Mar 31, 2015
A Trio of Powerful Experiences for the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education to Consider
Sixth Major Communication to the MPS School Board
I had a particularly powerful trio of academic sessions during Saturday- Monday, 28-30 March, the contents of which the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education should consider in an effort to gain greater appreciation for the paramount importance of a rich liberal arts curriculum (to be delivered via the conduit of Focused Instruction) and the role of the adroit teacher in tapping the abiding potential of students from challenged economic circumstances (for application to the cases of students at High Priority Schools).
First, I met with Monique Taylor-Myers (data privacy pseudonym, as with all other names to follow in this article) in our weekly three-hour odyssey into the world of knowledge. We covered a swath of history that included the rise of the Delhi sultanate in India; the impact of the West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay; the turmoil that induced major changes in Europe with the attacks of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks and Gauls; the response of Charlemagne to the changed circumstances of medieval Europe; and the high tide of feudalism that succeeded Charlemagne's death.
We then reviewed (having already read entirely) the most important concepts from the first chapter in the book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education) that I am writing, initially largely for and dedicated to Monique and her mom--- Chapter One: Economics. Having covered a mass of material in our prior reading, I called Monique's attention once again to the importance of the Federal Reserve System, the structure of the federal budget (sources of revenue [94% in taxes {personal, business, payroll}], allocations to Entitlement Programs [47% of total spending], outlays to discretionary programs such as those in the sizable military category [16% in this latter], spending for payment of interest on debt [7%], size of the debt [currently $18.5 trillion], approximate deficit [$500 billion]); and the towering contributions of the three great economic thinkers Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes.
Then we proceeded to read and discuss fully together the fifteen-page (single-spaced) Chapter Two: Political Science, covering the core ideas of Aristotle, Plato, Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and Montesquieu; major political formations (absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, liberal democratic republic, dictatorial republic, Marxist state [including comment on corruption in USSR and People's Republic of China of the original idea], fascist state [Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, and especially the Nazi version], and theocracy [with Iran as example]); the frequent mislabeling and true meaning of totalitarianism (opposite ideological versions in Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR); differences between parliamentary and congressional systems; and a detailed overview of United States government.
I kid you not. We did this.
Monique has trained with me for ten years, has imbibed my academic ethic as such students do, and at Grade 12 is functioning as a college junior.
Second, I had academic session number two with Monique's mother, Janette Taylor. Janette is the victim of both familial dysfunction and K-12 atrociousness but is herself hugely gifted of intellect. In just two academic sessions, Janette has gone from a Grade 4 math level to a level at Grade 8, and she is quickly developing a powerhouse vocabulary and enhanced reading skill.
Janette at this point has a certificate in public health care, and she walked across the stage two decades ago to receive a piece of paper dubbed "high school diploma," at Washburn High School, but she does not even have an associates degree. But we are now talking about pursuit of the bachelor's degree and her becoming my first assistant, perhaps even taking over the program when I go six feet under.
Sheer amazement; absolutely jolting.
And then there is the younger child, Monique's little sister, Ginger Taylor-Myers. Last Saturday morning, this Grade 5 student drew within five pages of finishing a thorough and careful reading of Macbeth, mastered the concepts of square root and exponential powers, and applied these to the solving of equations involving the Pythagorean Theorem.
Can you imagine the delightful swirl in my head as I drove home after these encounters? Can you imagine how deeply this engrains in me the conviction that students from challenged backgrounds are never the problem--- that all such problems reside in the academic delivery system of K-12 public education?
The Minneapolis Public Schools must do better, and I will be working ceaselessly to induce officials at the district (and, by extension, other school districts) to deliver educational excellence in the institutions that hold the future of our children--- and thus our own destiny--- in their hands.
And among others, this means you, members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. As District Member Tracine Asberry has conveyed to you, you are accountable to the citizens of Minneapolis and to the futures of our precious children.
You must do better. I know that you can, and you must.
Mar 11, 2015
We Need a New School Board, Whether That Entails an Attitudinal or Corporal Shift
After a half-year of attending every regular meeting (second Tuesday of every month) of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education, I have now come to the very definite view that we need a new school board, whether that entails a shift in attitude or composition. Current school board members either need to sharpen and shift their way of thinking about K-12 education, or we need to work to get better candidates in place for future elections.
Here is a brief presentation of the salient features associated with each of the current members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. I will move left to right, according to the district members one sees sitting upon entrance to the school board meeting room at 1250 West Broadway. At the conclusion of this article, I will discuss which of these members have the most potential to become more effective proponents of a truly excellent education.
Rebecca Gagnon
Rebecca Gagnon is an at-large member of the school board whose children attend schools in the well-heeled southwestern section of Minneapolis. She is a highly intelligent, diligent, factually informed person who is especially astute on matters of finance. She also has keen political instincts and shows herself responsive to a diversity of community interests, many divergent and at odds with one another. She is well-connected to Lynn Nordgren and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, but she has shown a capacity for independent thinking that suggests that she is not intractably tied to teacher union positions.
Despite these mostly positive characteristics, Ms. Gagnon demonstrates no consistent philosophy of education, and what can be gleaned in this regard from her voting record is not favorable. She voted to reduce health and physical education requirements at the high school level in a measure that also failed to institute a world languages requirement. She seems overly enamored with the role of contract alternative schools (to which students of the Minneapolis Public Schools go when their schools of attendance have failed them). She leans in favor of Community Partnership Schools (four proposed pseudo-charter schools [reinvention of four presently existing schools] that will be given some autonomy to pursue promising academic strategies under thematic banners such as International Baccalaureate and Fine Arts). Without questioning the academic effectiveness of such putatively college preparatory programs as AVID, Ms. Gagnon sits enamored with presentations in favor of such programs, grasping data-bound detail while failing properly to analyze the figures and cut through the rhetoric. She also errantly voted against an amendment formulated by District Member Tracine Asberry that would have added a clear school board accountability statement to a resolution countering an effort by certain members of the Minnesota Legislature to divide the Minneapolis Public Schools into six separate school districts.
Siad Ali
Siad Ali is an affable new member of the board, having taken his seat in January 2015. He represents the Somali community and a district close to the University of Minnesota, in a role that will be a fixture for many years. He replaced Mohamud Noor, who had performed the same role. Mr. Ali will be fairly effective in his role but thus far has shown little grasp of education policy or philosophy. He has been on the wrong side of all major votes taken thus far in 2015.
Carla Bates
Carla Bates is given to refreshingly pungent comments and seems to care a great deal about equity. But she operates from no compelling educational philosophy and seems overly enamored with technology as a remedy for the ills of education, failing to grasp that technology is a tool rather than a solution. She was on the wrong side of the high school credit requirement vote and the amendment to the resolution in answer to the Legislative six-district division proposal. Like Gagnon, she too blithely listened to the presentation in behalf of contract alternative schools and is too ready to accept the Community Partnership School concept before Focused Instruction (consistency of curriculum at each grade level across the school district) has been fully implemented, and without discussion as to whether Focused Instruction will prevail in the Community Partnership Schools. Ms. Bates is an at-large member of the school board who lives in Southeast Minneapolis.
Kim Ellison
Kim Ellison is a sweet, soft spoken member of the school board who had one shining moment when she spoke in favor of a world language requirement and voted against the reduction of high school credits in health, physical education, and social studies. But she too readily praises the Minneapolis Public Schools in glittering general terms and is no better philosophically grounded than the rest of the school board. She represents neighborhoods in North Minneapolis around Nellie Stone Johnson K-8 School. Ellison has ties to the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL) and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT).
Jenny Arneson
Jenny Arneson is the new chair of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. She represents neighborhoods of Northeast Minneapolis. Ms. Arneson is also tied to the DFL and the MFT. She has had little of importance to say in the half-year that I have witnessed the regular school board meetings. She has been wrong on all major votes taken thus far in 2015 but, to her credit, runs the meetings efficiently and skillfully.
Josh Reimnitz
Josh Reimnitz is in his late twenties and often appears in over his head on school board issues. He has a Teach for America background and would seem to offer reformist promise, but he has in that respect been the most disappointing member of the school board. He offers no compelling educational philosophy and is frequently on the wrong side of major votes. He did vote in favor of the Asberry amendment to the resolution offered as defense against the six-district break-up. Mr. Reimnitz represents an area that includes the Bryn Mawr neighborhood. He has potential but needs to calm down, shake off his nervousness, and get focused.
Nelson Inz
Nelson Inz is a new school board member who shows promise as an independent voice. He is a trained Montessori educator, and in that regard can be said to have the firmest educational philosophy on the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. Maria Montessori was an interesting figure, an educator with deep concern for equity, having been moved to action in behalf of tenement-dwellers in Italy. She is also fascinating for having spoken the language of so-called “Progressive” education while articulating an approach whereby children are eventually drawn to a substantive base of knowledge and skills by accessing hands-on educational materials for highly particular purposes. Inz demonstrated his independence in speaking forcefully in behalf of the notion that adults should take responsibility for important symbolic stances that affect children’s lives, and on that basis spoke against any measure that would reduce health requirement credits. Inz represents neighborhoods in South Minneapolis. He has been on the wrong side of recent votes but is a new school board member who inspires some hope for educational excellence.
Tracine Asberry
Tracine Asberry is hands-down the best member of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. She can always be counted on to ask questions that demand factual evidence for generalized statements and plans that sound good but may be as insubstantial as previous incarnations. She voted against the reduction of high school credits in certain areas and had very compelling points to make about giving all students a chance to qualify for university attendance by matching credit requirements to those of the University of Minnesota and other institutions. She was in favor of the resolution that countered the six-district proposal but sought to make a clear statement as to school board accountability to the community for results--- and accordingly offered an amendment in line with that view.
Ms. Asberry seems to operate from a viewpoint that calls for content-rich education and better teachers, but she needs to firm up her educational philosophy. With that caveat, do note that Ms. Asberry is the best that this iteration of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education has to offer. She represents an area that includes neighborhoods of South and Southwest Minneapolis.
Don Samuels
Don Samuels is the erstwhile member of the Minneapolis City Council and husband of Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) chief executive Sondra Samuels. An at-large member of the school board, Mr. Samuels lives in a neighborhood of North Minneapolis close to the junctions of West Broadway and Penn Avenue. He speaks the language of reform but lacks a driving educational philosophy. He is a proponent of charter schools and has errantly stated that Community Partnership Schools potentially represent the salvation of the Minneapolis Public Schools. Mr. Samuels did, to his credit, vote for District Member Asberry’s amendment to the resolution against the six-district break-up but otherwise has been on the wrong side of all major votes.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
All members of the current Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education must be monitored for their looming votes and urged to firm up their educational philosophies. For varying reasons, Rebecca Gagnon, Josh Reimnitz, Nelson Inz, and Don Samuels offer the most hope for transformation into advocates for policy that can actually result in an excellent education for all of our precious children. Carla Bates is a loose cannon in need of better aim. Even Tracine Asberry must firm up her educational philosophy so as to be an even more effective advocate for students and families. All of these members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education should be monitored for their looming stances and votes, as we determine whether they can transform themselves as necessary or whether we must organize to seek their ouster and replacement with better advocates for excellent education and excellent teachers.
Here is a brief presentation of the salient features associated with each of the current members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. I will move left to right, according to the district members one sees sitting upon entrance to the school board meeting room at 1250 West Broadway. At the conclusion of this article, I will discuss which of these members have the most potential to become more effective proponents of a truly excellent education.
Rebecca Gagnon
Rebecca Gagnon is an at-large member of the school board whose children attend schools in the well-heeled southwestern section of Minneapolis. She is a highly intelligent, diligent, factually informed person who is especially astute on matters of finance. She also has keen political instincts and shows herself responsive to a diversity of community interests, many divergent and at odds with one another. She is well-connected to Lynn Nordgren and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, but she has shown a capacity for independent thinking that suggests that she is not intractably tied to teacher union positions.
Despite these mostly positive characteristics, Ms. Gagnon demonstrates no consistent philosophy of education, and what can be gleaned in this regard from her voting record is not favorable. She voted to reduce health and physical education requirements at the high school level in a measure that also failed to institute a world languages requirement. She seems overly enamored with the role of contract alternative schools (to which students of the Minneapolis Public Schools go when their schools of attendance have failed them). She leans in favor of Community Partnership Schools (four proposed pseudo-charter schools [reinvention of four presently existing schools] that will be given some autonomy to pursue promising academic strategies under thematic banners such as International Baccalaureate and Fine Arts). Without questioning the academic effectiveness of such putatively college preparatory programs as AVID, Ms. Gagnon sits enamored with presentations in favor of such programs, grasping data-bound detail while failing properly to analyze the figures and cut through the rhetoric. She also errantly voted against an amendment formulated by District Member Tracine Asberry that would have added a clear school board accountability statement to a resolution countering an effort by certain members of the Minnesota Legislature to divide the Minneapolis Public Schools into six separate school districts.
Siad Ali
Siad Ali is an affable new member of the board, having taken his seat in January 2015. He represents the Somali community and a district close to the University of Minnesota, in a role that will be a fixture for many years. He replaced Mohamud Noor, who had performed the same role. Mr. Ali will be fairly effective in his role but thus far has shown little grasp of education policy or philosophy. He has been on the wrong side of all major votes taken thus far in 2015.
Carla Bates
Carla Bates is given to refreshingly pungent comments and seems to care a great deal about equity. But she operates from no compelling educational philosophy and seems overly enamored with technology as a remedy for the ills of education, failing to grasp that technology is a tool rather than a solution. She was on the wrong side of the high school credit requirement vote and the amendment to the resolution in answer to the Legislative six-district division proposal. Like Gagnon, she too blithely listened to the presentation in behalf of contract alternative schools and is too ready to accept the Community Partnership School concept before Focused Instruction (consistency of curriculum at each grade level across the school district) has been fully implemented, and without discussion as to whether Focused Instruction will prevail in the Community Partnership Schools. Ms. Bates is an at-large member of the school board who lives in Southeast Minneapolis.
Kim Ellison
Kim Ellison is a sweet, soft spoken member of the school board who had one shining moment when she spoke in favor of a world language requirement and voted against the reduction of high school credits in health, physical education, and social studies. But she too readily praises the Minneapolis Public Schools in glittering general terms and is no better philosophically grounded than the rest of the school board. She represents neighborhoods in North Minneapolis around Nellie Stone Johnson K-8 School. Ellison has ties to the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL) and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT).
Jenny Arneson
Jenny Arneson is the new chair of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. She represents neighborhoods of Northeast Minneapolis. Ms. Arneson is also tied to the DFL and the MFT. She has had little of importance to say in the half-year that I have witnessed the regular school board meetings. She has been wrong on all major votes taken thus far in 2015 but, to her credit, runs the meetings efficiently and skillfully.
Josh Reimnitz
Josh Reimnitz is in his late twenties and often appears in over his head on school board issues. He has a Teach for America background and would seem to offer reformist promise, but he has in that respect been the most disappointing member of the school board. He offers no compelling educational philosophy and is frequently on the wrong side of major votes. He did vote in favor of the Asberry amendment to the resolution offered as defense against the six-district break-up. Mr. Reimnitz represents an area that includes the Bryn Mawr neighborhood. He has potential but needs to calm down, shake off his nervousness, and get focused.
Nelson Inz
Nelson Inz is a new school board member who shows promise as an independent voice. He is a trained Montessori educator, and in that regard can be said to have the firmest educational philosophy on the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. Maria Montessori was an interesting figure, an educator with deep concern for equity, having been moved to action in behalf of tenement-dwellers in Italy. She is also fascinating for having spoken the language of so-called “Progressive” education while articulating an approach whereby children are eventually drawn to a substantive base of knowledge and skills by accessing hands-on educational materials for highly particular purposes. Inz demonstrated his independence in speaking forcefully in behalf of the notion that adults should take responsibility for important symbolic stances that affect children’s lives, and on that basis spoke against any measure that would reduce health requirement credits. Inz represents neighborhoods in South Minneapolis. He has been on the wrong side of recent votes but is a new school board member who inspires some hope for educational excellence.
Tracine Asberry
Tracine Asberry is hands-down the best member of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. She can always be counted on to ask questions that demand factual evidence for generalized statements and plans that sound good but may be as insubstantial as previous incarnations. She voted against the reduction of high school credits in certain areas and had very compelling points to make about giving all students a chance to qualify for university attendance by matching credit requirements to those of the University of Minnesota and other institutions. She was in favor of the resolution that countered the six-district proposal but sought to make a clear statement as to school board accountability to the community for results--- and accordingly offered an amendment in line with that view.
Ms. Asberry seems to operate from a viewpoint that calls for content-rich education and better teachers, but she needs to firm up her educational philosophy. With that caveat, do note that Ms. Asberry is the best that this iteration of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education has to offer. She represents an area that includes neighborhoods of South and Southwest Minneapolis.
Don Samuels
Don Samuels is the erstwhile member of the Minneapolis City Council and husband of Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) chief executive Sondra Samuels. An at-large member of the school board, Mr. Samuels lives in a neighborhood of North Minneapolis close to the junctions of West Broadway and Penn Avenue. He speaks the language of reform but lacks a driving educational philosophy. He is a proponent of charter schools and has errantly stated that Community Partnership Schools potentially represent the salvation of the Minneapolis Public Schools. Mr. Samuels did, to his credit, vote for District Member Asberry’s amendment to the resolution against the six-district break-up but otherwise has been on the wrong side of all major votes.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
All members of the current Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education must be monitored for their looming votes and urged to firm up their educational philosophies. For varying reasons, Rebecca Gagnon, Josh Reimnitz, Nelson Inz, and Don Samuels offer the most hope for transformation into advocates for policy that can actually result in an excellent education for all of our precious children. Carla Bates is a loose cannon in need of better aim. Even Tracine Asberry must firm up her educational philosophy so as to be an even more effective advocate for students and families. All of these members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education should be monitored for their looming stances and votes, as we determine whether they can transform themselves as necessary or whether we must organize to seek their ouster and replacement with better advocates for excellent education and excellent teachers.
Mar 10, 2015
The Need for the Michael Goar Administration to Move Beyond Verbiage to Fulfill the Promise of Focused Instruction, High Priority Schools, and Shift
Fifth Major Communication to the MPS School Board
In the course of the past several months, decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools have articulated a viable framework for achieving educational excellence. At the behest of Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson, who abdicated her position at the end of January 2015, decision-makers identified three programs with the potential to transform the school district into a delivery system for excellent education:
1) Focused Instruction, under which a common curriculum is consistently delivered to students at the same grade level throughout the Minneapolis Public Schools;
2) High Priority Schools, under which schools wherein student skills in math and reading have lagged for years gain flexibility in hiring and retention of teachers who flourish in such challenging situations and get the resources they need to succeed; and
3) Shift, under which human and material resources are moved toward students and those who work most closely with them, with particular emphasis given to students at High Priority Schools; there is an implication of transfer of resources from the central bureaucracy and from schools where students face fewer economic and academic challenges.
Also touted by school district officials is a 2020 Plan that seeks to put these programs to work for better outcomes by the designated year; an Office of Black Male of Achievement; and Community Partnership Schools (through which the school district aims to adapt the charter school model in four currently existing schools designated to receive exemptions from certain mandates in exchange for meeting academic goals).
I am on record as strongly supporting the three key programs given numerically above. But at a certain point, even those programs become mere verbiage if not given greater definitional clarity and specificity as to what means will be employed for achieving the generally stated objectives. And until the three key programs are defined and implemented in a clear and forceful manner, the 2020 Plan will be a mere exercise in setting goals; the Office of Black Male Achievement will be just another bureaucratic imposition; and Community Partnership Schools will constitute mere hope for better outcomes, before desired results have been precisely identified.
What is necessary at this point, therefore, is a clear and confident articulation by Superintendent Michael Goar and his staff as to the specific approaches that are going to be taken in realizing the promise of Focused Instruction, High Priority Schools, and Shift in delivering results.
Confidently Taking Responsibility for a Well-Articulated Plan to Achieve Educational Excellence
Interim Superintendent Goar should, then, lead his staff in the confident articulation of the exact means for attaining excellent education at all sites of the Minneapolis Public Schools. Such confident articulation should include the following:
#1 >>>>> Clear definition of educational and teacher excellence for the three given purposes:
Definition of an Excellent K-12 Education
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a content-rich liberal arts curriculum (focused especially on math, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts) in grade by grade sequence to students of all demographic descriptors.
Definition of an Excellent K-12 Teacher
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge in her or his subject area, with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.
Purposes of K-12 Education
The purposes of excellent education are to provide students with knowledge and skill sets abetting a life of 1) cultural enrichment, 2) civic preparation, and 3) professional satisfaction.
#2 >>>>> Clear articulation of those principles and actions that will result in educational excellence, for the given purposes:
1) Acknowledge that existing teacher training programs are certification and degree mills with little academic merit, and that teachers (particularly at the K-5 level) will have to be thoroughly retrained;
2) State clearly that Focused Instruction will be implemented according to a strong liberal arts curriculum specified in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years, modeled on Core Knowledge, Common Core, and the curricula that can be found in the August edition (Vol. 1, No. 2) of my publication, Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota;
3) State clearly that the school district will implement its own teacher training program for producing teachers capable of delivering the strong liberal arts curriculum, with reference to the program that I detail in the September edition (Vol. 1, No. 3) of my publication, Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota;
4) Carefully place teachers in the classrooms of High Priority Schools who are capable of imparting the strong liberal arts curriculum to students at the designated sites, with the expectation that all students will achieve grade level math and reading skills;
5) Assertively address, utilizing all in-school and after-school tutoring assistance necessary, the math and reading challenges of any students, at High Priority Schools and otherwise, who continue to lag in those key skill areas;
6) Reduce the bureaucracy at 1250 West Broadway Avenue to 25% of the current staffing level, retraining those staff members who prove themselves willing and able to provide needed functions at school sites, such as tutoring of students, communication with families, and delivery of support services.
With the practical approach given above, detailed as a viable program for achieving educational excellence in accordance with the three main purposes, Interim Superintendent Goar will be able to demonstrate the kind of decisiveness necessary to instill confidence in the Minneapolis Public Schools and forestall any efforts to take over or redesign the district before programs inaugurated during the Bernadeia Johnson administration have had a chance to fulfill their considerable promise.
In the course of the past several months, decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools have articulated a viable framework for achieving educational excellence. At the behest of Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson, who abdicated her position at the end of January 2015, decision-makers identified three programs with the potential to transform the school district into a delivery system for excellent education:
1) Focused Instruction, under which a common curriculum is consistently delivered to students at the same grade level throughout the Minneapolis Public Schools;
2) High Priority Schools, under which schools wherein student skills in math and reading have lagged for years gain flexibility in hiring and retention of teachers who flourish in such challenging situations and get the resources they need to succeed; and
3) Shift, under which human and material resources are moved toward students and those who work most closely with them, with particular emphasis given to students at High Priority Schools; there is an implication of transfer of resources from the central bureaucracy and from schools where students face fewer economic and academic challenges.
Also touted by school district officials is a 2020 Plan that seeks to put these programs to work for better outcomes by the designated year; an Office of Black Male of Achievement; and Community Partnership Schools (through which the school district aims to adapt the charter school model in four currently existing schools designated to receive exemptions from certain mandates in exchange for meeting academic goals).
I am on record as strongly supporting the three key programs given numerically above. But at a certain point, even those programs become mere verbiage if not given greater definitional clarity and specificity as to what means will be employed for achieving the generally stated objectives. And until the three key programs are defined and implemented in a clear and forceful manner, the 2020 Plan will be a mere exercise in setting goals; the Office of Black Male Achievement will be just another bureaucratic imposition; and Community Partnership Schools will constitute mere hope for better outcomes, before desired results have been precisely identified.
What is necessary at this point, therefore, is a clear and confident articulation by Superintendent Michael Goar and his staff as to the specific approaches that are going to be taken in realizing the promise of Focused Instruction, High Priority Schools, and Shift in delivering results.
Confidently Taking Responsibility for a Well-Articulated Plan to Achieve Educational Excellence
Interim Superintendent Goar should, then, lead his staff in the confident articulation of the exact means for attaining excellent education at all sites of the Minneapolis Public Schools. Such confident articulation should include the following:
#1 >>>>> Clear definition of educational and teacher excellence for the three given purposes:
Definition of an Excellent K-12 Education
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a content-rich liberal arts curriculum (focused especially on math, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts) in grade by grade sequence to students of all demographic descriptors.
Definition of an Excellent K-12 Teacher
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge in her or his subject area, with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.
Purposes of K-12 Education
The purposes of excellent education are to provide students with knowledge and skill sets abetting a life of 1) cultural enrichment, 2) civic preparation, and 3) professional satisfaction.
#2 >>>>> Clear articulation of those principles and actions that will result in educational excellence, for the given purposes:
1) Acknowledge that existing teacher training programs are certification and degree mills with little academic merit, and that teachers (particularly at the K-5 level) will have to be thoroughly retrained;
2) State clearly that Focused Instruction will be implemented according to a strong liberal arts curriculum specified in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years, modeled on Core Knowledge, Common Core, and the curricula that can be found in the August edition (Vol. 1, No. 2) of my publication, Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota;
3) State clearly that the school district will implement its own teacher training program for producing teachers capable of delivering the strong liberal arts curriculum, with reference to the program that I detail in the September edition (Vol. 1, No. 3) of my publication, Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota;
4) Carefully place teachers in the classrooms of High Priority Schools who are capable of imparting the strong liberal arts curriculum to students at the designated sites, with the expectation that all students will achieve grade level math and reading skills;
5) Assertively address, utilizing all in-school and after-school tutoring assistance necessary, the math and reading challenges of any students, at High Priority Schools and otherwise, who continue to lag in those key skill areas;
6) Reduce the bureaucracy at 1250 West Broadway Avenue to 25% of the current staffing level, retraining those staff members who prove themselves willing and able to provide needed functions at school sites, such as tutoring of students, communication with families, and delivery of support services.
With the practical approach given above, detailed as a viable program for achieving educational excellence in accordance with the three main purposes, Interim Superintendent Goar will be able to demonstrate the kind of decisiveness necessary to instill confidence in the Minneapolis Public Schools and forestall any efforts to take over or redesign the district before programs inaugurated during the Bernadeia Johnson administration have had a chance to fulfill their considerable promise.
Mar 1, 2015
The Need for the Administration of the Minneapolis Public Schools To Get Leaner, Stronger, and Much Humbler
Fourth Major Communication to MPS School Board
After a half-year now of observing all school board meetings and attending numerous other gatherings sponsored by the Minneapolis Public Schools, numerous ideas and responses flow from the mental processes stimulated by what I have witnessed. If the school district were a runner trying to move quickly toward a finishing line ahead, that person would need to get much leaner, stronger, and humbler.
Getting Leaner
The bureaucracy of the Minneapolis Public Schools is bloated--- with personnel but also carrying a surfeit of ideational blubber that weighs heavily and distracts decision makers as an ongoing matter. Every department suffers from excess staff members, many of whom do little but stare at a computer most of the day or monitor schedules and keep the calendars of more highly paid staff who fancy themselves important and busy as they rush off to attend meetings that do nothing to advance the educational prospects of students.
Within the last few months, beginning in those immediately prior to the start of the 2014-2015 academic year, a new associate superintendent position was added, in addition to a kind of supra-associate superintendent position the occupant of which monitors other associate superintendents. And a position was created to head the new Office of Black Male Achievement, as decision makers opted for the sort of bureaucratic response to a very real problem that proves to be pointless as an answer and costly as a budgetary item.
There is a sluggish inefficiency that pervades the building at 1250 West Broadway that houses the Minneapolis Public Schools. Reimagined metaphorically as a runner, the school district needs to jettison excess weight, remove impediments to a clear road ahead, and get motivated for moving swiftly toward the finishing line.
Getting Stronger
Investigation of the bureaucratic bloat of the Minneapolis Public Schools exposes the fact that weight does not mean strength. The central school district carries a great deal of excess fat that saps rather than adds to vigor for the most important task--- the impartation of excellent education to all of our precious children, of all demographic descriptors. A strong runner moves swiftly and efficiently toward the line that will indicate completion of the race; the body is leanly muscular and moves without excess pumping of arms and in the absence of other distracting motions. Similarly, decision makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools should move forcefully to eliminate a high percentage of the jobs currently having merely titular impact on the real task of educating our children.
These decision makers need to take responsibility for setting policy with regard to curriculum and teacher quality and then communicate clearly and forcefully to building principals that they must implement these policies and will be held responsible for results. Building principals in turn should communicate matters of curricular content that teachers should deliver to students, rewarding teachers who deliver results and retraining those teachers who fail to deliver; in the latter case, should retraining prove insufficient to produce the desired student outcomes, the inadequate teacher should be encouraged to seek employment in a field more consonant with her or his skills and dedication.
Such an approach would establish a very different model to be followed by decision makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools. There is a great deal of verbiage that flows at school board meetings and other gatherings wherein school district policy is discussed, suggesting that there should be a move toward empowerment of those at the school building level. This sort of rhetoric may be seen in the decision to create Community Partnership Schools. These schools will follow a pseudo-charter school approach, in which management flexibility theoretically is extended in exchange for academic accountability. But the results for which accountability is to be held have been at best suggested in shadowy formulation, with only the implication that math and reading scores should rise for all students and that academic outcomes for students of color and those from challenged economic and familial circumstances should move much closer to the rising standard for all.
These latter results would be felicitous but insufficient. All students at all schools of the Minneapolis Public Schools deserve immediate, energetic attention to their academic needs. These needs most certainly do include grade level skills in math and reading but also the stores of knowledge that is their rightful inheritance as members of the human family. The key responsibility for identifying the knowledge sets that should be delivered in grade-by-grade sequence throughout the K-12 years should reside with decision makers in the central administration of the Minneapolis Public Schools. The need to impart these knowledge sets should be communicated to building principals. Building Principals and teachers should be held responsible for delivery of a well-defined, rich liberal arts curriculum including most especially knowledge from the realms of math, natural science, history, economics, literature, the fine arts, and international languages--- but also, especially from Grade 6 forward, training in technical trade skills for all students.
Implicit in this approach are the values of bureaucratic efficiency and uniform academic excellence. There would be no need to kick responsibility for curricular decision making to those at the school building level. The creation of Community Partnership Schools is not necessary and the model is undesirable. Curriculum is properly decided at the central office level; delivery is naturally the responsibility of principals and teachers at the school building level. Actors at each level should take their particular responsibility. Those actually needed to define curriculum and deliver skill and knowledge sets are limited to a few key central office staff members; and those principals, teachers, teacher’s aides, and tutors (volunteer and professional) operating within each school building.
Accordingly, central office staff at 1250 West Broadway should be dramatically reduced, those formerly occupying unneeded positions would be retrained and moved out to the school building level, and full focus should be trained on the delivery of well-defined knowledge and skill sets to students of all demographic descriptors.
With this approach emphasizing bureaucratic slimming and focus on well-defined academic goals, the promising programs initiated by Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson could realize their potential during the tenure of Interim (and probably longer-term) Superintendent Michael Goar:
1) Focused Instruction would gain better definition as a system for the delivery of rich, logically sequenced K-12 academic content.
2) High Priority Schools would gain the excellent teachers, skilled teacher’s aides, and the properly trained volunteer and professional tutors that will be necessary to lead all students through the exciting world of skill and knowledge.
3) And the Shift program would have realized its promise as an aegis under which bureaucratic bloat is reduced, with concentration of resources on students and those who interact with them right at their schools of attendance.
Becoming Humble
There is an arrogance that suffuses bureaucracies, which suffer under the conceit that those under their employ are experts and authorities, as certain job titles and descriptions would suggest. But this claim is tenuous at best. In the case of the Minneapolis Public Schools, the implicit belief is ludicrous. This is a school district that has failed its students for at least 35 years.
Anyone occupying a position in such a bureaucracy should be humble in the extreme. When one enters the new building at 1250 West Broadway (North Minneapolis), arrogance rages and an undercurrent of racism may be discerned. At the old location on East Broadway, one could sign in and secure a sticker for posting on one’s shirt, indicating the department for which one was headed for business or for seeking address of concerns. Now one engages with a security desk employee, identifies the person with whom one is assumed to have made an appointment, and an administrative assistant comes down the elevator to usher the visitor up to the relevant person with whom the appointment has been made. Those arriving more informally and in the absence of an appointment are not welcome. The attitude on the part of those in the building is that a favor is being extended to the visitor and that the presumably busy and important person with whom a meeting has been arranged is extending a favor.
In fact, most employees of the Minneapolis Public Schools are holding down unnecessary jobs. Those who occupy posts that by some stretch can be considered justifiable do their jobs at a level within the range of mediocrity. They work for leaders (or are themselves such leaders) who have not defined the meaning of an excellent education and in most cases would be dumbfounded if asked to describe an excellent education and the qualities of an excellent teacher. They all work for a school district that has failed its students for 35 years. Such people should be humble in the extreme, but even the best of a lousy lot carry themselves with a certain arrogance.
This must change. Students, parents, and all of those interested in the functioning of the Minneapolis Public Schools should be welcomed, humbly and openly. The preeminent 19th century African American leader Frederick Douglass declared at a gathering in 1882:
If the Republican Party [the party of Lincoln but in the process of reneging on the programs of Reconstruction] cannot take a demand for justice and fair play, it ought to go down. We were human beings before that party was born, and our humanity is more important than any party can be. Parties were made for people, not people for the parties.
Officials and employees at the Minneapolis Public Schools should take note. Any person in any post who does not regard herself or himself as a humble servant of the public should resign or have employment terminated: School districts were made for students and those interested in their education--- not for bureaucratic functionaries in the administrative offices of public schools that by definition exist to serve students and the public.
...............................................................................................................
After a half-year now of observing all school board meetings and attending numerous other gatherings sponsored by the Minneapolis Public Schools, numerous ideas and responses flow from the mental processes stimulated by what I have witnessed. If the school district were a runner trying to move quickly toward a finishing line ahead, that person would need to get much leaner, stronger, and humbler.
Getting Leaner
The bureaucracy of the Minneapolis Public Schools is bloated--- with personnel but also carrying a surfeit of ideational blubber that weighs heavily and distracts decision makers as an ongoing matter. Every department suffers from excess staff members, many of whom do little but stare at a computer most of the day or monitor schedules and keep the calendars of more highly paid staff who fancy themselves important and busy as they rush off to attend meetings that do nothing to advance the educational prospects of students.
Within the last few months, beginning in those immediately prior to the start of the 2014-2015 academic year, a new associate superintendent position was added, in addition to a kind of supra-associate superintendent position the occupant of which monitors other associate superintendents. And a position was created to head the new Office of Black Male Achievement, as decision makers opted for the sort of bureaucratic response to a very real problem that proves to be pointless as an answer and costly as a budgetary item.
There is a sluggish inefficiency that pervades the building at 1250 West Broadway that houses the Minneapolis Public Schools. Reimagined metaphorically as a runner, the school district needs to jettison excess weight, remove impediments to a clear road ahead, and get motivated for moving swiftly toward the finishing line.
Getting Stronger
Investigation of the bureaucratic bloat of the Minneapolis Public Schools exposes the fact that weight does not mean strength. The central school district carries a great deal of excess fat that saps rather than adds to vigor for the most important task--- the impartation of excellent education to all of our precious children, of all demographic descriptors. A strong runner moves swiftly and efficiently toward the line that will indicate completion of the race; the body is leanly muscular and moves without excess pumping of arms and in the absence of other distracting motions. Similarly, decision makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools should move forcefully to eliminate a high percentage of the jobs currently having merely titular impact on the real task of educating our children.
These decision makers need to take responsibility for setting policy with regard to curriculum and teacher quality and then communicate clearly and forcefully to building principals that they must implement these policies and will be held responsible for results. Building principals in turn should communicate matters of curricular content that teachers should deliver to students, rewarding teachers who deliver results and retraining those teachers who fail to deliver; in the latter case, should retraining prove insufficient to produce the desired student outcomes, the inadequate teacher should be encouraged to seek employment in a field more consonant with her or his skills and dedication.
Such an approach would establish a very different model to be followed by decision makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools. There is a great deal of verbiage that flows at school board meetings and other gatherings wherein school district policy is discussed, suggesting that there should be a move toward empowerment of those at the school building level. This sort of rhetoric may be seen in the decision to create Community Partnership Schools. These schools will follow a pseudo-charter school approach, in which management flexibility theoretically is extended in exchange for academic accountability. But the results for which accountability is to be held have been at best suggested in shadowy formulation, with only the implication that math and reading scores should rise for all students and that academic outcomes for students of color and those from challenged economic and familial circumstances should move much closer to the rising standard for all.
These latter results would be felicitous but insufficient. All students at all schools of the Minneapolis Public Schools deserve immediate, energetic attention to their academic needs. These needs most certainly do include grade level skills in math and reading but also the stores of knowledge that is their rightful inheritance as members of the human family. The key responsibility for identifying the knowledge sets that should be delivered in grade-by-grade sequence throughout the K-12 years should reside with decision makers in the central administration of the Minneapolis Public Schools. The need to impart these knowledge sets should be communicated to building principals. Building Principals and teachers should be held responsible for delivery of a well-defined, rich liberal arts curriculum including most especially knowledge from the realms of math, natural science, history, economics, literature, the fine arts, and international languages--- but also, especially from Grade 6 forward, training in technical trade skills for all students.
Implicit in this approach are the values of bureaucratic efficiency and uniform academic excellence. There would be no need to kick responsibility for curricular decision making to those at the school building level. The creation of Community Partnership Schools is not necessary and the model is undesirable. Curriculum is properly decided at the central office level; delivery is naturally the responsibility of principals and teachers at the school building level. Actors at each level should take their particular responsibility. Those actually needed to define curriculum and deliver skill and knowledge sets are limited to a few key central office staff members; and those principals, teachers, teacher’s aides, and tutors (volunteer and professional) operating within each school building.
Accordingly, central office staff at 1250 West Broadway should be dramatically reduced, those formerly occupying unneeded positions would be retrained and moved out to the school building level, and full focus should be trained on the delivery of well-defined knowledge and skill sets to students of all demographic descriptors.
With this approach emphasizing bureaucratic slimming and focus on well-defined academic goals, the promising programs initiated by Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson could realize their potential during the tenure of Interim (and probably longer-term) Superintendent Michael Goar:
1) Focused Instruction would gain better definition as a system for the delivery of rich, logically sequenced K-12 academic content.
2) High Priority Schools would gain the excellent teachers, skilled teacher’s aides, and the properly trained volunteer and professional tutors that will be necessary to lead all students through the exciting world of skill and knowledge.
3) And the Shift program would have realized its promise as an aegis under which bureaucratic bloat is reduced, with concentration of resources on students and those who interact with them right at their schools of attendance.
Becoming Humble
There is an arrogance that suffuses bureaucracies, which suffer under the conceit that those under their employ are experts and authorities, as certain job titles and descriptions would suggest. But this claim is tenuous at best. In the case of the Minneapolis Public Schools, the implicit belief is ludicrous. This is a school district that has failed its students for at least 35 years.
Anyone occupying a position in such a bureaucracy should be humble in the extreme. When one enters the new building at 1250 West Broadway (North Minneapolis), arrogance rages and an undercurrent of racism may be discerned. At the old location on East Broadway, one could sign in and secure a sticker for posting on one’s shirt, indicating the department for which one was headed for business or for seeking address of concerns. Now one engages with a security desk employee, identifies the person with whom one is assumed to have made an appointment, and an administrative assistant comes down the elevator to usher the visitor up to the relevant person with whom the appointment has been made. Those arriving more informally and in the absence of an appointment are not welcome. The attitude on the part of those in the building is that a favor is being extended to the visitor and that the presumably busy and important person with whom a meeting has been arranged is extending a favor.
In fact, most employees of the Minneapolis Public Schools are holding down unnecessary jobs. Those who occupy posts that by some stretch can be considered justifiable do their jobs at a level within the range of mediocrity. They work for leaders (or are themselves such leaders) who have not defined the meaning of an excellent education and in most cases would be dumbfounded if asked to describe an excellent education and the qualities of an excellent teacher. They all work for a school district that has failed its students for 35 years. Such people should be humble in the extreme, but even the best of a lousy lot carry themselves with a certain arrogance.
This must change. Students, parents, and all of those interested in the functioning of the Minneapolis Public Schools should be welcomed, humbly and openly. The preeminent 19th century African American leader Frederick Douglass declared at a gathering in 1882:
If the Republican Party [the party of Lincoln but in the process of reneging on the programs of Reconstruction] cannot take a demand for justice and fair play, it ought to go down. We were human beings before that party was born, and our humanity is more important than any party can be. Parties were made for people, not people for the parties.
Officials and employees at the Minneapolis Public Schools should take note. Any person in any post who does not regard herself or himself as a humble servant of the public should resign or have employment terminated: School districts were made for students and those interested in their education--- not for bureaucratic functionaries in the administrative offices of public schools that by definition exist to serve students and the public.
...............................................................................................................
Hence, there is an abiding need for decision makers in the offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools, and on the Board of Education, to get busy redesigning the school district to be bureaucratically leaner, academically stronger, and attitudinally much, much humbler. The public should then, in another appropriate rendering of Frederick Douglass, “exercise judgment” on their work.
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