Public Notions Regarding K-12 Public Education Are Very Confused--- But Take Heart Where Hope Exists

Floating in the ether of public discourse in Minneapolis at present are the notions that you care a great deal about public education and that Mayor-elect Betsy Hodges can do a great deal about the state of our K-12 schools. You don’t and she can’t.

I am extremely skeptical when I read assertions that the electorate in the recent mayoral contest was greatly concerned about public education. We have now traversed 30 years since the federal government published A Nation at Risk, which in 1983 sounded the alert as to the sorry state of education in the United States. During this time you sat in a haze of confusion as Outcome Based Education, Total Quality Management, the Profile of Learning, Minnesota State Standards, the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs), No Child Left Behind, Best Practices, and (now) Multiple Measurement Ratings System have filled the jargon-infested world of K-12 education without your taking time to investigate the exact nature of any of these. I consider any perception that now, after all of this time, you are finally getting religion on the need to educate all of our precious children an extremely dubious proposition.

What I know for sure is that you have no idea as to where the locus of change right now is in K-12 public education in Minneapolis. Most decidedly it is not in the office of the mayor. Hodges’s proposed initiatives to promote healthy prenatal experiences are worthy on their own merits, but they are only tangentially related to prospects for favorable change in the Minneapolis Public Schools.  And to the extent that you have invested heavy hope that the mayoral office can be a prime agent of change in K-12 education, your views are naïve and uninformed.

Actually, the amazingly good news is that change is taking place right before your eyes. Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson has articulated a highly promising program to attract, retain, and remunerate truly excellent teachers--- particularly at High Priority Schools (those with the highest percentages of students on free or reduced price lunch and chronically lagging academic performance). She is also moving forward with a much higher quality liberal arts curriculum, ably assisted by such first-rate talents as Mike Lynch, Director of Teaching and Learning; and Sara Paul, Associate Superintendent for School Innovation. District officials are training teachers in the delivery of this curriculum through Focused Instruction, whereby teachers throughout the Minneapolis Public Schools impart coherent skill and knowledge sets to students at each grade level.

Since a proper definition of an “excellent education” would hold that it is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a rich liberal arts curriculum in logical grade by grade sequence to all students, the approach of Johnson and her staff on the matters of teacher quality and curricular coherence are right on target.

So those among you who take umbrage at my characterization of your actual interest and understanding of public education and sincerely want to prove me wrong can do the following things:

1) Internalize the above-given definition of an excellent education focused on excellent teachers and a rich, coherent liberal arts curriculum delivered in logical sequence.

2) Understand that an excellent teacher is a professional of broad and deep knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart strong academic content to all students.

3) Go on the website of the Minneapolis Public Schools and learn all that you can about Focused Instruction and efforts to generate a quality staff to deliver a coherent curriculum.

4) Be aware that this Thursday (November 14) will bring the first all-day mediation session of officials of the Minneapolis Public Schools and representatives of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers to negotiate a new contract for the district’s teachers.

5) Become informed as to the key issues in these mediation sessions as they relate to teacher quality and the delivery of high-quality curriculum.

6) Be ready to support Superintendent Johnson and her staff as this contract becomes an issue in public forums.

Taking all of these steps toward better understanding of the truly important issues in public K-12 education would do far more than casting any ballot for mayor. They would show that you truly do care, and that you are willing to commit the time and personal effort that meaningful social change always requires.

In the meantime, pay no attention to gadflies buzzing through the ether, spraying insidious messages about the inadequacy of inner city families and the virtues of vouchers that would send prospective public school students to private schools:

Overwhelmingly, families at all economic levels love their children and respond to professionals who are genuinely working in their best interests.

Revitalized central school districts are the best-positioned to serve students at the quantity and with the quality that can define a K-12 system based on excellent teachers and a rich liberal arts curriculum.

Your hope for the future of education in the city of Minneapolis lies in what you yourself, as a matter of personal interest and effort, can do to support a visionary superintendent and encourage her to make this the permanent locus of her career.