The All-Out Effort to Revolutionize K-12 Education Via the New Salem Educational Initiative

Understand that the passion you can feel as you read the articles posted on this blog is manifested in many other ways as I exert my expanding all-out effort via the New Salem Educational Initiative to revolutionize K-12 education.


First, there is the core academic instruction provided through the New Salem Educational Initiative. That program itself has two parts. There is my superintending of the New Salem Tuesday Tutoring Program, which has now run for over 20 years. This program is attended mainly by young people who are members of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, where my friend Jerry McAfee is pastor. Then there is the seven-day-a-week small-group program that serves young people from throughout Minneapolis but concentrated heavily on the North Side; this program has run for over 10 years. Most of these students attend classes of the Minneapolis Public Schools but get most of their real education with me: After school and on weekends, I move them quickly to grade level performance in math and reading, then put them on a college track course of study. My relationships with the students and families in the small-group program are enduring; I never let go of a student once she or he has entered my universe: They study with me throughout their K-12 years, many of them having attended from their kindergarten years on up.


Second, there is the blog that you are now reading. I launched this blog site five years ago and thus far have posted 166 articles on K-12 education.


Third, in July 2014 I inaugurated a new academic journal, Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Research and Essays from Minneapolis, Minnesota. In this journal I present my seminal ideas for overhauling K-12 education--- first in Minneapolis, then throughout Minnesota, and eventually (with the Minneapolis Public Schools transformed into a model centralized school district) all across the United States. The August 2014 (Vol. I, No. 2) and September 2014 (Vol. I, No. 3) editions are especially important, respectively detailing as they do a complete grade-by-grade curriculum for Grades K-12 in the Minneapolis Schools; and the teacher training that will be necessary to impart such a curriculum.  A subscription to this academic journal is $600 annually, the funds received going to support the program of the New Salem Educational Initiative.


Fourth, in January 2015 I premiered my new television show, The K-12 Revolution, with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison. This show is another conduit for my ideas on the transformation of K-12 education. It runs every Wednesday at 6:00 PM on Minneapolis Telecommunications Network Channel 17.


Fifth, I speak in many forums and at many venues, including the Public Commentary time at every meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education (second Tuesday of every month during the academic year). At this latter, I go right at board members and the superintendent (now Interim Superintendent Michael Goar) with a tough message that the public schools of Minneapolis have failed students (particularly students of color and young people from challenging familial circumstances) for over 30 years--- and that the time is now to start delivering the strong knowledge-based curriculum that the students deserve, taught by thoroughly retrained teachers who themselves have been intellectually abused in lightweight teacher training programs located in departments, schools, and colleges of education.


I do most of these things by myself.


 You could help in two ways:


First >>>>>


Donate.


I have a strong group of dedicated donors who understand the importance of my mission and who have been steadfast in their support. I need more such stalwart philanthropists. What I need most is your financial backing. I put in 19-hour days, seven days a week in what is both a professional undertaking and a labor of love.  I am at present serving far too many students in what becomes a volunteer effort when no sponsor has stepped forward for a particular student:  I continue to abide by my pledge never to let a student go once she or he is enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative.


Second >>>>>


Join the revolution.


The overhaul of K-12 education constitutes the Second Stage of the Civil Rights Movement and must be conducted on the ground, with Saul Alinsky-style social activism. But this stage is much tougher, because it involves not simply passing and implementing governmental legislation but intellectually grasping the details of curriculum and teacher retraining; the literature covering disparate ideas for education change; and the need to commit ongoing time to the cause of the K-12 Revolution.


For those of you willing to donate financially or to commit your time as activists, I can be found at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church every day (coming and going at various times, depending on the nature of my activities on a particular day).  Those of you who are resourceful will find out how to contact me by cell phone or email.


Do know that there could be no better cause than the waging of the K-12 Revolution upon the foundation of my ideas and the program of the New Salem Educational Initiative.