By Marcia Lynx Qualey, Engage Minnesota On Monday, Minnesota education officials released a report on our state’s charter schools, and not all the news was good. In particular, the achievement gap between white and non-white students has widened considerably. This certainly should give us pause. But test-score troubles didn’t just hit schools with primarily non-white or low-income students. Math was one area where Minnesota kids seemed to have the hardest time. According to education reformer Joe Nathan, math-passing rates declined by half from third to 11th grades. But there were some bright spots. The Star Tribune reported that—among schools with Read More …
Tag: Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy
What’s Troubling About Charter School Debate: The Hate
By Marcia Lynx Qualey, Engage Minnesota The Minnesota Department of Education has issued a report clearing Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy of the major allegations leveled against it and requesting that the school address smaller areas of concern. The May 19 report states that the school’s core business—curriculum—is nonreligious, in full compliance with all Minnesota statutes. The Department of Education’s areas of concern related to how the school structures its voluntary Friday prayers as well as the timing of after-school busing. In a statement, Tarek school officials said that they take these concerns “very seriously” and will be getting together with Read More …
My Time in a Madrassa
By Marcia Lynx Qualey, Engage Minnesota Several years ago, I would have told you confidently—if haltingly—that I worked in a madrassa. Ana bashtaghal fi madrassa, I would’ve said. I worked there as a mudarissa, a teacher. Madrassa and mudarissa were two of the first words to drop into my growing Arabic vocabulary. After all, I’d traveled all the way to Cairo, Egypt to take a job teaching pre-K at an international school. The words were useful. For me, the word madrassa was almost empty of connotations, like escuela or école. When I first learned them, the words had no layers: Read More …