Bernadeia Johnson's High Potential as an Agent for the Overhaul That We Need in the Minneapolis Public Schools

Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson has a genuine chance to be an agent for the overhaul that we need in K-12 public education. This comes as something of a revelation to me. Readers of this blog, and of my recent opinion pieces in the Star Tribune, know that I am at once a strong supporter of the concept of centralized school districts and a ferocious critic of the way that the education establishment shortchanges K-12 students, especially those from families of poverty or dysfunction.

But I am now more optimistic than I have been for a long time. Here’s why, based on my definition of an excellent education, which is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a rich, logically sequenced liberal arts curriculum to all students:

The first item in that definition, concerning excellent teachers, is paramount. To get more excellent teachers into the classroom, we must have more flexibility in our efforts to hire such teachers, increasing their numbers in the available prospective teacher pool by considering those who have opted for nontraditional pathways such as Teach for America and alternative licensure. Once we have more talented and promising teachers in the pool, school principals keen on getting the best possible teaching talent into the classroom must be allowed to offer contracts to such teachers. Two conditions at the Minneapolis Public Schools serve as harbingers of hope on the matter of enhanced teacher quality:

First, Superintendent Johnson clearly understands the need to elevate the quality of teaching in the classrooms of the Minneapolis Public Schools. In a speech delivered in mid-May 2013, on the cusp of negotiations with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), she argued forcefully for hiring of teachers on the basis of quality, rather than seniority. She asserted that offers for new teacher hires should emanate from building principals and others acting in behalf of the school district, rather than at the behest of the union.

Second, Johnson and her human resources department head, Rick Kreyer, know that they must become ever more energized in their implementation of the very promising teacher evaluation process already in place at the Minneapolis Public Schools. These two key officials know that ineffective teachers must be jettisoned and that we need to move as rapidly as possible toward the goal of genuine pedagogical excellence. And in an atmosphere in which teachers are judged on student performance, administration of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) for math and reading will continue in grades 3-8. Likewise, the grade 10 reading and grade 11 math MCAs, though no longer required for graduation, will still be administered. This means that representatives of the MFT cannot prevail in efforts to avoid objective testing and genuine teacher accountability.

As to the second item in my definition of an excellent education, I also see hope that Superintendent Johnson understands the need for a richer liberal arts curriculum, sequenced logically throughout the K-12 experience. At one of the “Soup with the Supe” events held by the Minneapolis Public Schools during the past (2012-2013) academic year, I asked some very tough questions and made very forthright assertions concerning curricular weakness, particularly at the K-5 level. The superintendent handled those questions with good grace and conveyed to me the general sense that her own moves toward focused instruction and curriculum standardization are meant to address the problem with curriculum, and that further improvements will be forthcoming.

Buoyed by the prospects for Bernadeia Johnson becoming that most unlikely of public figures, the truly great and transformative public schools superintendent, I intend to do everything I can to support her and urge others to do the same. Too often, representatives of the MFT and those school board and state legislative representatives endorsed and supported by the union have successfully set an agenda advancing the interests of adults in the education establishment over those of students. Citizens should rally to the efforts of people in such organizations as the African American Leadership Forum, StudentsFirst, Put Kids First Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Foundation, MinnCAN, and my own New Salem Educational Initiative to encourage Bernadeia Johnson along a pathway that follows her own best instincts.

Those instincts are very sound, and with them come the prospects for Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson being an agent for educational excellence in the Minneapolis Public Schools.