Denise Specht, Mary Cathryn Ricker, and Lynn Nordgren Manifest the Resistance to Meaningful Change That Characterizes the Education Establishment

Denise Specht, Mary Cathryn Ricker, and Lynn Nordgren manifest the resistance to meaningful change in K-12 schools that characterizes the education establishment.


Specht is the director of Education Minnesota, the state’s hybrid teachers union that affiliates both with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA). Education Minnesota is the second best funded lobbying organization in the state, behind only the National Rifle Association (NRA). During the last legislative session of 2013, this organization prevailed upon a Minnesota State Legislature controlled by the Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) Party to eliminate the necessity for students to pass the Grade 9 GRAD Writing Test and the Grade 10 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) for reading in order to graduate. As a chief financial contributor to the campaigns of DFL members, Education Minnesota is always positioned to secure the votes it needs to resist measures that raise academic standards, improve teacher quality, and offer alternative paths to teacher certification.


Specht recently argued in an opinion piece written for the Star Tribune that Education Minnesota cares about the views of the students, families, and community members served by the union’s teachers. She offered as evidence the forums that have been held around the state, at which members of the public were invited to give their views on the schools: what they like, what they dislike, and what they would like changed. She contrasted this solicitation of public opinion with the personal and corporate agendas promoted by those attending a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored event held recently in St. Paul, advancing ideas for change in K-12 education.


But in fact so-called community events staged by the teachers union are always well-controlled, and every effort is made to quash any voice of genuine dissent. Certainly, Lynn Nordgren was not interested in hearing what I had to say at the negotiations between her Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT, a school district level affiliate of Education Minnesota) and representatives of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).  I attended five of these sessions before the MFT called for mediation, which under the prevailing protocol proscribes public participation. I spoke just three times in the course of the negotiations that I attended.


At the first negotiation session of my attendance, Nordgren was at one point claiming that the MCAs (which the schools of Minneapolis are still administering this academic year of 2013-2014) are not well-matched to the skill sets designated by state standards as most important for student mastery at various grade levels.


In fact, when one goes online at the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) website and peruses, for example, the Item Sampler for the Grade 3 Math MCA, one observes items testing for skills that are exactly what a third grader needs to master: word problems involving decisions as to whether to add and subtract, items calling for “regrouping” (“carrying” or “borrowing” respectively) for addition and subtraction, tasks calling for multiplication or division, fundamental conceptualization of fractions, and tasks necessitating understanding of basic tables, charts and graphs. Similarly, the reading exercises on the Grade 3 Reading MCA Item Sampler utilize vocabulary and paragraph structures that a student at the third grade level should understand for good reading comprehension.


When I asked a fellow attendee what the procedure was for a member of the public rising to speak, he told me that there really was no such procedure, but that getting a note to one of the negotiators might secure the opportunity. I did get a note to Rick Kreyer (MPS Human Resources chief and lead negotiator for MPS), who asked for the assent of Nordgren, who responded with a cheery, “Sure.”
 
Nordgren did not seem cheery for long. When I voiced my own view about the grade and skill appropriateness of the MCAs, she was not pleased, but she gathered her social skills and approached me in the aftermath of the session as she approaches so many, to gain their goodwill. When I stood firm on my own assertions and voiced concerns about the instructional level in the schools of MPS, Nordgren took offense, and she and I had a heated exchange.


When I asked for a similar chance to speak at the second session of my attendance, I was told that public comment would henceforth be heard only informally, at breaks. Nevertheless, as I departed on that occasion, I stated that the Harvest Prep schools hire freely according to the perceived ability of the prospective teacher, calling Nordgren on her false claim that MPS does the same. On one other occasion I asked a question pertinent to the basis for hiring of teachers once positions became vacant due to resignation or leave of absence.

These questions of mine were the only three public comments made at the three negotiation sessions that I attended. And yet this limited public input was apparently too much for Nordgren, whose objection to such public participation was among the reasons that the MFT filed for mediation.


As mid-February approaches, Mary Cathryn Ricker (head of the St. Paul Teachers Federation [SPTF]) is saying that her negotiators are becoming frustrated at the refusal of those negotiating for the St. Paul Public Schools (SPPS) to consider class size reduction and the quantity of standardized testing as contract issues. The district representatives counter that these are not contract issues.


Nevertheless, Ricker says that she is considering putting a teachers strike on the basis of these issues before her membership. In making such comment, Ricker has claimed widespread support from parents and community members, estimating that 2,000 people showed up at one event in demonstration of support for the union.


Whatever the truth of the latter claim, those who truly support the overhaul of K-12 education for the benefit of our precious children should get busy organizing such large--- and larger--- congregations of supporters for an agenda of change. The changes would include greater hiring flexibility to get the best teachers in the classroom, regardless of seniority; the institution of a new curriculum that delivers broad and deep subject information across the liberal arts; and highly targeted interventions to address the severe academic deficits of the most challenged students.


Teachers unions do what they should do, inasmuch as they agitate for good wages and working conditions for teachers. But leaders and union stalwarts by definition have their own, rather than student, interests in view during contract negotiations, and in the ongoing effort to maintain the status quo.


Hence, those who know that school systems should be about serving the best interests of students must construct their own agenda for change and agitate for those changes at public forums and in an ongoing mass movement.


Those working for the overhaul of K-12 education will always support teachers of true excellence, but they will oppose public figures such as Denise Specht, Lynn Nordgren, and Mary Cathryn Ricker who maneuver to preserve the interests of a powerful political block, rather than the interests of either teachers of excellence or the students who will only be served properly when teachers of the highest caliber are the norm, rather than the exception.