Seemingly Disparate Candidacies of Don Samuels and Rebecca Gagnon are the Strongest For the Open At-Large Seat in the Looming School Board Election of 4 November 2014

Understand first of all that I regard Bernadeia Johnson as a potentially transformative superintendent and that supporting her Focused Instruction, High Priority Schools, and Shift initiatives is my paramount concern.


Then, set aside simplistic thinking and unseemly invective, and you’ll find that Don Samuels and Rebecca Gagnon are the strongest candidates for the two open at-large seats in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education election, looming on 4 November 2014.


Samuels is well known in Minneapolis for his city council service, erstwhile mayoral candidacy, and Hope Collaborative focused on education change. He has the support of those contributing to the Minneapolis Progressive Education Fund, which has received a boatload of money (over $200,000 worth) from former New York mayor and Republican iconoclast Michael Bloomberg and other fat cats. The funds have been garnered by and from those who advocate for abolishing existing teacher tenure rules, charter school options, effective teacher evaluation, merit pay, and the administration of standardized tests as the key measure of accountability. These are the sorts of reform measures for which Samuels himself advocates.


Rebecca Gagnon is a very different type of education advocate. She is the incumbent for an at-large seat and has acquired deep knowledge of fiscal issues, the administrative personnel and offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools, and the numerous details undergirding the key initiatives of Focused Instruction, High Priority Schools, and Shift that make the administration of Bernadeia Johnson so promising. Gagnon has the strong backing of Education Minnesota, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party. Because of the backing of these latter entities she is suspected of being under the sway of education establishment types aligned with the DFL, and therefore standing as an impediment to following through on the measures pushed by the education reform crowd.


Also running for the at-large seats are Iris Altamirano and Ira Jourdain. Altamirano has the same sort of backing from those pouring money into the Minneapolis Progressive Education Fund as does Samuels. Curiously, though, Altamirano also is endorsed by DFL and education establishment types of the kind backing Gagnon. Altamirano stresses early childhood education, multilingual competency, accountability for principals and teachers, and communication among education professionals, families, students, and all stakeholders in the delivery of K-12 education.


Jourdain is a very involved parent of MPS students and a human services worker in the Division of Indian Work. He shows some knowledge of MPS programs such as the Lucy Laney “Co-Teaching” model and the International Baccalaureate program at Edison High School.


The District 5 school board race is the only other contested race in Minneapolis; the candidates are Nelson Inz and Jay Larson. Larson is a highly engaged parent of MPS students at Nokomis Community Schools. Inz is a teacher at Great River Montessori High School in St. Paul but has coached at Folwell Middle School in Minneapolis and has children attending MPS schools. Of these two candidates, Inz has the greater range of experiences in education, but his strong link to DFL politicians backed by Education Minnesota make him suspect as an advocate for education change. His candidacy is not touted by those contributing to the Minneapolis Progressive Education Fund


Here I should remind readers that I advocate many of the same changes stressed by those contributing to the Progressive Education Fund: abolishing existing teacher tenure rules, effective teacher evaluation, merit pay, and measurable student performance via standardized testing. But I differ with most of the education change crowd as to the efficacy of charter schools, emphasizing instead the importance of revolutionizing (rather than reforming) the locally centralized school district. This is where I become passionate in support of Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson, who with full and adroit implementation of Focused Instruction, effective programming at High Priority Schools, and the “Shift” to funding of programs directly affecting students could transform the Minneapolis Public Schools into a national and even international model for K-12 education.


I am also an activist of the Saul Alinsky type. I show up and speak forcefully at forums offered by teacher contract negotiations and meetings of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education, the latter at which I have in recent meetings asserted my views during the designated time for Public Comment. I have never seen Minneapolis Progressive Education Fund chair (and reformist MinnCAN chief) Daniel Sellers at these meetings, certainly not making any comments on the proceedings or policies under consideration. This lack of on-the-ground engagement is true, too, of other would-be reformers in Minnesota.


The views of Don Samuels are highly synchronous with the policies of Superintendent Johnson. He is not liked, though, by many longtime leaders in the African American community of North Minneapolis, and he does sometimes seem out of touch. I once heard him rail against hip-hop music at a meeting wherein we both gave talks. But in terms of his potential to work well with Superintendent Johnson, he is a strong candidate for the at-large seat in the looming school board election.


During one of those Public Comment moments at a recent Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education meeting, I praised especially board member Tracine Asberry for her keen questions and focus on student progress. But I also had favorable comments for board member Carla Bates and for Rebecca Gagnon. With regard to the latter, I praised her for always doing her homework and for her own sharp focus on monitoring any initiatives for their actual improvement of student performance. I then noted that she would be even more effective if she did not so often utter tired old phrases obviously whispered in her ear by Minneapolis Federation of Teachers President Lynn Nordgren, a fierce defender of the status quo.


So Samuels and Gagnon offer very different perspectives and are backed by opposing actors in the arenas of politics and education reform. Samuels’s views will most often fall in seamlessly along the lines of Superintendent Johnson. But Gagnon backs the key initiatives of Focused Instruction and High Priority Schools, and she gives abundant evidence to me of a fierce dedication to the education of students of all economic and social descriptors, an intense dedication to equity.


So set aside simplistic thinking and unseemly invective. Show some nuance and the ability to cut through false oppositions. Cast those at-large votes on Tuesday, 4 November 2014, for Don Samuels and Rebecca Gagnon.


Then go to those school board meetings, up the level of your own activism, and convey to those freshly elected members in no uncertain terms that you expect them to back the potentially transformative policies of Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson for a model of education that could end many cycles of familial poverty and move us closer to the democracy that we imagine ourselves to be.