GONNA TELL PHAROAH?:

Minority students continue Minneapolis schools exodus (Steve Brandt, 2/22/06, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Minority students continue to leave the Minneapolis School District faster than white students, pushing up the white share of the student body for the third straight year. [...]

What's happening for Hispanic populations in Minneapolis may reflect the same changes that caused Asian enrollment to peak in 2000 and then plunge. That was a combination of Hmong families moving to the suburbs or enrolling in charter schools.

Asian enrollment has dropped the sharpest of any district minority group in recent years -- 43 percent over five years. [...]

The white share is up because more than 6,400 minority students have left the district in the same three-year period. Blacks, who make up the largest bloc of students at nearly 42 percent, are leaving at more than twice the rate for whites.

And that's before recent calls by some activists for a "blackout." They've urged black and other minority families to leave the district, in part to protest the recent ouster of Thandiwe Peebles as superintendent.

Minority groups have plenty of options. Low-income students can use a state-funded program to be bused to suburban schools, while 29 operating or approved charter schools in Minneapolis compete with the district for enrollment.

Exodus is a surprisingly appropriate term for the liberation of students from a public education system that's failing.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 22, 2006 4:58 PM