Booze and blasphemy often go hand in hand, but nobody was expecting such depraved talk at a class reunion. After all, we were Denfeld grads.
It was nearly 1 a.m. a year ago when the conversation began to drift away from old hockey games, gags and drunken hill parties.
“The old neighborhood isn’t what it used to be,” someone said, suggesting West End and West Duluth were looking shabby compared with 35 years ago. Further shifting the focus to sociology, as tends to happen as the spirits flow after midnight, classmates lamented the demise of Diamond Tool, the U.S. Steel plant and other good-paying employers. Western Duluth, one pronounced with slurred confidence, had morphed from an upper middle class neighborhood to lower middle class. The current generation has less spendable income, and it’s beginning to show in some quarters, the Class of 72 lamented.
Then came the shocker.
“My children went to Denfeld, but if I had kids today, I’d probably move to some other part of the city,” a classmate uttered, and several others silently nodded with obvious reluctance.
Back when we graduated, such talk would have drawn an ugly response. But times have changed, as illustrated by recent Duluth School District data. In recent Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) tests, local schools that scored in the top 25 percent statewide were largely clustered in eastern or hilltop neighborhoods.
- Among elementary public schools, Lakewood, Lester Park and Congdon Park ranked highest in reading and math, followed by Lowell, Homecroft and Piedmont.
- At the middle school level, Ordean and Woodland stood out.
- East was the only public high school that ranked highly.
Of course, a few stats don’t tell the whole story. At many Duluth schools, students who receive “free or reduced-price meals” (the poor kids) struggled to make adequate yearly progress. A close look reveals those students largely reside in western, hillside and rural neighborhoods.
The district’s “Red Plan” will only worsen Duluth’s unhealthy east-west, rich-poor dilemma, which district officials prefer to ignore. Beyond education, it will steer housing development and existing home sales away from areas of the city perceived to have schools of lesser quality. Even more likely, it will steer families to suburbs such as Hermantown, Esko and Proctor, where they can avoid costs of the massive Duluth school bond and the school board’s reputation for dragging its feet as problems fester for years.
This all came to mind Tuesday when Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Minnesota could improve public education by raising teacher effectiveness – repeating a tired GOP argument that blames teacher for most of America’s education ills. But he’s correct about one thing: Public education could be improved.
Last week, the 2007-08 MCA math test results arrived at my doorstep. Findings for this mandated assessment are classified in four ways. Students either exceed the standards, meets the standards, partially meets the standards or don’t meet the standards. The report wasn’t encouraging. Central High School was on the border line of not meeting the standards. The cumulative school district fared better, but not by much. On a positive note, Duluth students scored slightly better than those statewide. Throughout Minnesota, however, 11th grade students only partially met the math standard.
Ironically, Duluth students fare worse as they grow older. In the city’s public schools, 82 percent scored “proficient” in third grade. By grade 5, that portion of students dropped to 70. In grade 11, only 35 percent of Duluth students (34 percent statewide) are proficient. And we wonder why America faces a financial crisis. Talk to owners of fast food joints and they’ll tell you many young workers can’t make simple change. That’s why some franchises have designed cash registers that basically replace numbers with pictures of the food they serve. Simple solutions for simple minds.
To be fair, higher percentages of students are proficient in reading and writing, although from 20-30 percent still fall through the cracks.
For those who are curious, it’s possible to make school vs. school and district vs. district comparisons, providing you have the patience of a saint and a computer screen wider than Public School Stadium. The Minnesota Department of Education doesn’t go out of its way to present data in an easy-to-understand fashion. Unless you’ve studied Excel and own a high-power computer, don’t waste your time.
Class reunion chat generally carries little street cred, but in this case, the truth slipped through. Duluth remains a divided community, economically and educationally. The problem is getting worse, and elected officials just don’t get it.
Writer Ron Brochu has resided in Duluth long enough to know where the bones are buried.
Published in the Sept. 22, 2008 Reader Weekly
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