Note to My Readers >>>>>>>
After reading this note, please scroll on down to the next two articles, intended as a tandem.
In the first article, "Inadequacy of Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 of the Minneapolis Public Schools," I discuss the lack of specificity as to the constituent elements of an excellent education--- and how to achieve educational excellence--- in the document that officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) have generated to guide policy of the school district through year 2020.
In the second article, "Envisioning a Better World, with the Minneapolis Public Schools Leading the Way," I offer a vision for educational excellence, consistent with the principles and the program of the New Salem Educational Initiative, which when embraced by officials of MPS will become a model for education imparted by a locally centralized school district. The edifices of such an overhauled source of K-12 education would become the sites of an institution wherein knowledge and ethics are so valued as to become a matter of community pride and the basis for a new community identity in Minneapolis generally and North Minneapolis specifically.
Please scroll on down to the next two articles,therefore, for an analysis of current deficiencies in the Minneapolis Public Schools and a vision for transformation of that very school district into a world-renowned center of knowledge and ethics.
Nov 30, 2015
Inadequacy of >Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020< of the Minneapolis Public Schools
A close look at Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) reveals the document’s stark deficiencies as a guide for excellence in K-12 education.
This document was approved at a September 2014 meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.
Via the program advocated in the pages of the work overseen by then Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson and Chief Executive Officer (now Interim Superintendent) Michael Goar, the public schools of Minneapolis were to advance educational excellence and equity for all students enrolled in the district.
Six high-level goals were given in the document: 1) Improved Student Outcomes; 2) Equity; 3) Family and Community Partnership; 4) Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff; 5) Stewardship; and 6) Resources for Students and Schools. Goals offered in what was termed the “big, bold spirit of the 5-8-10 plan” included the following, to be attained in the run-up to year 2020:
>>>>> 5 percent annual increase in students overall meeting or exceeding state standards in reading and math;
>>>>> 8 percent annual increase in students meeting or exceeding state standards in reading and math for MPS’s lowest performing students;
>>>>> 10 percent annual increase in the four-year graduation rate.
Officials at MPS declared that “Our targets are intentionally high to reignite a sense of urgency in the system and ensure that everyone is operating with growth mindset. Meeting these targets is absolutely possible. Under this plan, we will achieve our vision of every child graduating college and career ready.”
Toward the achievement of Goal Number One, Improved Student Outcomes, officials at MPS stress that teachers at Grades Pre-K through Grade 3 should have routines in place for development of student reading and language skills; that teachers at Grade 4 through Grade 12 and for adult learners should abet the development of such skills via guided academic conversations and “close reading”; and that teachers at Grade 6 through Grade 12 and for adult learners develop students’ math and science vocabulary and content knowledge using “literacy strategies.” Also stressed are core instruction for all categories of learners; personalized learning opportunities; readiness at key points of transition from one major age grouping to another; behavioral interventions that minimize suspensions; and the availability of ethnic studies courses in high school.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Two, Equity, officials at MPS stress the use of student data as examined and then acted upon by Professional Learning Communities of teachers at each site, problem-based learning and critical thinking; multiple pathways to graduation via dual enrollment, Post-Secondary Options (PSEO), credit recovery, community-based GED and literacy programs, and online learning; and availability of world languages. Associate Superintendents are to monitor progress toward the goal of equity and the given sub-goals; and staff at all schools are to be given proper supports, with enhanced supports at High Priority Schools and Focus Schools.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Three, Family and Community Partnership, officials at MPS stress engagement with families of students, with appropriate language translation and interpreting services, with training for teachers in communication with families, and with great effort made to provide accessible locations and flexible times for familial participation. They also stress increases in corporate support, grant funding, and volunteers--- with ongoing monitoring of community partnerships for effectiveness.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Four, Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff, officials at MPS stress the need for diversity in hiring, identification and placement of individuals particularly suited for teaching and staff roles to meet the needs of students at certain schools, and the provision of training and supports for staff in performing to expectation. There is also emphasis placed on providing leadership training and career advancement opportunities; and on implementing Quality Compensation (Q-Comp) to promote staff retention and career development.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Five, Stewardship, officials at MPS stress accountability on the part of administrators at all levels for the implementation of Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 via ongoing assessment of effectiveness and adjustment of strategies as necessary; use of the Baldrige Criteria for Education Organizations as a guide to ongoing staff training in planning, management, decision-making, and data collection and utilization; and central office adjustments to abet increased school autonomy.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Six, Resources for Students and Schools, officials at MPS stress “zero-based budgeting” to assure that funds are used where they are truly needed, with allocations prioritized for the classroom, and with attention to services pertinent to transportation, food security, instructional technology, school environment, and athletics that have a direct impact on students’ lives. All of these goals are to be attained in the context of an inclination toward school autonomy and upon the conviction that the individual site--- the school--- is the meaningful unit of change and that school staff members should have flexibility to meet the needs of their particular student population.
………………………………………….......
Stating that the school is the unit of change, with attention to the needs of particular populations, is one of those expressions that can float into the ears of people without giving offense and even seeming favorable--- but actually may be harmful, depending on those devils called details.
In reality, in the United States the locally centralized district itself must be the unit of change.
At that level, we must specify a knowledge-rich curriculum for implementation throughout the schools of MPS, for impartation by knowledgeable teachers trained by the school district itself. With the definition of an excellent education, the identification of a knowledge-rich curriculum, and the training of knowledgeable teachers accomplished, then most functions of the central bureaucracy could be moved out to the individual sites, with principals and teachers given responsibility for implementation.
With the central bureaucracy having acted meaningfully as the original unit of change, the sites will then become subsidiary units of change.
In articles to come--- and not surprising to readers of articles past--- I will analyze in considerable detail the deficiencies of Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 that is now the guiding document for the attainment of educational excellence in the Minneapolis Public Schools. For now, consider the following fundamental observations:
Remember that an excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, logically sequenced curriculum in the liberal (mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, fine arts), technological, and industrial arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the K-12 years.
And remember that an excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
Remember also that the purpose of a strong K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts is to provide maximum probability that students will graduate with the likelihood of living lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
With those succinct definitions and observations, I have provided more detail in my vision of an excellent education than officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools have given in their entire Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 document.
In the latter document, the most specific statements are those pertinent to goals for student achievement; and those identifying the school as the unit of change. But those statements seem to assume that annual increases in math and reading skills (5% annually for the general student population, 8% for previously lowest-performing students), and 10% annual increases in the four-year graduation rate; can be attained without highly specific approaches for achieving results. And MPS officials focus measurable goals on basic skills, while relying on site-based school innovation, multiple pathways, and linguistic and advanced course opportunities to forge a path to excellence.
Compare such “Hail Mary” approaches to my own approach, summarized above and detailed in articles posted on this blog focused on the meaning and purpose of excellent education; and the need for thorough training of teachers; all of whom come ill-prepared to enter the classroom by virtue of the abominable training that they get in departments, schools, and colleges of education.
We will achieve educational excellence for all of our precious children when we specify a knowledge-rich curriculum for implementation in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years. Teachers of such an information-heavy curriculum must have a much stronger knowledge base than they have now.
As I have detailed in other articles, the knowledge base of our K-5 teachers is particularly wretched and must be rectified via mandatory acquisition of a challenging Masters of Liberal Arts degree for knowledge mastery in math, natural science, history, economics, literature, English usage, and the fine arts--- with a required master’s thesis and a full year of internship served under the guidance of the best teacher available; this Masters of Liberal Arts degree must be superintended at the central school district (MPS) level, with instruction provided by professors and other experts in their fields of specialization.
Secondary (Grade 6 through Grade 12) teachers should possess an academic master’s degree (granted in legitimate disciplines, not from faculty composed of education professors) and serve the same full year of internship as given for K-5 teachers.
The level of specificity that I have provided---even in the few lines given above, and in much more detail in articles dedicated to these components of an excellent education--- is what is missing from the Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 document of MPS.
This week the three finalists for the position of Superintendent of MPS will gather on Wednesday (2 December 2015) at Webster School in Northeast Minneapolis for questions and interaction with the public; and for interviews (8:00 AM - 3:30 PM) and Public Comment (5:30 – 7:00 PM) on Thursday (3 December 2015) at the MPS central office building on West Broadway.
These finalists for the superintendent position should be asked closely what they will do to fill in the many gaps of Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 with appropriate detail and specific definitions as to what constitutes an excellent education and who may be properly identified as an excellent teacher.
This document was approved at a September 2014 meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.
Via the program advocated in the pages of the work overseen by then Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson and Chief Executive Officer (now Interim Superintendent) Michael Goar, the public schools of Minneapolis were to advance educational excellence and equity for all students enrolled in the district.
Six high-level goals were given in the document: 1) Improved Student Outcomes; 2) Equity; 3) Family and Community Partnership; 4) Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff; 5) Stewardship; and 6) Resources for Students and Schools. Goals offered in what was termed the “big, bold spirit of the 5-8-10 plan” included the following, to be attained in the run-up to year 2020:
>>>>> 5 percent annual increase in students overall meeting or exceeding state standards in reading and math;
>>>>> 8 percent annual increase in students meeting or exceeding state standards in reading and math for MPS’s lowest performing students;
>>>>> 10 percent annual increase in the four-year graduation rate.
Officials at MPS declared that “Our targets are intentionally high to reignite a sense of urgency in the system and ensure that everyone is operating with growth mindset. Meeting these targets is absolutely possible. Under this plan, we will achieve our vision of every child graduating college and career ready.”
Toward the achievement of Goal Number One, Improved Student Outcomes, officials at MPS stress that teachers at Grades Pre-K through Grade 3 should have routines in place for development of student reading and language skills; that teachers at Grade 4 through Grade 12 and for adult learners should abet the development of such skills via guided academic conversations and “close reading”; and that teachers at Grade 6 through Grade 12 and for adult learners develop students’ math and science vocabulary and content knowledge using “literacy strategies.” Also stressed are core instruction for all categories of learners; personalized learning opportunities; readiness at key points of transition from one major age grouping to another; behavioral interventions that minimize suspensions; and the availability of ethnic studies courses in high school.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Two, Equity, officials at MPS stress the use of student data as examined and then acted upon by Professional Learning Communities of teachers at each site, problem-based learning and critical thinking; multiple pathways to graduation via dual enrollment, Post-Secondary Options (PSEO), credit recovery, community-based GED and literacy programs, and online learning; and availability of world languages. Associate Superintendents are to monitor progress toward the goal of equity and the given sub-goals; and staff at all schools are to be given proper supports, with enhanced supports at High Priority Schools and Focus Schools.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Three, Family and Community Partnership, officials at MPS stress engagement with families of students, with appropriate language translation and interpreting services, with training for teachers in communication with families, and with great effort made to provide accessible locations and flexible times for familial participation. They also stress increases in corporate support, grant funding, and volunteers--- with ongoing monitoring of community partnerships for effectiveness.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Four, Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff, officials at MPS stress the need for diversity in hiring, identification and placement of individuals particularly suited for teaching and staff roles to meet the needs of students at certain schools, and the provision of training and supports for staff in performing to expectation. There is also emphasis placed on providing leadership training and career advancement opportunities; and on implementing Quality Compensation (Q-Comp) to promote staff retention and career development.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Five, Stewardship, officials at MPS stress accountability on the part of administrators at all levels for the implementation of Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 via ongoing assessment of effectiveness and adjustment of strategies as necessary; use of the Baldrige Criteria for Education Organizations as a guide to ongoing staff training in planning, management, decision-making, and data collection and utilization; and central office adjustments to abet increased school autonomy.
Toward the achievement of Goal Number Six, Resources for Students and Schools, officials at MPS stress “zero-based budgeting” to assure that funds are used where they are truly needed, with allocations prioritized for the classroom, and with attention to services pertinent to transportation, food security, instructional technology, school environment, and athletics that have a direct impact on students’ lives. All of these goals are to be attained in the context of an inclination toward school autonomy and upon the conviction that the individual site--- the school--- is the meaningful unit of change and that school staff members should have flexibility to meet the needs of their particular student population.
………………………………………….......
Stating that the school is the unit of change, with attention to the needs of particular populations, is one of those expressions that can float into the ears of people without giving offense and even seeming favorable--- but actually may be harmful, depending on those devils called details.
In reality, in the United States the locally centralized district itself must be the unit of change.
At that level, we must specify a knowledge-rich curriculum for implementation throughout the schools of MPS, for impartation by knowledgeable teachers trained by the school district itself. With the definition of an excellent education, the identification of a knowledge-rich curriculum, and the training of knowledgeable teachers accomplished, then most functions of the central bureaucracy could be moved out to the individual sites, with principals and teachers given responsibility for implementation.
With the central bureaucracy having acted meaningfully as the original unit of change, the sites will then become subsidiary units of change.
In articles to come--- and not surprising to readers of articles past--- I will analyze in considerable detail the deficiencies of Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 that is now the guiding document for the attainment of educational excellence in the Minneapolis Public Schools. For now, consider the following fundamental observations:
Remember that an excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, logically sequenced curriculum in the liberal (mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, fine arts), technological, and industrial arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the K-12 years.
And remember that an excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
Remember also that the purpose of a strong K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts is to provide maximum probability that students will graduate with the likelihood of living lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
With those succinct definitions and observations, I have provided more detail in my vision of an excellent education than officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools have given in their entire Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 document.
In the latter document, the most specific statements are those pertinent to goals for student achievement; and those identifying the school as the unit of change. But those statements seem to assume that annual increases in math and reading skills (5% annually for the general student population, 8% for previously lowest-performing students), and 10% annual increases in the four-year graduation rate; can be attained without highly specific approaches for achieving results. And MPS officials focus measurable goals on basic skills, while relying on site-based school innovation, multiple pathways, and linguistic and advanced course opportunities to forge a path to excellence.
Compare such “Hail Mary” approaches to my own approach, summarized above and detailed in articles posted on this blog focused on the meaning and purpose of excellent education; and the need for thorough training of teachers; all of whom come ill-prepared to enter the classroom by virtue of the abominable training that they get in departments, schools, and colleges of education.
We will achieve educational excellence for all of our precious children when we specify a knowledge-rich curriculum for implementation in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years. Teachers of such an information-heavy curriculum must have a much stronger knowledge base than they have now.
As I have detailed in other articles, the knowledge base of our K-5 teachers is particularly wretched and must be rectified via mandatory acquisition of a challenging Masters of Liberal Arts degree for knowledge mastery in math, natural science, history, economics, literature, English usage, and the fine arts--- with a required master’s thesis and a full year of internship served under the guidance of the best teacher available; this Masters of Liberal Arts degree must be superintended at the central school district (MPS) level, with instruction provided by professors and other experts in their fields of specialization.
Secondary (Grade 6 through Grade 12) teachers should possess an academic master’s degree (granted in legitimate disciplines, not from faculty composed of education professors) and serve the same full year of internship as given for K-5 teachers.
The level of specificity that I have provided---even in the few lines given above, and in much more detail in articles dedicated to these components of an excellent education--- is what is missing from the Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 document of MPS.
This week the three finalists for the position of Superintendent of MPS will gather on Wednesday (2 December 2015) at Webster School in Northeast Minneapolis for questions and interaction with the public; and for interviews (8:00 AM - 3:30 PM) and Public Comment (5:30 – 7:00 PM) on Thursday (3 December 2015) at the MPS central office building on West Broadway.
These finalists for the superintendent position should be asked closely what they will do to fill in the many gaps of Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 with appropriate detail and specific definitions as to what constitutes an excellent education and who may be properly identified as an excellent teacher.
Envisioning a Better World, with the Minneapolis Public Schools Leading the Way
Imagine the Minneapolis
Public Schools improving so thoroughly as to become a model urban central school district that similar organizations in other cities can utilize as reference for their own overhaul of K-12 education at the level of the central school district.
In my new book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education) focused on the subject areas of economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, English usage, fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics; I am providing the knowledge and skill set that would provide the essence of the curriculum productive of well-educated graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). Based on such a solid base of academic information and skills, graduates of MPS would possess knowledge that even our present version of university graduates in the United States would be happy to remember from courses in the given subject areas.
What I am doing in all aspects of the New Salem Educational Initiative--- including writing Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education; monthly production of the academic Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota; hosting of the television show The K-12 Revolution (every Wednesday at 6:00 PM on Channel 17, Minneapolis Telecommunications Network [MTN]); personally conducting 17 small-group college preparatory academic sessions per week in a network that includes 125 students and their family members; superintending the Tuesday Tutoring program at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church; speaking at numerous public venues (including monthly appearances during Public Comment time at the convening of the MPS Board of Education); and the posting of well over 200 articles on this blog--- is providing a vision for K-12 education and the future of North Minneapolis that encompasses what I am hoping to leave to the world when my own days on earth are numbered.
Imagine MPS extrapolating the principles of the New Salem Educational Initiative so as to design a locally centralized school system so worthy as to offer a model for the excellent liberal arts education that I am always advancing and that I am now detailing in the nearly completed book (I have finished ten out of the projected fourteen chapters).
Imagine school classrooms from the K-5 level forward that are replete with academic resources of both the venerable print and the contemporary technological sort. Hold in your consciousness an image of classroom walls and hallways filled with maps of continents, nations, and ecosystems from throughout the world; and with prints of great works of art and visual representations (paintings, photographs, and sculpture) of historical personages of great thought and accomplishment.
Consider the transformative lifetime impact on young people who fully function at grade level in mathematics and reading and then follow academically committed teachers on a journey through the exciting world of knowledge. Think about the effects on the lives of our precious young people, alive in the world of knowledge and excited by the banter of teachers who truly love them and effortlessly blend academic, comedic, and culturally attuned comments into their verbal expressions, their communications, their teaching.
Imagine schools as genuine places of knowledge acquisition that welcome students, their families, and community members to the sites and into the hallways of learning and ethics. Into these hallways would come experts from the realms of academia, business, government, social service, and theology to talk to MPS students and their families in a setting alive with the love of knowledge and ethical action--- and to engage in lively intellectual encounters with teachers capable of exchanging informed views with people of enormous information bases and great expertise.
Ethics would be an important topic for discussion in the schools of the future for MPS, with powerful conversations flowing in consideration of ethical precepts from the world's great religious traditions, applied in the context of an extensive knowledge base acquired both through dedicated academic study and active engagement with the workaday world:
Young people and their families would be invited to participate in discussions focused on the nature of the good, the beautiful, and the empathic--- for the express purpose of advancing human understanding and promoting peaceful, productive relationships among people.
Imagine beckoning rooms in our schools from the K-5 level forward that are packed with great classic and contemporary works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; performance stages; technological resource area; media center; kitchen for student use; along with conventional classrooms used for traditional purposes and as centers for discussion, lectures, and speeches.
Imagine schools from the K-5 level forward that include spaces for instruction in the vocational and technical arts, arranged for particular students upon expressed interest, so that the transmission of liberal arts knowledge would flourish alongside instruction that could include auto repair, plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, and various other vocational arts.
Minneapolis in general and North Minneapolis specifically would become much better places for our young people and their families to dwell--- very much including those who are my personal passion: those who have been mired in cyclical familial poverty for generations. Schools would become tangible expressions of the joy of knowing and understanding the great world and universe, centers of information and wisdom in the midst of a community that radiates love of knowledge, ethical conduct, human beings.
I am developing the New Salem Educational Initiative as a vanguard community, formed by the 125 students and family members in my network, with the view of educating hordes of others interested in increasing their knowledge in all manner of subjects and coming to a place where ethics and moral conduct are treated as cherished guides to human action and interaction.
A very definite component of my vision is the transformation of the image of the North Minneapolis community that I love, from the perception of a place of destitution and violence to the recognized center of advanced academic knowledge and elevated ethical conduct.
This can and must happen in the future overhaul of K-12 education at the level of the locally centralized school district, with the Minneapolis Public Schools serving as model to a world that must thrive on the basis of knowledge and ethics, rather than perishing for a lack thereof.
In my new book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education) focused on the subject areas of economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, English usage, fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics; I am providing the knowledge and skill set that would provide the essence of the curriculum productive of well-educated graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). Based on such a solid base of academic information and skills, graduates of MPS would possess knowledge that even our present version of university graduates in the United States would be happy to remember from courses in the given subject areas.
What I am doing in all aspects of the New Salem Educational Initiative--- including writing Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education; monthly production of the academic Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota; hosting of the television show The K-12 Revolution (every Wednesday at 6:00 PM on Channel 17, Minneapolis Telecommunications Network [MTN]); personally conducting 17 small-group college preparatory academic sessions per week in a network that includes 125 students and their family members; superintending the Tuesday Tutoring program at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church; speaking at numerous public venues (including monthly appearances during Public Comment time at the convening of the MPS Board of Education); and the posting of well over 200 articles on this blog--- is providing a vision for K-12 education and the future of North Minneapolis that encompasses what I am hoping to leave to the world when my own days on earth are numbered.
Imagine MPS extrapolating the principles of the New Salem Educational Initiative so as to design a locally centralized school system so worthy as to offer a model for the excellent liberal arts education that I am always advancing and that I am now detailing in the nearly completed book (I have finished ten out of the projected fourteen chapters).
Imagine school classrooms from the K-5 level forward that are replete with academic resources of both the venerable print and the contemporary technological sort. Hold in your consciousness an image of classroom walls and hallways filled with maps of continents, nations, and ecosystems from throughout the world; and with prints of great works of art and visual representations (paintings, photographs, and sculpture) of historical personages of great thought and accomplishment.
Consider the transformative lifetime impact on young people who fully function at grade level in mathematics and reading and then follow academically committed teachers on a journey through the exciting world of knowledge. Think about the effects on the lives of our precious young people, alive in the world of knowledge and excited by the banter of teachers who truly love them and effortlessly blend academic, comedic, and culturally attuned comments into their verbal expressions, their communications, their teaching.
Imagine schools as genuine places of knowledge acquisition that welcome students, their families, and community members to the sites and into the hallways of learning and ethics. Into these hallways would come experts from the realms of academia, business, government, social service, and theology to talk to MPS students and their families in a setting alive with the love of knowledge and ethical action--- and to engage in lively intellectual encounters with teachers capable of exchanging informed views with people of enormous information bases and great expertise.
Ethics would be an important topic for discussion in the schools of the future for MPS, with powerful conversations flowing in consideration of ethical precepts from the world's great religious traditions, applied in the context of an extensive knowledge base acquired both through dedicated academic study and active engagement with the workaday world:
Young people and their families would be invited to participate in discussions focused on the nature of the good, the beautiful, and the empathic--- for the express purpose of advancing human understanding and promoting peaceful, productive relationships among people.
Imagine beckoning rooms in our schools from the K-5 level forward that are packed with great classic and contemporary works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; performance stages; technological resource area; media center; kitchen for student use; along with conventional classrooms used for traditional purposes and as centers for discussion, lectures, and speeches.
Imagine schools from the K-5 level forward that include spaces for instruction in the vocational and technical arts, arranged for particular students upon expressed interest, so that the transmission of liberal arts knowledge would flourish alongside instruction that could include auto repair, plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, and various other vocational arts.
Minneapolis in general and North Minneapolis specifically would become much better places for our young people and their families to dwell--- very much including those who are my personal passion: those who have been mired in cyclical familial poverty for generations. Schools would become tangible expressions of the joy of knowing and understanding the great world and universe, centers of information and wisdom in the midst of a community that radiates love of knowledge, ethical conduct, human beings.
I am developing the New Salem Educational Initiative as a vanguard community, formed by the 125 students and family members in my network, with the view of educating hordes of others interested in increasing their knowledge in all manner of subjects and coming to a place where ethics and moral conduct are treated as cherished guides to human action and interaction.
A very definite component of my vision is the transformation of the image of the North Minneapolis community that I love, from the perception of a place of destitution and violence to the recognized center of advanced academic knowledge and elevated ethical conduct.
This can and must happen in the future overhaul of K-12 education at the level of the locally centralized school district, with the Minneapolis Public Schools serving as model to a world that must thrive on the basis of knowledge and ethics, rather than perishing for a lack thereof.
Nov 27, 2015
What We Really Need from a New Superintendent in Order to Address the Structural Impediments and Philosophical Deficiencies That Have Produced the Terrible Quality of Education at the Minneapolis Public Schools
The Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education is now considering three viable candidates for the position of Superintendent. Any one of them most likely could lead MPS competently:
Michael Goar deserves front-runner status, having graduated from Washburn High School, served as the Director of Labor Relations and Human Resources for MPS, held the position of Chief Executive Officer under Bernadeia Johnson, and functioned as Interim Superintendent since Johnson stepped down about a year ago. He brings business acumen to the position, demonstrated in his 18% staff reduction of central office staff; this was an advancement in the Shift program begun in the Johnson administration. Goar clearly cares about lifting the academic performance of children from economically challenged and frequently dysfunctional familial situations, and in attaining educational equity across racial and ethnic lines; improvements in student performance at the High Priority Schools (also a Johnson initiative) manifest that concern.
Sergio Paez brings a proven record of turning an academically terrible school district (in Holyoke, Massachusetts) around, and he has a very broad grasp of the issues pertinent to running a school district with a diverse student population in which many of the young people face linguistic and economic challenges. He has a passion for the job and a candor that impels him to say that imparting high quality public education to historically underserved populations is a matter of acknowledging the need for "Reparation."
Charles Foust is a resourceful administrator from the Houston Independent School district who is talented at reaching out to the community in which students are embedded. He insists that people do the job to which they have been assigned and that they have said that they can do. Foust has a very dynamic personality and youthful energy that strongly suggest an ability to inspire school personnel and to connect with students.
A case can be made that all of these candidates have most of the desired qualities that the members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education have identified as desirable for a superintendent. These characteristics focus on the ability to connect with the community, teachers, parents, and students; to improve the academic performance of historically underserved populations; to grasp current research relevant to the professional educator; to understand the challenges facing a large urban school district and demonstrate likelihood of effectively leading such a school district;
and to signal commitment to leading the district over a long period of time.
But no individual possessing this array of characteristics would necessarily be positioned to improve the terrible quality of education currently prevailing in the Minneapolis Public Schools. A superintendent could have all of those characteristics and still lead a school district in which graduates have no knowledge of the way in which the Federal Reserve Board of Governors controls money supply in the United States; could not tell you the difference in the psychological approaches of Sigmund Freud and B. F. Skinner; could not explain how Sunni Muslims differ from Shi'ite Muslims and which nations are dominated by one or the other of the major sectarian groups; could not demonstrate understanding of the difference between the theory of communism as postulated by Karl Marx and communism historically in practice in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People's Republic of China; and could not explain how the physics of Albert Einstein described the functioning of the universe encountered by astronauts in a way that the physics of Isaac Newton could not.
Students of the Minneapolis Public Schools are abominably ignorant as they walk across the stage at graduation to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only. And no wonder: They are taught by teachers who have themselves been abused by education professors serving at the behest of departments, schools, and colleges of education that are degree mills producing knowledge-deficient teachers ill-equipped to deliver an excellent education to students of all demographic descriptors.
For reasons detailed in many articles posted on this blog, any incoming superintendent--- whether that person's name be Goar, Paez, or Foust--- must overhaul curriculum for knowledge-intensity and logical sequence across the K-12 years; and oversee the training the teachers needed to impart such a knowledge-intensive curriculum.
Without achieving the needed overhaul of curriculum and teacher training, even a superintendent who connects with all relevant parties in the community and in the schools; or manages to raise basic math and reading skill levels of historically underserved populations; will fail to send students across the stage at graduation any better equipped for lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction than they are now.
To be successful, the new superintendent will have to oversee the overhaul of curriculum and teacher training.
Otherwise, graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools will still walk across that stage as abominably ignorant young people claiming a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only.
And any superintendent that would lead such a school district would similarly be an educator in name only.
Michael Goar deserves front-runner status, having graduated from Washburn High School, served as the Director of Labor Relations and Human Resources for MPS, held the position of Chief Executive Officer under Bernadeia Johnson, and functioned as Interim Superintendent since Johnson stepped down about a year ago. He brings business acumen to the position, demonstrated in his 18% staff reduction of central office staff; this was an advancement in the Shift program begun in the Johnson administration. Goar clearly cares about lifting the academic performance of children from economically challenged and frequently dysfunctional familial situations, and in attaining educational equity across racial and ethnic lines; improvements in student performance at the High Priority Schools (also a Johnson initiative) manifest that concern.
Sergio Paez brings a proven record of turning an academically terrible school district (in Holyoke, Massachusetts) around, and he has a very broad grasp of the issues pertinent to running a school district with a diverse student population in which many of the young people face linguistic and economic challenges. He has a passion for the job and a candor that impels him to say that imparting high quality public education to historically underserved populations is a matter of acknowledging the need for "Reparation."
Charles Foust is a resourceful administrator from the Houston Independent School district who is talented at reaching out to the community in which students are embedded. He insists that people do the job to which they have been assigned and that they have said that they can do. Foust has a very dynamic personality and youthful energy that strongly suggest an ability to inspire school personnel and to connect with students.
A case can be made that all of these candidates have most of the desired qualities that the members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education have identified as desirable for a superintendent. These characteristics focus on the ability to connect with the community, teachers, parents, and students; to improve the academic performance of historically underserved populations; to grasp current research relevant to the professional educator; to understand the challenges facing a large urban school district and demonstrate likelihood of effectively leading such a school district;
and to signal commitment to leading the district over a long period of time.
But no individual possessing this array of characteristics would necessarily be positioned to improve the terrible quality of education currently prevailing in the Minneapolis Public Schools. A superintendent could have all of those characteristics and still lead a school district in which graduates have no knowledge of the way in which the Federal Reserve Board of Governors controls money supply in the United States; could not tell you the difference in the psychological approaches of Sigmund Freud and B. F. Skinner; could not explain how Sunni Muslims differ from Shi'ite Muslims and which nations are dominated by one or the other of the major sectarian groups; could not demonstrate understanding of the difference between the theory of communism as postulated by Karl Marx and communism historically in practice in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People's Republic of China; and could not explain how the physics of Albert Einstein described the functioning of the universe encountered by astronauts in a way that the physics of Isaac Newton could not.
Students of the Minneapolis Public Schools are abominably ignorant as they walk across the stage at graduation to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only. And no wonder: They are taught by teachers who have themselves been abused by education professors serving at the behest of departments, schools, and colleges of education that are degree mills producing knowledge-deficient teachers ill-equipped to deliver an excellent education to students of all demographic descriptors.
For reasons detailed in many articles posted on this blog, any incoming superintendent--- whether that person's name be Goar, Paez, or Foust--- must overhaul curriculum for knowledge-intensity and logical sequence across the K-12 years; and oversee the training the teachers needed to impart such a knowledge-intensive curriculum.
Without achieving the needed overhaul of curriculum and teacher training, even a superintendent who connects with all relevant parties in the community and in the schools; or manages to raise basic math and reading skill levels of historically underserved populations; will fail to send students across the stage at graduation any better equipped for lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction than they are now.
To be successful, the new superintendent will have to oversee the overhaul of curriculum and teacher training.
Otherwise, graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools will still walk across that stage as abominably ignorant young people claiming a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only.
And any superintendent that would lead such a school district would similarly be an educator in name only.
Nov 24, 2015
The Terrible Burden of Personnel and School Board Members at the Minneapolis Public Schools >>>>> The Students Don't Know Much About Nothin' at All
Don't Know Much About Nothin' at All
(adaptation of [What a] Wonderful World, song written by Lou Adler, Herb Alpert, and Sam Cooke)
Don't know much about history,
don't know much geography,
don't know much about the science book,
don't know much about the French I took.
Don't know much about no Rise and Fall.
don't know much about nothin' at all---
You ain't put much in our heads,
so all we got to do is fall into bed,
gettin' pregnant in our early years,
you left us with so many haunting fears---
So just when the sun of our youth had risen,
we hit the streets and were off to prison.
That must make you feel real good,
not having educated us as you should.
just sittin' there watchin' us Rise and Fall,
we don't know how you sleep at all---
You ain't put much in our heads,
so all we got to do is fall into bed,
gettin' pregnant in our early years,
you left us with so many haunting fears---
So just when the sun of our youth had risen,
we hit the streets and were off to prison.
That must make you feel real good,
not having educated us as you should.
just sittin' and watchin' us Rise and Fall,
we don't know how you sleep at all---
We don't know how you sleep at all.
(adaptation of [What a] Wonderful World, song written by Lou Adler, Herb Alpert, and Sam Cooke)
Don't know much about history,
don't know much geography,
don't know much about the science book,
don't know much about the French I took.
Don't know much about no Rise and Fall.
don't know much about nothin' at all---
You ain't put much in our heads,
so all we got to do is fall into bed,
gettin' pregnant in our early years,
you left us with so many haunting fears---
So just when the sun of our youth had risen,
we hit the streets and were off to prison.
That must make you feel real good,
not having educated us as you should.
just sittin' there watchin' us Rise and Fall,
we don't know how you sleep at all---
You ain't put much in our heads,
so all we got to do is fall into bed,
gettin' pregnant in our early years,
you left us with so many haunting fears---
So just when the sun of our youth had risen,
we hit the streets and were off to prison.
That must make you feel real good,
not having educated us as you should.
just sittin' and watchin' us Rise and Fall,
we don't know how you sleep at all---
We don't know how you sleep at all.
Nov 20, 2015
If We Understand That Black lives Matter, Then We Will Overhaul K-12 Education
As a matter of long-term response to the challenges of people living at the urban core, we will demonstrate that we truly understand that Black Lives Matter by overhauling K-12 education.
The education establishment of the United States has never properly educated the great majority of African American people, and in the broader sense K-12 public education in this nation has never offered academic instruction of excellence to most people.
African Americans have been most victimized by the deficiencies of K-12 public education In the United States.
Consider the history:
Most African American slaves were denied access to literacy. When slavery ended in 1866 with the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and when the immediately succeeding 14th and 15th Amendments respectively acknowledged fundamental rights of citizenship and voting rights specifically, the pathway opened for African Americans to gain access to education. But Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877, whereby Democrats granted the contested votes in the very close 1876 presidential election to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for withdrawal of federal troops from the South.
This left innervated the guarantees of the Reconstruction amendments and created conditions for the rise of hate groups such as the Knights of the Golden Circle, Midnight Raiders, and Ku Klux Klan; the advent of Jim Crow; and the “separate but equal” abomination in the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Segregation, violence, and the sharecropping system sent multitudes of African Americans scrambling on a Great Northern Migration.
But in the urban North black people found restrictive housing covenants that directed them to certain parts of the city where, as in the case of African Americans settling in alongside the Jewish population of North Minneapolis, they joined other ethnic groups who also bore the burden of hateful treatment. The Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, decision of the Supreme Court formally ended segregation in 1954, and the Civil Rights victories manifested in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; in combination with fair housing and employment laws in the course of the 1960s and early 1970s; opened a pathway for African Americans positioned to grab for the middle class American Dream.
Ironically, though, many successful African American people joined whites fleeing the urban core. In North Minneapolis, after rioting on Plymouth Avenue in summer 1967, Jewish people left in droves for St. Louis Park and other suburbs; when many middle class African Americans did the same, this left behind--- as a general rule--- the poorest of the poor.
The Minneapolis Public Schools, like all American systems of K-12 public education, never had offered a superb quality of education. Now mostly white educators were at a loss to provide high-quality education to a Northside population that increasingly included very challenged populations moving in from such places as Gary, Indiana; Southside Chicago; and Kankakee, Illinois.
And that’s where we remain today.
Our locally centralized system of the Minneapolis Public Schools has never provided anything close to a decent K-12 education to African Americans living at the urban core.
The time is now for us to define that education as I have in the immediately succeeding article on this blog and many other places.
If we really believe that Black Lives Matter, then we must formulate a long-term response to the challenges of people living at the urban core by overhauling K-12 education in the Minneapolis Public Schools and across these not yet very United States.
The education establishment of the United States has never properly educated the great majority of African American people, and in the broader sense K-12 public education in this nation has never offered academic instruction of excellence to most people.
African Americans have been most victimized by the deficiencies of K-12 public education In the United States.
Consider the history:
Most African American slaves were denied access to literacy. When slavery ended in 1866 with the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and when the immediately succeeding 14th and 15th Amendments respectively acknowledged fundamental rights of citizenship and voting rights specifically, the pathway opened for African Americans to gain access to education. But Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877, whereby Democrats granted the contested votes in the very close 1876 presidential election to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for withdrawal of federal troops from the South.
This left innervated the guarantees of the Reconstruction amendments and created conditions for the rise of hate groups such as the Knights of the Golden Circle, Midnight Raiders, and Ku Klux Klan; the advent of Jim Crow; and the “separate but equal” abomination in the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Segregation, violence, and the sharecropping system sent multitudes of African Americans scrambling on a Great Northern Migration.
But in the urban North black people found restrictive housing covenants that directed them to certain parts of the city where, as in the case of African Americans settling in alongside the Jewish population of North Minneapolis, they joined other ethnic groups who also bore the burden of hateful treatment. The Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, decision of the Supreme Court formally ended segregation in 1954, and the Civil Rights victories manifested in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; in combination with fair housing and employment laws in the course of the 1960s and early 1970s; opened a pathway for African Americans positioned to grab for the middle class American Dream.
Ironically, though, many successful African American people joined whites fleeing the urban core. In North Minneapolis, after rioting on Plymouth Avenue in summer 1967, Jewish people left in droves for St. Louis Park and other suburbs; when many middle class African Americans did the same, this left behind--- as a general rule--- the poorest of the poor.
The Minneapolis Public Schools, like all American systems of K-12 public education, never had offered a superb quality of education. Now mostly white educators were at a loss to provide high-quality education to a Northside population that increasingly included very challenged populations moving in from such places as Gary, Indiana; Southside Chicago; and Kankakee, Illinois.
And that’s where we remain today.
Our locally centralized system of the Minneapolis Public Schools has never provided anything close to a decent K-12 education to African Americans living at the urban core.
The time is now for us to define that education as I have in the immediately succeeding article on this blog and many other places.
If we really believe that Black Lives Matter, then we must formulate a long-term response to the challenges of people living at the urban core by overhauling K-12 education in the Minneapolis Public Schools and across these not yet very United States.
Nov 19, 2015
The Next Step and the Next Big Question in Selecting One of the Three Finalists for Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools
On the evening of 18 November 2015, members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education selected three candidates as finalists in the search for the new Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).
The six semifinalists were interviewed this week on Monday (16 November 2015) and Tuesday (17 November 2015).
Those semifinalists included Michael Goar, who has served as Interim Superintendent since taking over for Bernadeia Johnson last January 2015; Jinger Gustafson (Associate Superintendent, Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota), Charles Foust, (Assistant Superintendent, Houston [Texas] School District), Sergio Paez (a former superintendent in Holyoke, Massachusetts), Kenneth Spells (superintendent in Alton, Illinois), and Jesse Rodriguez (Regional Superintendent, Milwaukee Public Schools).
................................................................................
I spoke with each of the candidates and in the case of those three candidates interviewed on Tuesday evening had the chance to sit down for substantial conversations.
Yesterday I made my recommendations in favor of Michael Goar, Charles Foust, and Sergio Paez, so for my reasoning scroll on down to the relevant article.
Those three were in fact the candidates chosen as finalists, with the school board members evidencing considerable agreement on the strength of Goar and Paez, and selecting Foust after further discussion of his candidacy.
The main point of my own reasoning that differed from members of the board at this stage concerned the candidate who would be fourth for consideration as the new superintendent. Although a calm and confident rather than charismatic person, Jinger Gustafson was the only candidate to mention Focused Instruction, which I see as a conduit for the full implementation of a knowledge-rich, logically sequenced, grade-by-grade curriculum of the Core Knowledge type advocated by E. D. Hirsch--- that excellence of education that would give all of our precious children the K-12 education that they must have to graduate from high school with great potential for post-secondary academic success and for lives as citizens who are culturally enriched, civically prepared, and professionally accomplished.
Members of the school board made little mention at the Wednesday, 18 November, meeting of either Gustafson or Rodriguez. They came to a fairly clear decision in favor of Foust as number three after a detailed discussion of his strengths by comparison with those of Spells. The vote for Foust as third finalist was seven (7) to two (2). I would have cast the vote for Foust but would have offered the comparison of Gustafson as my own candidate for fourth consideration.
............................................................................
Bottom line, then, the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education and I are in agreement on the three most deserving candidates for consideration as finalists for the position of Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools. The decision now comes down to the candidacies of Michael Goar, Charles Foust, and Sergio Paez.
Do scroll down to read my comments on these candidates in previous articles.
...........................................................................
What we have now is the great question, not yet posed by the members of the school board, and not broached by the candidates >>>>>
What is an excellent education?
Some member of the school board should ask that question of candidates, and they should all ask that question of themselves.
Whenever I ask people that question, including those who make their living in education or advocate for change in K-12 education, they typically start stammering and improvising awkwardly.
How amazing that we propose to rush forward rapidly toward excellence in education without ever defining what we mean by an excellent education.
Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that in many places I have been clear that
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-rich curriculum in the liberal, industrial, and technical arts in logical, grade-by-grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.
You know, too, that I have defined an excellent teacher as follows:
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
For reasons that I have also discussed in many articles, those definitions are contentious. They confront education professors and other members of an education establishment who are knowledge-averse and too often themselves knowledge-poor.
For that very reason, we may not ever get to the most important question that should be posed to any superintendent candidate who proposes to oversee the impartation of an academically excellent experience for students of all demographic descriptors.
But members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education will be very remiss if they do not ask, and the three finalists to not answer or broach, the most important question of all >>>>>
What is an excellent education?
The six semifinalists were interviewed this week on Monday (16 November 2015) and Tuesday (17 November 2015).
Those semifinalists included Michael Goar, who has served as Interim Superintendent since taking over for Bernadeia Johnson last January 2015; Jinger Gustafson (Associate Superintendent, Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota), Charles Foust, (Assistant Superintendent, Houston [Texas] School District), Sergio Paez (a former superintendent in Holyoke, Massachusetts), Kenneth Spells (superintendent in Alton, Illinois), and Jesse Rodriguez (Regional Superintendent, Milwaukee Public Schools).
................................................................................
I spoke with each of the candidates and in the case of those three candidates interviewed on Tuesday evening had the chance to sit down for substantial conversations.
Yesterday I made my recommendations in favor of Michael Goar, Charles Foust, and Sergio Paez, so for my reasoning scroll on down to the relevant article.
Those three were in fact the candidates chosen as finalists, with the school board members evidencing considerable agreement on the strength of Goar and Paez, and selecting Foust after further discussion of his candidacy.
The main point of my own reasoning that differed from members of the board at this stage concerned the candidate who would be fourth for consideration as the new superintendent. Although a calm and confident rather than charismatic person, Jinger Gustafson was the only candidate to mention Focused Instruction, which I see as a conduit for the full implementation of a knowledge-rich, logically sequenced, grade-by-grade curriculum of the Core Knowledge type advocated by E. D. Hirsch--- that excellence of education that would give all of our precious children the K-12 education that they must have to graduate from high school with great potential for post-secondary academic success and for lives as citizens who are culturally enriched, civically prepared, and professionally accomplished.
Members of the school board made little mention at the Wednesday, 18 November, meeting of either Gustafson or Rodriguez. They came to a fairly clear decision in favor of Foust as number three after a detailed discussion of his strengths by comparison with those of Spells. The vote for Foust as third finalist was seven (7) to two (2). I would have cast the vote for Foust but would have offered the comparison of Gustafson as my own candidate for fourth consideration.
............................................................................
Bottom line, then, the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education and I are in agreement on the three most deserving candidates for consideration as finalists for the position of Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools. The decision now comes down to the candidacies of Michael Goar, Charles Foust, and Sergio Paez.
Do scroll down to read my comments on these candidates in previous articles.
...........................................................................
What we have now is the great question, not yet posed by the members of the school board, and not broached by the candidates >>>>>
What is an excellent education?
Some member of the school board should ask that question of candidates, and they should all ask that question of themselves.
Whenever I ask people that question, including those who make their living in education or advocate for change in K-12 education, they typically start stammering and improvising awkwardly.
How amazing that we propose to rush forward rapidly toward excellence in education without ever defining what we mean by an excellent education.
Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that in many places I have been clear that
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-rich curriculum in the liberal, industrial, and technical arts in logical, grade-by-grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.
You know, too, that I have defined an excellent teacher as follows:
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
For reasons that I have also discussed in many articles, those definitions are contentious. They confront education professors and other members of an education establishment who are knowledge-averse and too often themselves knowledge-poor.
For that very reason, we may not ever get to the most important question that should be posed to any superintendent candidate who proposes to oversee the impartation of an academically excellent experience for students of all demographic descriptors.
But members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education will be very remiss if they do not ask, and the three finalists to not answer or broach, the most important question of all >>>>>
What is an excellent education?
Nov 18, 2015
Recommendations of Three Candidates as Finalists for Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools
On Monday, 16 November 2015, and Tuesday, 17 November 2015 of this week members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education conducted interviews with six candidates at this advanced stage in their process for selection of the new Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).
The six candidates interviewed were Michael Goar, who has served as Interim Superintendent since taking over for Bernadeia Johnson last January 2015; Jinger Gustafson (Associate Superintendent, Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota), Charles Foust, (Assistant Superintendent, Houston [Texas] School District), Sergio Paez (a former superintendent in Holyoke, Massachusetts), Kenneth Spells (superintendent in Alton, Illinois), and Jesse Rodriguez (Regional Superintendent, Milwaukee Public Schools).
.........................................................
In order, the first three candidates interviewed on Monday (16 November) were Rodriguez, Foust, and Spells. Rodriguez emphasized his experience as regional superintendent in the Southwest region of Milwaukee, where schools face challenges in serving many students on free and reduced priced lunch and others who have underperformed academically. He cited successes in improving the educational performances of these students. Among Rodriguez’s most astute comments, conveying an on-the-ground sense of problems and viable solutions were those pertinent to addressing segregation by providing high-quality education at every school, making such institutions imparters of an academic program attractive to people of all demographic descriptors; and this emphasis on focusing on a few key initiatives in striving for major change.
Foust stressed his work with some of the most academically challenged schools in Houston, by far the largest (7th in the nation) of any of those served by the candidates. Foust stressed common sense solutions to problems with logical application of data, mentioning especially aggressive tutoring in math for all students with this deficits in this vital skill, building in extra hours and ten extra days for the accomplishment of the goal; assessing test results indicating level of progress; and then making any adjustments necessary for the individual student in continuing work toward the goal of mathematics mastery. Foust’s most astute comments centered on his willingness to listen and to maintain circumspection when those professionals with responsibility for achieving positive results fall short--- but ultimately insisting that people do what they have said that they can do; and on his question to the board: “How do you know that the 2020 Strategic Plan is going to work?” School board member Tracine Asberry smiled broadly, because this is the kind of question that she is always posing. Only school board member Don Samuels made any attempt to answer the question, citing his role on the Policy Committee, which has a timetable for reaching certain benchmarks in route to achieving the goals of the 2020 Plan.
Spells emphasized his experience as Superintendent of Schools in Alton, Illinois, where he has overseen significant improvements in the graduation rate (now 86% for all students, 83% for African Americans), attendance (now 93%), African American participation in honors classes (from 7% to 24% during his tenure), and post-graduation college attendance (now 80%)--- in a school district with 66% of students on free and reduced price lunch, very similar to the corresponding percentage at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
....................................................................
In order, the other three candidates, interviewed on Tuesday (16 November),were Goar, Paez, and Gustafson.
Goar cited his success in reducing the central building bureaucracy of MPS (very soon after assuming the position of Interim Superintendent , he cut central office staff from 651 to 531, a reduction of 120 positions [18%]); and in moving the process forward for improvements of academic results at sites (High Priority Schools) where students struggle with familial poverty and below-grade-level educational performance. Goar also stressed his experience in positions with the public school systems of Boston and Memphis. And he stressed innovative approaches in opening up the educational experiences of students beyond classroom walls, creating personal pathways to graduation, achieving cultural and linguistic competency, and ensuring vital career and technical programs.
Paez emphasized his success in turning around the schools of Holyoke, Massachusetts, by taking a careful look at the data, aligning remedial action to specific student need, and using available resources to address the most vexing needs of the students themselves. Paez stressed the need aggressively to address the language-deprivation of English Language Learners, as he has done in a district with a heavily Puerto Rican contingent of students. With reference to the words of Marin Luther King, Paez asserted that getting K-12 public education right is a matter of reparations in a nation in which the check offered for cashing by African Americans (and by extension, other ill-served populations) has been returned marked, “insufficient funds.” Given a chance to ask a question, Paez asked board members if they considered the superintendent position to be vital to advancement of the goals of the Minneapolis Public Schools, to which school board member Rebecca Gagnon answered, “Yes,” and others nodded. It was a good and pointed question, implying Paez’s readiness to assume the superintendent’s role, ideally under conditions in which the school board understands the importance of the position.
Gustafson cited her status as a first-generation college student and military veteran for giving her a sense of understanding and empathy for people facing difficult situations. She mentioned her supervisory responsibilities overseeing Q-Comp and secondary curriculum as among the district-wide duties of her role in the Anoka-Hennepin school district. Gustafson referred many times to her role in addressing the lawsuit filed against that district related to bullying allegations--- and the pain that the status involved, even as students and parents remained supportive of the academic program. And she conveyed her personal qualities of consistency, calmness, and ability to listen while maintaining high academic expectations as strengths that she would bring to the role of superintendent.
......................................................................
I spoke with each of the candidates and in the case of those three candidates interviewed on Tuesday evening had the chance to sit down for substantial conversations. Based on the interviews and my conversations with the candidates,
I recommend that Michael Goar, Charles Foust, and Sergio Paez be given the opportunity for consideration as finalists in the search for Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools:
In my conversation with Michael Goar in the aftermath of his interview, he addressed my concerns regarding current implementation of Focused Instruction, which offers the opportunity to define a strong knowledge-intensive curriculum in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years. I was skeptical in broaching this matter with Goar but found his answers to convey a commitment to Focused Instruction, including fulfillment of the program at Community Partnership Schools given considerable autonomy in exchange for achieving results. Goar’s experience as Interim Superintendent and his achievements in the areas of the High Priority Schools and reduction of central staff (consistent with the Shift program of getting resources closest to the students themselves) continue to make him a compelling candidate.
Charles Foust conveys a tremendous sense of energy and on-the-ground sense of addressing the needs of historically underserved students. His statement regarding demanding his insistence on people doing what they were hired to do--- and said that they could do--- rang very true. His question to the board regarding the degree of certainty that the 2020 Strategic Plan would work conveyed a strong drive to match declared goals with a viable route to success. Foust spoke authoritatively and without notes to the board and compellingly reemphasized his major themes in my conversation with him.
Sergio Paez can cite an outstanding record in rescuing the Andover (Massachusetts) school district from takeover by the state, and his grasp of the obligation to redress the injustice of history via the design of high-performing systems of K-12 education is very impressive. Paez demonstrates a respect for the level of funding necessary to achieve results, but he also stresses always directing available funds toward the best possible achievement for students--- demonstrating understanding that prevailing challenges are not always a matter of money; and a thorough grasp of the financial aspects of running a central public school district. I was disappointed in the directness with which Paez answered my questions in the aftermath of his interview regarding Focused Instruction and the need for a knowledge-intensive curriculum throughout the K-12 years--- but he does have a strong sense of how to go about addressing student needs in mathematics and reading throughout those years and during life experiences prior to kindergarten; and I am confident that he would be amenable to productive discussion on matters pertinent to knowledge-intensive curriculum.
Of the other candidates, what Gustafson lacked in personal dynamism she countered with a sense of calm, confident leadership. She was the only candidate to mention Focused Instruction or, in my conversation with her, to demonstrate some knowledge of the Core Knowledge approach of E. D. Hirsch. She also posed the best question of all of the three (Foust and Paez were the others, as noted above) who posed such questions, asking, “What keeps you up at night?” School board member Siad Ali cited students whose needs were not being met, Rebecca Gagnon mentioned decisions that were made for political reasons and in consideration of adult rather than student concerns, and student representative Noah Branch mentioned those students who needed personal attention as human beings rather than exclusive focus on academics.
Despite demonstrating considerable strengths as a candidate, though, Ginger Gustafson ultimately ranks behind Michael Goar, Charles Foust, and Sergio Paez in my recommendations for the selection of finalists for the position of Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The six candidates interviewed were Michael Goar, who has served as Interim Superintendent since taking over for Bernadeia Johnson last January 2015; Jinger Gustafson (Associate Superintendent, Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota), Charles Foust, (Assistant Superintendent, Houston [Texas] School District), Sergio Paez (a former superintendent in Holyoke, Massachusetts), Kenneth Spells (superintendent in Alton, Illinois), and Jesse Rodriguez (Regional Superintendent, Milwaukee Public Schools).
.........................................................
In order, the first three candidates interviewed on Monday (16 November) were Rodriguez, Foust, and Spells. Rodriguez emphasized his experience as regional superintendent in the Southwest region of Milwaukee, where schools face challenges in serving many students on free and reduced priced lunch and others who have underperformed academically. He cited successes in improving the educational performances of these students. Among Rodriguez’s most astute comments, conveying an on-the-ground sense of problems and viable solutions were those pertinent to addressing segregation by providing high-quality education at every school, making such institutions imparters of an academic program attractive to people of all demographic descriptors; and this emphasis on focusing on a few key initiatives in striving for major change.
Foust stressed his work with some of the most academically challenged schools in Houston, by far the largest (7th in the nation) of any of those served by the candidates. Foust stressed common sense solutions to problems with logical application of data, mentioning especially aggressive tutoring in math for all students with this deficits in this vital skill, building in extra hours and ten extra days for the accomplishment of the goal; assessing test results indicating level of progress; and then making any adjustments necessary for the individual student in continuing work toward the goal of mathematics mastery. Foust’s most astute comments centered on his willingness to listen and to maintain circumspection when those professionals with responsibility for achieving positive results fall short--- but ultimately insisting that people do what they have said that they can do; and on his question to the board: “How do you know that the 2020 Strategic Plan is going to work?” School board member Tracine Asberry smiled broadly, because this is the kind of question that she is always posing. Only school board member Don Samuels made any attempt to answer the question, citing his role on the Policy Committee, which has a timetable for reaching certain benchmarks in route to achieving the goals of the 2020 Plan.
Spells emphasized his experience as Superintendent of Schools in Alton, Illinois, where he has overseen significant improvements in the graduation rate (now 86% for all students, 83% for African Americans), attendance (now 93%), African American participation in honors classes (from 7% to 24% during his tenure), and post-graduation college attendance (now 80%)--- in a school district with 66% of students on free and reduced price lunch, very similar to the corresponding percentage at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
....................................................................
In order, the other three candidates, interviewed on Tuesday (16 November),were Goar, Paez, and Gustafson.
Goar cited his success in reducing the central building bureaucracy of MPS (very soon after assuming the position of Interim Superintendent , he cut central office staff from 651 to 531, a reduction of 120 positions [18%]); and in moving the process forward for improvements of academic results at sites (High Priority Schools) where students struggle with familial poverty and below-grade-level educational performance. Goar also stressed his experience in positions with the public school systems of Boston and Memphis. And he stressed innovative approaches in opening up the educational experiences of students beyond classroom walls, creating personal pathways to graduation, achieving cultural and linguistic competency, and ensuring vital career and technical programs.
Paez emphasized his success in turning around the schools of Holyoke, Massachusetts, by taking a careful look at the data, aligning remedial action to specific student need, and using available resources to address the most vexing needs of the students themselves. Paez stressed the need aggressively to address the language-deprivation of English Language Learners, as he has done in a district with a heavily Puerto Rican contingent of students. With reference to the words of Marin Luther King, Paez asserted that getting K-12 public education right is a matter of reparations in a nation in which the check offered for cashing by African Americans (and by extension, other ill-served populations) has been returned marked, “insufficient funds.” Given a chance to ask a question, Paez asked board members if they considered the superintendent position to be vital to advancement of the goals of the Minneapolis Public Schools, to which school board member Rebecca Gagnon answered, “Yes,” and others nodded. It was a good and pointed question, implying Paez’s readiness to assume the superintendent’s role, ideally under conditions in which the school board understands the importance of the position.
Gustafson cited her status as a first-generation college student and military veteran for giving her a sense of understanding and empathy for people facing difficult situations. She mentioned her supervisory responsibilities overseeing Q-Comp and secondary curriculum as among the district-wide duties of her role in the Anoka-Hennepin school district. Gustafson referred many times to her role in addressing the lawsuit filed against that district related to bullying allegations--- and the pain that the status involved, even as students and parents remained supportive of the academic program. And she conveyed her personal qualities of consistency, calmness, and ability to listen while maintaining high academic expectations as strengths that she would bring to the role of superintendent.
......................................................................
I spoke with each of the candidates and in the case of those three candidates interviewed on Tuesday evening had the chance to sit down for substantial conversations. Based on the interviews and my conversations with the candidates,
I recommend that Michael Goar, Charles Foust, and Sergio Paez be given the opportunity for consideration as finalists in the search for Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools:
In my conversation with Michael Goar in the aftermath of his interview, he addressed my concerns regarding current implementation of Focused Instruction, which offers the opportunity to define a strong knowledge-intensive curriculum in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years. I was skeptical in broaching this matter with Goar but found his answers to convey a commitment to Focused Instruction, including fulfillment of the program at Community Partnership Schools given considerable autonomy in exchange for achieving results. Goar’s experience as Interim Superintendent and his achievements in the areas of the High Priority Schools and reduction of central staff (consistent with the Shift program of getting resources closest to the students themselves) continue to make him a compelling candidate.
Charles Foust conveys a tremendous sense of energy and on-the-ground sense of addressing the needs of historically underserved students. His statement regarding demanding his insistence on people doing what they were hired to do--- and said that they could do--- rang very true. His question to the board regarding the degree of certainty that the 2020 Strategic Plan would work conveyed a strong drive to match declared goals with a viable route to success. Foust spoke authoritatively and without notes to the board and compellingly reemphasized his major themes in my conversation with him.
Sergio Paez can cite an outstanding record in rescuing the Andover (Massachusetts) school district from takeover by the state, and his grasp of the obligation to redress the injustice of history via the design of high-performing systems of K-12 education is very impressive. Paez demonstrates a respect for the level of funding necessary to achieve results, but he also stresses always directing available funds toward the best possible achievement for students--- demonstrating understanding that prevailing challenges are not always a matter of money; and a thorough grasp of the financial aspects of running a central public school district. I was disappointed in the directness with which Paez answered my questions in the aftermath of his interview regarding Focused Instruction and the need for a knowledge-intensive curriculum throughout the K-12 years--- but he does have a strong sense of how to go about addressing student needs in mathematics and reading throughout those years and during life experiences prior to kindergarten; and I am confident that he would be amenable to productive discussion on matters pertinent to knowledge-intensive curriculum.
Of the other candidates, what Gustafson lacked in personal dynamism she countered with a sense of calm, confident leadership. She was the only candidate to mention Focused Instruction or, in my conversation with her, to demonstrate some knowledge of the Core Knowledge approach of E. D. Hirsch. She also posed the best question of all of the three (Foust and Paez were the others, as noted above) who posed such questions, asking, “What keeps you up at night?” School board member Siad Ali cited students whose needs were not being met, Rebecca Gagnon mentioned decisions that were made for political reasons and in consideration of adult rather than student concerns, and student representative Noah Branch mentioned those students who needed personal attention as human beings rather than exclusive focus on academics.
Despite demonstrating considerable strengths as a candidate, though, Ginger Gustafson ultimately ranks behind Michael Goar, Charles Foust, and Sergio Paez in my recommendations for the selection of finalists for the position of Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Nov 16, 2015
A Note to My Readers >>>>> Please Scroll on Down to Read Two Very Different, Highly Important, Articles Posted on this Day of 16 November 2015
Note to My Readers >>>>>
Please scroll on down to read two very different, highly important, articles posted on this day of 16 November 2015.
The first article, which will come up first as you scroll down, concerns the ongoing triumph of Damon Preston over life circumstances via the power of an excellent K-12 education.
The second article pertains to the interviews of candidates for Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) being conducted today and tomorrow (Monday, 16 November 2015, and Tuesday, 17 November 2015) by the members of the MPS Board of Education--- with selection of finalists for the superintendent position to follow on Wednesday, 18 November 2015.
Please scroll on down to read two very different, highly important, articles posted on this day of 16 November 2015.
The first article, which will come up first as you scroll down, concerns the ongoing triumph of Damon Preston over life circumstances via the power of an excellent K-12 education.
The second article pertains to the interviews of candidates for Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) being conducted today and tomorrow (Monday, 16 November 2015, and Tuesday, 17 November 2015) by the members of the MPS Board of Education--- with selection of finalists for the superintendent position to follow on Wednesday, 18 November 2015.
Damon Preston Continues to Offer a Particularly Impressive Case as to the Transformation of Life Prospects Via the Power of an Excellent K-12 Education
A recent recording of my television show (The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison, MTN Channel 17, Wednesdays at 6:00 PM or on YouTube at Holly for Grace) featured my work with a Grade 7 student who is from the most impoverished family with whom I've ever worked--- and my forty-plus years in inner city K-12 education have led me into the homes of the economically poorest members of our society.
Damon Preston (data privacy pseudonym) has been featured in previous articles posted on this blog for his astounding academic progress and the implicit conquest of very vexing life challenges. During the recent television recording session of reference, Damon and I proceeded to get most of the way through my chapter on Economics from my nearly completed book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, so that he was able to demonstrate just how much a Grade 7 student from exceedingly challenged circumstances can master of a high school course on economics (micro- and macro-).
In the course of the hour for recording the show, Damon and I discussed various matters pertinent to microeconomics, such as consumer influence on supply and demand; the Consumer Confidence Index; determination of wages and salaries; personal investment portfolios, including purchase of stocks and bonds, and acquisition of real estate; and tax and FICA deductions from the paychecks of wage and salary earners.
Damon and I then turned to matters of macroeconomics:
We discussed fiscal and monetary policy, so that Damon understands that the former involves the budgetary matters of expenditure and revenue while the latter concerns money supply.
Damon also understands the difference between federal deficit (annual budgetary shortfall) and debt (accumulated budgetary shortfall) and the various political disputes that swirl around such matters.
Damon fully grasps the essentials of the Federal Reserve System (including the essential functions of Federal Reserve Board led by Janet Yellen and the three ways that the Fed has of controlling money supply [establishment of reserve ratios, adjusting interest rates, and bond buying and selling]).
And Damon and I discussed the three great economic thinkers Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes, with their various degrees of faith in pure capitalism and the way in which the ideas of these thinkers still define our national debate on matters of economic policy today.
Thus, Damon now not only has received the essence of high school courses on both microeconomics and macroeconomics; he also possesses knowledge that many university graduates would do well to have rocking around in their brains.
All of you reading this blog should be very clear that what I'm up to in the overhaul of K-12 education is the provision of the only genuine route out of poverty via the democratization of the United States through the provision of an equally excellent K-12 education to all of our precious children.
Damon Preston offers a particularly impressive case of a student for whom severe poverty in the context of the United States standard of living will not be an impediment to a life of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
You have and will continue to read about many such cases in the articles that I post on this blog.
Damon Preston (data privacy pseudonym) has been featured in previous articles posted on this blog for his astounding academic progress and the implicit conquest of very vexing life challenges. During the recent television recording session of reference, Damon and I proceeded to get most of the way through my chapter on Economics from my nearly completed book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, so that he was able to demonstrate just how much a Grade 7 student from exceedingly challenged circumstances can master of a high school course on economics (micro- and macro-).
In the course of the hour for recording the show, Damon and I discussed various matters pertinent to microeconomics, such as consumer influence on supply and demand; the Consumer Confidence Index; determination of wages and salaries; personal investment portfolios, including purchase of stocks and bonds, and acquisition of real estate; and tax and FICA deductions from the paychecks of wage and salary earners.
Damon and I then turned to matters of macroeconomics:
We discussed fiscal and monetary policy, so that Damon understands that the former involves the budgetary matters of expenditure and revenue while the latter concerns money supply.
Damon also understands the difference between federal deficit (annual budgetary shortfall) and debt (accumulated budgetary shortfall) and the various political disputes that swirl around such matters.
Damon fully grasps the essentials of the Federal Reserve System (including the essential functions of Federal Reserve Board led by Janet Yellen and the three ways that the Fed has of controlling money supply [establishment of reserve ratios, adjusting interest rates, and bond buying and selling]).
And Damon and I discussed the three great economic thinkers Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes, with their various degrees of faith in pure capitalism and the way in which the ideas of these thinkers still define our national debate on matters of economic policy today.
Thus, Damon now not only has received the essence of high school courses on both microeconomics and macroeconomics; he also possesses knowledge that many university graduates would do well to have rocking around in their brains.
All of you reading this blog should be very clear that what I'm up to in the overhaul of K-12 education is the provision of the only genuine route out of poverty via the democratization of the United States through the provision of an equally excellent K-12 education to all of our precious children.
Damon Preston offers a particularly impressive case of a student for whom severe poverty in the context of the United States standard of living will not be an impediment to a life of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
You have and will continue to read about many such cases in the articles that I post on this blog.
Be Aware of Interviews This Week of Candidates for Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools
During this work week beginning Monday, 16 November, the members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education will be conducting interviews at this advanced stage in their process for selection of the new Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).
There are six candidates: Interim Superintendent Michael Goar has served in his position since taking over for Bernadeia Johnson last January. I went on record right away in making his case, asserting that most candidates have education establishment backgrounds and will typically be gone in 3-5 years anyway, so why go through all of the hullabaloo when Goar seems quite capable and willing to listen to good ideas. He has moved the process forward for improvements at the High Priority Schools and achieved the monumental success of reducing the central building bureaucracy of MPS from 651 to 531, a reduction of 120 positions that amount to a greater than 18% staff diminution. He has not continued to advance the development of Focused Instruction, so this is a disappointment that I will persist in rectifying, encouraging Goar and other decision-makers at MPS fully to develop Focused Instruction so as to establish a knowledge-intensive curriculum, well-defined grade by grade, accompanied by the necessary retraining of teachers.
Now that we have the hullabaloo that I sought to avoid, there are five other candidates:
The other candidates for Superintendent of MPS are Jinger Gustafson (Associate Superintendent, Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota), Charles Foust, (Assistant Superintendent, Houston [Texas] School District), Sergio Paez (a former superintendent in Holyoke, Massachusetts), Kenneth Spells (superintendent in Alton, Illinois), and Jesse Rodriguez (Regional Superintendent, Milwaukee Public Schools. Thus, Goar and Gustafson are the only two candidates working in Minnesota.
I'll be observing and listening carefully today and will hold off in making a final recommendation until all of the candidates have a chance to make their cases.
But, working under Bernadeia Johnson as he did, having achieved the great success in central staff reductions, understanding the importance of improvements at the High Priority Schools, and demonstrating a willingness to listen on matters of curriculum and teacher training--- make Michael Goar by far the perceptibly strongest candidate as the process for final selection begins.
Members of the MPS Board of Education will be interviewing the six candidates today and tomorrow (Monday, 16 November 2015, and Tuesday, 17 November 2015) and are scheduled to narrow the list to finalists on Wednesday, 18 November 2015.
Look for articles on my blog this week, particularly my own recommendation after listening to the interviews and considering which of the finalists is best positioned to give the students and families of the Minneapolis Public Schools the education of excellence that I have detailed many times.
There are six candidates: Interim Superintendent Michael Goar has served in his position since taking over for Bernadeia Johnson last January. I went on record right away in making his case, asserting that most candidates have education establishment backgrounds and will typically be gone in 3-5 years anyway, so why go through all of the hullabaloo when Goar seems quite capable and willing to listen to good ideas. He has moved the process forward for improvements at the High Priority Schools and achieved the monumental success of reducing the central building bureaucracy of MPS from 651 to 531, a reduction of 120 positions that amount to a greater than 18% staff diminution. He has not continued to advance the development of Focused Instruction, so this is a disappointment that I will persist in rectifying, encouraging Goar and other decision-makers at MPS fully to develop Focused Instruction so as to establish a knowledge-intensive curriculum, well-defined grade by grade, accompanied by the necessary retraining of teachers.
Now that we have the hullabaloo that I sought to avoid, there are five other candidates:
The other candidates for Superintendent of MPS are Jinger Gustafson (Associate Superintendent, Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota), Charles Foust, (Assistant Superintendent, Houston [Texas] School District), Sergio Paez (a former superintendent in Holyoke, Massachusetts), Kenneth Spells (superintendent in Alton, Illinois), and Jesse Rodriguez (Regional Superintendent, Milwaukee Public Schools. Thus, Goar and Gustafson are the only two candidates working in Minnesota.
I'll be observing and listening carefully today and will hold off in making a final recommendation until all of the candidates have a chance to make their cases.
But, working under Bernadeia Johnson as he did, having achieved the great success in central staff reductions, understanding the importance of improvements at the High Priority Schools, and demonstrating a willingness to listen on matters of curriculum and teacher training--- make Michael Goar by far the perceptibly strongest candidate as the process for final selection begins.
Members of the MPS Board of Education will be interviewing the six candidates today and tomorrow (Monday, 16 November 2015, and Tuesday, 17 November 2015) and are scheduled to narrow the list to finalists on Wednesday, 18 November 2015.
Look for articles on my blog this week, particularly my own recommendation after listening to the interviews and considering which of the finalists is best positioned to give the students and families of the Minneapolis Public Schools the education of excellence that I have detailed many times.
Nov 10, 2015
Attention Interim Superintendent Goar, Officials of the Minneapolis Public Schools, and Other Readers: Please Read the Following Seven Articles for Their Interconnected Thoughts and Common Purpose
Note to Interim Superintendent Goar, other officials of the Minneapolis Public Schools, and my other readers >>>>>>>
Please read the following seven articles for their interconnectedness of theme and purpose.
Five of these articles detail the cases of particular student participants in the New Salem Educational Initiative. These articles illustrate certain principles that undergird my program that should be extrapolated for application in the context of student academic instruction and relationships with families of students in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The other two articles emphasize the need for officials of the Minneapolis Public Schools to assume responsibility at the level of the locally centralized school district for overhauling curriculum and thoroughly retraining teachers; and the consequences for maintaining the motif of engaging in a whirlwind of talk and an appearance of action, spouting jargon that lasts for a brief moment on the stage of putative reform, then returning to the essentially static processes that have plagued public K-12 education for at least 35 years.
The spirit that suffuses these seven articles as a unit is the optimistic view that the Minneapolis Public Schools can become a model for the provision of education by the most important conduit of K-12 education in the United States >>>>> the locally centralized school district.
Please read the following seven articles for their interconnectedness of theme and purpose.
Five of these articles detail the cases of particular student participants in the New Salem Educational Initiative. These articles illustrate certain principles that undergird my program that should be extrapolated for application in the context of student academic instruction and relationships with families of students in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The other two articles emphasize the need for officials of the Minneapolis Public Schools to assume responsibility at the level of the locally centralized school district for overhauling curriculum and thoroughly retraining teachers; and the consequences for maintaining the motif of engaging in a whirlwind of talk and an appearance of action, spouting jargon that lasts for a brief moment on the stage of putative reform, then returning to the essentially static processes that have plagued public K-12 education for at least 35 years.
The spirit that suffuses these seven articles as a unit is the optimistic view that the Minneapolis Public Schools can become a model for the provision of education by the most important conduit of K-12 education in the United States >>>>> the locally centralized school district.
The Unusual Trajectory of Sofia Ruiz: The Importance of the Enduring Relationship as a Principle in the New Salem Educational Initiative
Note >>>>> The names used in this article are data privacy pseudonyms.
……………………………………
I first met Sofia and her sister Elena when the former was in Grade 5 and the latter was in Grade 4 at Nellie Stone Johnson K-8 in North Minneapolis. Sofia and Elena were standing on the steps leading to the doorway of three of their friends, siblings who were students of mine in the New Salem Educational Initiative.
These students introduced me to Sofia and Elena. I asked the two of them if they, too, would like to participate in my academic program. I thought that Sofia’s smile would light up the sky on what was otherwise an overcast day.
…………………………………………………
Mathematical competency was easy to impart to Sofia. Although not as intellectually gifted as her sister, Elena also responded with alacrity to my instruction in math. The two sisters also loved to acquire sophisticated vocabulary items, but Elena did not read much on her own, and they both spoke only Spanish at home, so progress in reading came slower. We worked together for two academic years before these two demonstrated grade-level proficiency on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) in reading.
But at about that point, when Sofia was in Grade 7, I began to consider Sofia for entry into an advanced college preparatory class, for inclusion with two other similarly talented Grade 7 students. Sofia loved to read selections that I brought to her and Elena from the What Your (Preschooler, Kindergartener, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth) Grader Needs to Know series of Core Knowledge Foundation progenitor E. D. Hirsch. And she and I would have lively discussions moving in transit to and from New Salem Missionary Baptist Church and the home where Sofia and Elena lived in North Minneapolis. Sofia loved to hear about current events and geographical settings about which she learned little in her classroom at Nellie Stone Johnson.
By the end of Sofia’s Grade 7 year (spring of 2010), I had decided I would include her, Adisa Layeni, and Monique Taylor-Myers in a highly advanced college preparatory class during their Grade 8 years (academic year 2010-2011).
.............................................................................
The notion was an inspiration and was quickly rewarding. I began training Sofia, Adisa, and Monique at what at the time seemed many years in advance for the mathematics, reading, English usage, and science reasoning parts of the ACT. We read all manner of articles: treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, the travails and triumphs of Pakistani heroine Malala Yousafzai, archaeological digs producing evidence of new hominids, the trajectory of meteorites landing on Russian soil, evidence for the causes of Alzheimer’s, the candidacies of Barack Obama and John McCain, biographical information on William Shakespeare.
Sofia, Adisa, and Monique played my daughters (Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan respectively) as I took on the role of King Lear in our annual production of a Shakespearean drama. They performed speeches by great African American leaders; Sofia presented a speech by Sojourner Truth and another by Frederick Douglass. This was high-powered academic training and the three students seemed to be thriving.
............................................................................
Unbeknownst to me, though, Sofia was actually flailing at Edison High School. I eventually found that she did not like the environment, claimed health issues that kept her out of school (even though she never missed one of our academic sessions), and had all manner of appointments that similarly interfered with her class attendance.
This for me was unknown territory. Sofia was recording off-the-charts achievements with me in a very advanced college preparatory experience on Sunday evenings but doing so poorly in school that she was not earning all of her credits.
For academic year 2011-2012, Sofia switched enrollment from Edison High School to a North Minneapolis alternative high school. I was not pleased, because alternative schools are credit mills at which students learn very little. But I knew that Sofia would continue her actual education in her studies with me on Sunday evening.
............................................................................
In the course of time, though, Monique Taylor-Myers distinguished herself from both Sofia and Adisa. Her willingness to read great amounts of material on her own, her commitment of time for taking notes on such material, in conjunction with what I knew was a superior performance in high school (first at Roosevelt and then, for Grade 10 until graduation at Fridley this past June 2015) all led me to establish a one-on-one Oxford/ Cambridge-style tutorial for Monique at a separate time of the week from our Sunday meetings.
Monique continued to train for the ACT with me, we sat in academic sessions that ran as long as four hours at a time covering a wide range of literary material and subjects across the liberal arts curriculum, and she finished with a 3.7 GPA at Fridley. She is now matriculating at St. Cloud State University on the strength of a financial aid package replete with grants and scholarships.
Adisa went through a period of lackluster school performance in Grade 9 but eventually, upon my steady encouragement, righted her course, recorded a 25 on the ACT, graduated from Henry High School, and is currently matriculating at the University of Minnesota/ Twin Cities.
Sofia, though, never came close to matching the high school performance of Adisa and Monique. Oddly, Sofia has the most driving intellectual interest of the three. I’ve always called her Mentes Grandes [Big Brains] for her sheer intellectual acumen and pure interest in knowledge and thought. With me, she comes alive and gets all kinds of things accomplished in our academic sessions together. But she has lots of work to do on her organizational skills, attention to academic endeavor in her own space, and becoming a more selective reader across an abundance of subject matter on her own time.
Sofia graduated from her alternative high school on time, as in the very different cases of Monique and Adisa. We have agreed that she will continue to train academically with me, continue to build her vocabulary and strengthen her academic reading skills, and to become more of a self-starter in her quest for knowledge at the upper levels of academic challenge.
I have discussed with Sofia the possibility of going to St. Cloud State University (SCSU) for autumn 2016 through the Connections program, which brings promising students onto campus who still need to prove that they are bona fide university students. The program allows these prospective students to live in SCSU residence halls and attend regular classes at St. Cloud while maintaining official enrollment and paying the lower rate of tuition at a community college such as Minneapolis Community and Technical College or St. Paul College.
Meanwhile, Sofia is excited about the knowledge acquisition and college readiness that she will gain by reading my Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education as she continues to work on those habits of scholarship that will allow her to thrive.
Although Sofia’s trajectory has been unusual for one of my students, the principle of the permanent relationship that has always undergirded my approach in the New Salem Educational Initiative has been and will continue to be hugely important in the case of this fascinating student.
……………………………………
I first met Sofia and her sister Elena when the former was in Grade 5 and the latter was in Grade 4 at Nellie Stone Johnson K-8 in North Minneapolis. Sofia and Elena were standing on the steps leading to the doorway of three of their friends, siblings who were students of mine in the New Salem Educational Initiative.
These students introduced me to Sofia and Elena. I asked the two of them if they, too, would like to participate in my academic program. I thought that Sofia’s smile would light up the sky on what was otherwise an overcast day.
…………………………………………………
Mathematical competency was easy to impart to Sofia. Although not as intellectually gifted as her sister, Elena also responded with alacrity to my instruction in math. The two sisters also loved to acquire sophisticated vocabulary items, but Elena did not read much on her own, and they both spoke only Spanish at home, so progress in reading came slower. We worked together for two academic years before these two demonstrated grade-level proficiency on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) in reading.
But at about that point, when Sofia was in Grade 7, I began to consider Sofia for entry into an advanced college preparatory class, for inclusion with two other similarly talented Grade 7 students. Sofia loved to read selections that I brought to her and Elena from the What Your (Preschooler, Kindergartener, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth) Grader Needs to Know series of Core Knowledge Foundation progenitor E. D. Hirsch. And she and I would have lively discussions moving in transit to and from New Salem Missionary Baptist Church and the home where Sofia and Elena lived in North Minneapolis. Sofia loved to hear about current events and geographical settings about which she learned little in her classroom at Nellie Stone Johnson.
By the end of Sofia’s Grade 7 year (spring of 2010), I had decided I would include her, Adisa Layeni, and Monique Taylor-Myers in a highly advanced college preparatory class during their Grade 8 years (academic year 2010-2011).
.............................................................................
The notion was an inspiration and was quickly rewarding. I began training Sofia, Adisa, and Monique at what at the time seemed many years in advance for the mathematics, reading, English usage, and science reasoning parts of the ACT. We read all manner of articles: treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, the travails and triumphs of Pakistani heroine Malala Yousafzai, archaeological digs producing evidence of new hominids, the trajectory of meteorites landing on Russian soil, evidence for the causes of Alzheimer’s, the candidacies of Barack Obama and John McCain, biographical information on William Shakespeare.
Sofia, Adisa, and Monique played my daughters (Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan respectively) as I took on the role of King Lear in our annual production of a Shakespearean drama. They performed speeches by great African American leaders; Sofia presented a speech by Sojourner Truth and another by Frederick Douglass. This was high-powered academic training and the three students seemed to be thriving.
............................................................................
Unbeknownst to me, though, Sofia was actually flailing at Edison High School. I eventually found that she did not like the environment, claimed health issues that kept her out of school (even though she never missed one of our academic sessions), and had all manner of appointments that similarly interfered with her class attendance.
This for me was unknown territory. Sofia was recording off-the-charts achievements with me in a very advanced college preparatory experience on Sunday evenings but doing so poorly in school that she was not earning all of her credits.
For academic year 2011-2012, Sofia switched enrollment from Edison High School to a North Minneapolis alternative high school. I was not pleased, because alternative schools are credit mills at which students learn very little. But I knew that Sofia would continue her actual education in her studies with me on Sunday evening.
............................................................................
In the course of time, though, Monique Taylor-Myers distinguished herself from both Sofia and Adisa. Her willingness to read great amounts of material on her own, her commitment of time for taking notes on such material, in conjunction with what I knew was a superior performance in high school (first at Roosevelt and then, for Grade 10 until graduation at Fridley this past June 2015) all led me to establish a one-on-one Oxford/ Cambridge-style tutorial for Monique at a separate time of the week from our Sunday meetings.
Monique continued to train for the ACT with me, we sat in academic sessions that ran as long as four hours at a time covering a wide range of literary material and subjects across the liberal arts curriculum, and she finished with a 3.7 GPA at Fridley. She is now matriculating at St. Cloud State University on the strength of a financial aid package replete with grants and scholarships.
Adisa went through a period of lackluster school performance in Grade 9 but eventually, upon my steady encouragement, righted her course, recorded a 25 on the ACT, graduated from Henry High School, and is currently matriculating at the University of Minnesota/ Twin Cities.
Sofia, though, never came close to matching the high school performance of Adisa and Monique. Oddly, Sofia has the most driving intellectual interest of the three. I’ve always called her Mentes Grandes [Big Brains] for her sheer intellectual acumen and pure interest in knowledge and thought. With me, she comes alive and gets all kinds of things accomplished in our academic sessions together. But she has lots of work to do on her organizational skills, attention to academic endeavor in her own space, and becoming a more selective reader across an abundance of subject matter on her own time.
Sofia graduated from her alternative high school on time, as in the very different cases of Monique and Adisa. We have agreed that she will continue to train academically with me, continue to build her vocabulary and strengthen her academic reading skills, and to become more of a self-starter in her quest for knowledge at the upper levels of academic challenge.
I have discussed with Sofia the possibility of going to St. Cloud State University (SCSU) for autumn 2016 through the Connections program, which brings promising students onto campus who still need to prove that they are bona fide university students. The program allows these prospective students to live in SCSU residence halls and attend regular classes at St. Cloud while maintaining official enrollment and paying the lower rate of tuition at a community college such as Minneapolis Community and Technical College or St. Paul College.
Meanwhile, Sofia is excited about the knowledge acquisition and college readiness that she will gain by reading my Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education as she continues to work on those habits of scholarship that will allow her to thrive.
Although Sofia’s trajectory has been unusual for one of my students, the principle of the permanent relationship that has always undergirded my approach in the New Salem Educational Initiative has been and will continue to be hugely important in the case of this fascinating student.
Nov 9, 2015
Moving from Impoverished Immigrant Status Toward a Life of Cultural Enrichment, Civic Preparedness, and Professional Satisfaction
Note >>>>> The names used in this article are data privacy pseudonyms.
……………………………………
Just a couple of blocks off Cedar Avenue near the junction with East Lake Street in South Minneapolis, Grade 9 student Edwardo Rosario Hernandez appeared at the front door of the duplex where he lives upstairs with his mother and her significant other. The time is 7:00 PM on a Friday evening in November 2015, so that we are following a ritual that began when Eduardo was in Grade 2.
At age eight in that second grade year, Eduardo had just returned from a year back in Mexico, from which his mother, Belinda Hernandez, had emigrated from the city of Puebla in 1998. Family exigencies impelled Belinda to return to Mexico, where Eduardo attended first grade after having begun his school years as a kindergartener at Anderson K-8 in South Minneapolis.
Eduardo always demonstrated an admirable knack for picking up colloquial English conveyed orally, but his writing and reading skills were typically ragged for a youngster who had attended first grade in Mexico and heard only Spanish at home. Math during the early years was also something of a struggle for Eduardo, who strove mightily but had a hard time in the effort to keep up with Roberto Mendez, his academic session mate for many years.
Eduardo was ever eager to escape the home front, where his mother dispensed great love and concern for him but had the habit of connecting with men whose tempers flared more vigorously than their achievements in life. Eduardo told me that on those rare occasions when I was not able to conduct our weekly meeting, he would cry for the lack of an interaction that for him was a bright spot in a life too often spent hiding in the shadows.
With practice and my provision of a rich body of children’s literature, Eduardo began to manifest the reading ability with the written word that he had always shown orally. His math ability improved, but he had a hard time during his K-5 years mastering multiplication with numbers 0-9 to the point of automaticity, unusual with my approach that enables most students in the New Salem Educational Initiative to master multiplication (conventionally a Grade 3 skill) by the end of Grade 2. But in the middle school years (grades 6-8), Eduardo did show an aptitude for abstract mathematical thought, excelling in world problems requiring a decision as to what mathematical skill to employ. And, as algebra and geometry were introduced, Eduardo revealed considerable interest and mental ingenuity in solving the pertinent problems.
.................................................................................
Now, on this November evening, Eduardo walked down the steps from his duplex and entered my car. Fellow student Roberto had a family event this week, so we conversed one-on-one. We proceeded to discuss all manner of things:
We talked about his week at Cristo Rey, where his mom sought placement and Eduardo gained acceptance upon passing entrance exams at the end of Grade 8. He is on track to attain a 3.5 GPA or better for his first semester in Grade 9 at the private Catholic school in South Minneapolis.
Eduardo confided that his mom and her significant other had been arguing a lot lately, and that this made him even more anxious to get out of the house. I gently probed for any signs of true danger but found none, as expected. Belinda loves Eduardo ferociously and is quite protective, actually maintaining strictures on Eduardo’s time spent with friends to which Eduardo accedes but feels are too rigid. So Belinda argues with her males of interest but holds her own and eventually brings matters under control. There is no danger on the home front, just more noise than the thoughtful and very rational Eduardo would prefer.
Eduardo and I also discussed how he is doing on his medication for a mild but abiding condition with depression-like symptoms. I have a decided bias against medicating for mental disturbance, preferring environmental adjustments; but in Eduardo’s case, the meds seem to be prescribed in low dosages and are carefully monitored. He vows that he feels better since taking the medication, and I must concede that he does seem to be in better spirits since undergoing counseling and getting the medications from his psychiatrist.
And Eduardo and I reviewed many of the concepts in economics that we had been studying via my new book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, which Eduardo loves and with regard to which he was very eager to proceed to the chapter on psychology.
.....................................................................................
And so we did, upon arriving at New Salem and after finishing going over some math homework. This homework involved equations that were fairly challenging, calling for a strong sense of order of operations, operations with positive and negative integers and fractions, and requiring skill in manipulation to isolate the variable for solution. Eduardo, who did by the end of Grade 6 master multiplication tables and other fundamental skills in which he had lagged but demonstrated persistence, expressed to me his gratitude for my patience in imparting these fundamentals to him, as we both noted how important they were in the algebraic manipulations that he was performing at present. And, ever the abstract thinker, Eduardo is now at the head of his class in Algebra I at Cristo Rey.
As much as Eduardo loves math, though, his real delight this evening was in learning about Sigmund Freud’s concepts of Id, Ego, and Superego; conscious, unconscious, and subconscious states of reality and behavior; and the constructs of the Oedipal and Electra complexes. He was fascinated, too, by the derivation of the names for these psychological conditions from plays in the Oedipus trilogy of Sophocles and the character of Electra from plays of that name from Euripides and Sophocles, as well as from the Oresteia trilogy of Aeschylus.
Having finished writing ten of the projected fourteen chapters of Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, I am in general waiting to give my students copies of the whole book, rather than parcel out advanced-draft chapters now. Eduardo wanted a copy of the psychology chapter, so riveted was he by my discussion of Freud’s concepts. I told Eduardo that I was so very sorry, that I would run a copy for him, but that for the day I was going to have to use one of my two copies with another student. He said he understood, then put a big smile on my face by taking a picture of the whole 16-paged (single-spaced, with an extra space in between paragraphs) chapter with his cell phone.
...........................................................................
I love all of my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative and have warm relationships with their families. Eduardo is one of those especially strong connections. The relationship that I have with him, now maintained over a seven-year period, is one of both student-to-teacher/ mentor and friend to friend. The relationship is very important to us both; for Eduardo, there is something of a life-raft quality about it in the context of his home situation, which is physically spare and at times psychologically disturbing.
So I take great satisfaction in having nurtured this young life and guided it in preparation for success at an excellent university upon graduation from high school.
There is very great likelihood that Eduardo is on course to move from the status of an impoverished immigrant, toward a life of cultural enrichment, civic preparedness, and professional satisfaction through the power of K-12 education.
……………………………………
Just a couple of blocks off Cedar Avenue near the junction with East Lake Street in South Minneapolis, Grade 9 student Edwardo Rosario Hernandez appeared at the front door of the duplex where he lives upstairs with his mother and her significant other. The time is 7:00 PM on a Friday evening in November 2015, so that we are following a ritual that began when Eduardo was in Grade 2.
At age eight in that second grade year, Eduardo had just returned from a year back in Mexico, from which his mother, Belinda Hernandez, had emigrated from the city of Puebla in 1998. Family exigencies impelled Belinda to return to Mexico, where Eduardo attended first grade after having begun his school years as a kindergartener at Anderson K-8 in South Minneapolis.
Eduardo always demonstrated an admirable knack for picking up colloquial English conveyed orally, but his writing and reading skills were typically ragged for a youngster who had attended first grade in Mexico and heard only Spanish at home. Math during the early years was also something of a struggle for Eduardo, who strove mightily but had a hard time in the effort to keep up with Roberto Mendez, his academic session mate for many years.
Eduardo was ever eager to escape the home front, where his mother dispensed great love and concern for him but had the habit of connecting with men whose tempers flared more vigorously than their achievements in life. Eduardo told me that on those rare occasions when I was not able to conduct our weekly meeting, he would cry for the lack of an interaction that for him was a bright spot in a life too often spent hiding in the shadows.
With practice and my provision of a rich body of children’s literature, Eduardo began to manifest the reading ability with the written word that he had always shown orally. His math ability improved, but he had a hard time during his K-5 years mastering multiplication with numbers 0-9 to the point of automaticity, unusual with my approach that enables most students in the New Salem Educational Initiative to master multiplication (conventionally a Grade 3 skill) by the end of Grade 2. But in the middle school years (grades 6-8), Eduardo did show an aptitude for abstract mathematical thought, excelling in world problems requiring a decision as to what mathematical skill to employ. And, as algebra and geometry were introduced, Eduardo revealed considerable interest and mental ingenuity in solving the pertinent problems.
.................................................................................
Now, on this November evening, Eduardo walked down the steps from his duplex and entered my car. Fellow student Roberto had a family event this week, so we conversed one-on-one. We proceeded to discuss all manner of things:
We talked about his week at Cristo Rey, where his mom sought placement and Eduardo gained acceptance upon passing entrance exams at the end of Grade 8. He is on track to attain a 3.5 GPA or better for his first semester in Grade 9 at the private Catholic school in South Minneapolis.
Eduardo confided that his mom and her significant other had been arguing a lot lately, and that this made him even more anxious to get out of the house. I gently probed for any signs of true danger but found none, as expected. Belinda loves Eduardo ferociously and is quite protective, actually maintaining strictures on Eduardo’s time spent with friends to which Eduardo accedes but feels are too rigid. So Belinda argues with her males of interest but holds her own and eventually brings matters under control. There is no danger on the home front, just more noise than the thoughtful and very rational Eduardo would prefer.
Eduardo and I also discussed how he is doing on his medication for a mild but abiding condition with depression-like symptoms. I have a decided bias against medicating for mental disturbance, preferring environmental adjustments; but in Eduardo’s case, the meds seem to be prescribed in low dosages and are carefully monitored. He vows that he feels better since taking the medication, and I must concede that he does seem to be in better spirits since undergoing counseling and getting the medications from his psychiatrist.
And Eduardo and I reviewed many of the concepts in economics that we had been studying via my new book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, which Eduardo loves and with regard to which he was very eager to proceed to the chapter on psychology.
.....................................................................................
And so we did, upon arriving at New Salem and after finishing going over some math homework. This homework involved equations that were fairly challenging, calling for a strong sense of order of operations, operations with positive and negative integers and fractions, and requiring skill in manipulation to isolate the variable for solution. Eduardo, who did by the end of Grade 6 master multiplication tables and other fundamental skills in which he had lagged but demonstrated persistence, expressed to me his gratitude for my patience in imparting these fundamentals to him, as we both noted how important they were in the algebraic manipulations that he was performing at present. And, ever the abstract thinker, Eduardo is now at the head of his class in Algebra I at Cristo Rey.
As much as Eduardo loves math, though, his real delight this evening was in learning about Sigmund Freud’s concepts of Id, Ego, and Superego; conscious, unconscious, and subconscious states of reality and behavior; and the constructs of the Oedipal and Electra complexes. He was fascinated, too, by the derivation of the names for these psychological conditions from plays in the Oedipus trilogy of Sophocles and the character of Electra from plays of that name from Euripides and Sophocles, as well as from the Oresteia trilogy of Aeschylus.
Having finished writing ten of the projected fourteen chapters of Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, I am in general waiting to give my students copies of the whole book, rather than parcel out advanced-draft chapters now. Eduardo wanted a copy of the psychology chapter, so riveted was he by my discussion of Freud’s concepts. I told Eduardo that I was so very sorry, that I would run a copy for him, but that for the day I was going to have to use one of my two copies with another student. He said he understood, then put a big smile on my face by taking a picture of the whole 16-paged (single-spaced, with an extra space in between paragraphs) chapter with his cell phone.
...........................................................................
I love all of my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative and have warm relationships with their families. Eduardo is one of those especially strong connections. The relationship that I have with him, now maintained over a seven-year period, is one of both student-to-teacher/ mentor and friend to friend. The relationship is very important to us both; for Eduardo, there is something of a life-raft quality about it in the context of his home situation, which is physically spare and at times psychologically disturbing.
So I take great satisfaction in having nurtured this young life and guided it in preparation for success at an excellent university upon graduation from high school.
There is very great likelihood that Eduardo is on course to move from the status of an impoverished immigrant, toward a life of cultural enrichment, civic preparedness, and professional satisfaction through the power of K-12 education.
Ending Cyclical Poverty Through the Power of Education: The Cases of Darnelle, Tyrone, and Faye on 6th Street North
Note >>>>> The names used in this article are data privacy pseudonyms.
……………………………………
Every Saturday at 9:00 AM I roll up in my 2008 Toyota Matrix (recent upgrade from my 1996 Honda Civic) to pick up Darnell Jacobsen-Myers (Grade 9, Henry High School) at the home owned by grandmother Addie May Myers on 6th Street North in Minneapolis. Darnell piles into the car, a little sleepy but otherwise in good cheer, as he has done since he was in kindergarten.
Seven young people from Darnell’s household or extended family have participated in the New Salem Educational Initiative; one is now enrolled as a student at St. Cloud State University with a generous financial aid package including several grants and scholarships. I have known Darnell since he was four years old, when Addie May and mother Jenna Myers began clamoring for me to take him to my academic sessions, as had been the case for so many others in the family.
Darnell struggled at first to adjust to the school environment at Jenny Lind K-5 School. He was the recipient of bullying, was not getting along very well with his teacher, and clearly was carrying a heavy emotional load. A switch to Bethune K-5 proved timely: Darnell liked his new teacher and had no problems with classmates.
Still, there emerged concerns, these of the academic sort. Darnell was purportedly lagging in reading according to measures emphasizing speed. Jenna expressed worry. I assured her that with me Darnell demonstrated extended vocabulary development and excellent phonics sense. I counseled her to relax and vowed that Darnell’s reading speed would pick up in time.
And so it did.
When we got the results back from Darnell’s first experience at Grade 3 with the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) for both reading and math, he was meeting grade level expectations for reading and exceeding expectations for mathematics. From that point on, Darnell began a steady ascent toward academic excellence.
At this point he has performed in three of our annual Shakespearean productions (featuring my compressed [30-minute] versions with all original Shakespearean [Elizabethan] language), acting as Kent in King Lear, Laertes in Hamlet, and Banquo in Macbeth. For three summers, he has traveled to Winona with one of two groups that I take annually to the Great River Shakespeare Festival. Throughout Darnell’s Grade 4 and Grade 5 years his grades were mostly at the first tier, and at Olson Middle School (grades 6-8) only two “B’s” appeared on a transcript that otherwise was replete with “A’s.” Now, at Grade 9, Darnell is functioning as a Grade 11 student in terms of academic accomplishment.
We are already at work on practice ACT material for reading, mathematics, English usage, and science; securing Algebra I skills while moving on to concepts in Algebra II, Geometry, and Trigonometry; and doing advanced reading, vocabulary development, and knowledge acquisition via my new book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.
Darnell has a deep hunger for the knowledge provided in the book. We have already moved through the content material in the chapter on Economics, so that Darnell has a thorough grasp of the most important concepts from microeconomics and macroeconomics, including a detailed examination of a federal budget and an examination of revenue and both mandatory/ entitlement spending and discretionary spending; a careful consideration of the Federal Reserve System; and a comparison of the ideas of the three great economists Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes.
On this Saturday morning in November, Darnell and I moved on to my chapter on Psychology, getting far enough into the material to compare the ideas of Sigmund Freud with those of B. F. Skinner. Also on the morning of this particular academic session, we examined two methods for solving simultaneous equations and considered examples for solving for area and surface area for three-dimensional figures. Darnell is well on his way down the college preparatory track that I envisioned for him as early as those years when he was walking around Addie May’s living room at age four.
Given the circumstances of his life, the realistic envisioning of a highly successful university experience for Darnell will have a transformative impact on his family.
.....................................................................
Darnell’s mother, Jenna, is now thirty-eight years old. She has never lived independently. Her significant other, Marvel Watson is the father of Darnell’s younger brother Tyrone Watson (Grade 4, Jenny Lind) and Felicity Watson (Grade 2, Jenny Lind). Jenna works about 30 hours a week in the office of a social service agency. Tyrone has worked only sporadically and has no job at present. Jenna helps Addie May some with household expenses, but her nuclear family essentially depends on Addie May for the roof overhead.
Seeing Darnell happily piling into my car on Saturday mornings for so many years, Tyrone and Felicity were eager to do so: I dropped off academic materials even during their preschool years, and at Grade K they both became official every week attendees in the New Salem Educational Initiative.
Tyrone has demonstrated his mental math acuity at two successive banquets that we hold each year in early June, and he is rapidly acquiring a vocabulary far beyond his Grade 4 year of enrollment; this coming June, he will take on his first role in our annual Shakespearean production.
Felicity also is an exceptional math student, easily performing additive, subtractive, and rudimentary multiplicative operations in her head; we are now shifting more of our attention to reading so as to strengthen Felicity’s grasp of phonics and thereby facilitate acquisition of the sophisticated vocabulary items in which she takes so much pride.
..............................................................................
When I pulled up on two of those Saturday mornings, the police had cordoned off Addie May’s yard on 6th street North. Addie May is a solid citizen who has passed on exquisite manners to the young people in her family. But she houses anyone in the extended family who needs a place to roost, and these are multiple. The ethical standards vary widely and their legal records all over the place: some behave according to Addie May’s standards, but life has pulled some onto the streets, into penal institutions, and back onto the asphalt and concrete of life at the urban core.
For this reason, Jenna (who has a set of moral standards of the better sort within the family) is deeply grateful to me for the loving attention and academic instruction that I give her children. She lets me know of all that goes on at school. We therefore mostly revel together in the accomplishments of Darnell, Tyrone, and Felicity; and we deal with any problems as they arise.
And without saying so explicitly, we know that these three young people, with Darnell leading the way and with Tyrone and Felicity following his lead, will succeed in university experiences and travel down the pathway that we have long charted to lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
Darnell, Tyrone, and Felicity will break the cycle of poverty that has spun in the family since Addie May arrived broke and desperate in Minneapolis, escaping from small-town Mississippi to a life that was still full of challenges but better than what she left behind. Darnell, Tyrone, and Felicity will ascend to a standard of living that Addie May has only seen in visual imagery.
As the cycle of poverty ends and these young people show the way out for other family members, cordoned lives and visitation by officers of the law will give way to expansive horizons and visitation by friends and family who will learn by observation how they, too, can end the vicious spin of generational poverty and thrive as people for whom life has purpose, meaning, and economic security.
This is the power of K-12 education.
This is the future for all of our precious young people if we are to make of this nation the democracy that we imagine ourselves to be.
……………………………………
Every Saturday at 9:00 AM I roll up in my 2008 Toyota Matrix (recent upgrade from my 1996 Honda Civic) to pick up Darnell Jacobsen-Myers (Grade 9, Henry High School) at the home owned by grandmother Addie May Myers on 6th Street North in Minneapolis. Darnell piles into the car, a little sleepy but otherwise in good cheer, as he has done since he was in kindergarten.
Seven young people from Darnell’s household or extended family have participated in the New Salem Educational Initiative; one is now enrolled as a student at St. Cloud State University with a generous financial aid package including several grants and scholarships. I have known Darnell since he was four years old, when Addie May and mother Jenna Myers began clamoring for me to take him to my academic sessions, as had been the case for so many others in the family.
Darnell struggled at first to adjust to the school environment at Jenny Lind K-5 School. He was the recipient of bullying, was not getting along very well with his teacher, and clearly was carrying a heavy emotional load. A switch to Bethune K-5 proved timely: Darnell liked his new teacher and had no problems with classmates.
Still, there emerged concerns, these of the academic sort. Darnell was purportedly lagging in reading according to measures emphasizing speed. Jenna expressed worry. I assured her that with me Darnell demonstrated extended vocabulary development and excellent phonics sense. I counseled her to relax and vowed that Darnell’s reading speed would pick up in time.
And so it did.
When we got the results back from Darnell’s first experience at Grade 3 with the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) for both reading and math, he was meeting grade level expectations for reading and exceeding expectations for mathematics. From that point on, Darnell began a steady ascent toward academic excellence.
At this point he has performed in three of our annual Shakespearean productions (featuring my compressed [30-minute] versions with all original Shakespearean [Elizabethan] language), acting as Kent in King Lear, Laertes in Hamlet, and Banquo in Macbeth. For three summers, he has traveled to Winona with one of two groups that I take annually to the Great River Shakespeare Festival. Throughout Darnell’s Grade 4 and Grade 5 years his grades were mostly at the first tier, and at Olson Middle School (grades 6-8) only two “B’s” appeared on a transcript that otherwise was replete with “A’s.” Now, at Grade 9, Darnell is functioning as a Grade 11 student in terms of academic accomplishment.
We are already at work on practice ACT material for reading, mathematics, English usage, and science; securing Algebra I skills while moving on to concepts in Algebra II, Geometry, and Trigonometry; and doing advanced reading, vocabulary development, and knowledge acquisition via my new book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.
Darnell has a deep hunger for the knowledge provided in the book. We have already moved through the content material in the chapter on Economics, so that Darnell has a thorough grasp of the most important concepts from microeconomics and macroeconomics, including a detailed examination of a federal budget and an examination of revenue and both mandatory/ entitlement spending and discretionary spending; a careful consideration of the Federal Reserve System; and a comparison of the ideas of the three great economists Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes.
On this Saturday morning in November, Darnell and I moved on to my chapter on Psychology, getting far enough into the material to compare the ideas of Sigmund Freud with those of B. F. Skinner. Also on the morning of this particular academic session, we examined two methods for solving simultaneous equations and considered examples for solving for area and surface area for three-dimensional figures. Darnell is well on his way down the college preparatory track that I envisioned for him as early as those years when he was walking around Addie May’s living room at age four.
Given the circumstances of his life, the realistic envisioning of a highly successful university experience for Darnell will have a transformative impact on his family.
.....................................................................
Darnell’s mother, Jenna, is now thirty-eight years old. She has never lived independently. Her significant other, Marvel Watson is the father of Darnell’s younger brother Tyrone Watson (Grade 4, Jenny Lind) and Felicity Watson (Grade 2, Jenny Lind). Jenna works about 30 hours a week in the office of a social service agency. Tyrone has worked only sporadically and has no job at present. Jenna helps Addie May some with household expenses, but her nuclear family essentially depends on Addie May for the roof overhead.
Seeing Darnell happily piling into my car on Saturday mornings for so many years, Tyrone and Felicity were eager to do so: I dropped off academic materials even during their preschool years, and at Grade K they both became official every week attendees in the New Salem Educational Initiative.
Tyrone has demonstrated his mental math acuity at two successive banquets that we hold each year in early June, and he is rapidly acquiring a vocabulary far beyond his Grade 4 year of enrollment; this coming June, he will take on his first role in our annual Shakespearean production.
Felicity also is an exceptional math student, easily performing additive, subtractive, and rudimentary multiplicative operations in her head; we are now shifting more of our attention to reading so as to strengthen Felicity’s grasp of phonics and thereby facilitate acquisition of the sophisticated vocabulary items in which she takes so much pride.
..............................................................................
When I pulled up on two of those Saturday mornings, the police had cordoned off Addie May’s yard on 6th street North. Addie May is a solid citizen who has passed on exquisite manners to the young people in her family. But she houses anyone in the extended family who needs a place to roost, and these are multiple. The ethical standards vary widely and their legal records all over the place: some behave according to Addie May’s standards, but life has pulled some onto the streets, into penal institutions, and back onto the asphalt and concrete of life at the urban core.
For this reason, Jenna (who has a set of moral standards of the better sort within the family) is deeply grateful to me for the loving attention and academic instruction that I give her children. She lets me know of all that goes on at school. We therefore mostly revel together in the accomplishments of Darnell, Tyrone, and Felicity; and we deal with any problems as they arise.
And without saying so explicitly, we know that these three young people, with Darnell leading the way and with Tyrone and Felicity following his lead, will succeed in university experiences and travel down the pathway that we have long charted to lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
Darnell, Tyrone, and Felicity will break the cycle of poverty that has spun in the family since Addie May arrived broke and desperate in Minneapolis, escaping from small-town Mississippi to a life that was still full of challenges but better than what she left behind. Darnell, Tyrone, and Felicity will ascend to a standard of living that Addie May has only seen in visual imagery.
As the cycle of poverty ends and these young people show the way out for other family members, cordoned lives and visitation by officers of the law will give way to expansive horizons and visitation by friends and family who will learn by observation how they, too, can end the vicious spin of generational poverty and thrive as people for whom life has purpose, meaning, and economic security.
This is the power of K-12 education.
This is the future for all of our precious young people if we are to make of this nation the democracy that we imagine ourselves to be.
Overcoming the Challenge of Dysfunctional Families: The Real-World Example of Carla Martinez Padilla and Carlos Padilla
Note >>>>> The names used in this article are data privacy pseudonyms.
……………………………………
Close to 38th Avenue South and 4th Avenue South in Minneapolis, Carla Martinez Padilla (Grade 10, Roosevelt High School) and Carlos Padilla (Grade 9, Washburn--- but in transition to an alternative high school) came tumbling out of their duplex on a Thursday evening in November at 7:00 PM. This is the time of week that I typically pick these two up for transport to New Salem Missionary Baptist Church and our weekly two ours of intensive academic study.
Carla and Carlos were tired and disgruntled that evening.
I was a bit surprised, because I had recently worked very hard through my extensive community and familial contacts to locate these two after some very disturbing family incidents found the brother-sister duo scrambling for stable residential and academic situations--- and both Carla and Carlos had been grateful for my efforts and very cheery at the prospect of resuming their studies with me.
I overlooked the sluggish returns to my initial greetings and began with my litany of questions:
“What are you doing in math right now?”
“How about English?” “History?” “Physics?” “Health?”
Carla gave me good answers to those questions, confiding that all of her grades were at “C” or better, except that she was going to be staying after school for credit recovery in physics and health. Before I lost touch with Carla for a while, she had been making “A’s” and “B’s” at South High School. But multiple familial dislocations and a shift to Roosevelt had undermined her academic performance, so she and I are strategizing for a return to “A”-“B” territory.
Carla desperately wants to avoid the pattern within her own nuclear unit that would predict job prospects fluctuating between Taco Bell and nothing at all. She had been so upbeat in her return to my instruction but on this evening was having a hard time holding herself together.
Brother Carlos also answered my questions but couldn’t relate anything from the world of the classroom because the paperwork had already started on his transfer from Washburn to an alternative high school when the building of the latter was cited for deficiencies, leaving him in academic limbo until the structural issues in the edifice were resolved: Officials at Washburn wouldn’t let him attend class at that high school.
...........................................................................
We got to New Salem and I directed Carla and Carlos into different classrooms for individual study, since the two are at very different levels in math and reading. Carla is more adept at the latter, Carlos more skillful at the former.
I sketched out a bevy of review problems on the old-fashioned chalk boards already installed upon our taking up church residence at the site at 2507 Bryant Avenue North a few years ago, having moved up the street from our former location at the corner of Lyndale Avenue North and 26th Avenue North (both locations are just across a field from Nellie Stone Johnson K-8 school of the Minneapolis Public Schools).
My students love the chalk board, pining for the end of our academic sessions when I let them write on it.
And for my purposes, the chalk board is ideal in its immediacy and efficiency: An adroit teacher possessed with abundant knowledge often works best and most efficiently with the simplest of tools.
For Carlos, I sketched out problems involving percentages, mixed numbers, and ratios. He complained that the ratio problems were too hard. This is typical for many impoverished kids from dysfunctional families who have experienced so much failure that they don’t want to try anything new.
I patiently explained how to do the ratio problem to Carlos and, given his mathematical aptitude, he quickly grasped the concept. Carlos now said that the problem was easy and declared, “I like ratio problems.” This, too, is typical for students for whom dread becomes delight upon achievement of success.
Over to Carla’s room, I sketched out some multiplication problems. Carla actually has good mathematical aptitude, but she buzzed through K-5 classes with many concepts not mastered, so we are still scrambling to catch her up. She can do rudimentary algebra and geometry problems, but failure to master multiplication and division often gets in her way--- so I am ever backing up and putting skill mastery in proper sequence for Carla--- even as we attend to homework covering concepts prevailing in her current math and other classes.
Carla was balky at first and not properly attentive.
After multiple attempts to seize her attention with my usual banter and chicanery, I stopped, looked Carla square in the eye, and said:
“Carla, this is Gary you're talking to. You know, the guy who cares about you, comes and picks you up every Thursday evening, and is doing everything he can to catch you up in school to the point that you need to be--- and have said that you want to be. I really need your attention and to hear a more respectful tone in your voice.”
Carla continued balky in her manner and sulky in her demeanor.
“Carla, we may need to have a long talk with Auntie Marianna when we get back.”
“I ain’t living with her no more,” came Carla’s reply.
“So did you shift back downstairs to your mom?” Carla’s mom Elena lives downstairs in the duplex. The much more responsible Auntie Marianna lives upstairs.
“Yes.”
So that was the problem.
...........................................................................
Elena, mother to Carla and Carlos, is forty years old but an emotional adolescent. She has had numerous male companions and is now shacked up with an abusive alcoholic, Marco. Marco is actually a hard worker in the construction trades, but he cannot control his drinking and has a ferocious need instead to control Elena. Elena has a hard time keeping jobs in any event and has shown an inclination to accede to Marco’s demands that she not work.
This gives Marco the classic male dominance over the economically vulnerable female. The situation has produced multiple fights, angry separations, codependent reunions, thrown objects, and cries from both the older Carla and Carlos and younger brother (Grade 4, Folwell) Cortez.
The specific reason that Carla and Carlos were disgruntled on this particular evening, I found out, was that Elena was eager for the two of them to return before 9:30 PM so that they could take over responsibility for Cortez while she and Marco went out nightclubbing.
...........................................................................
And so it goes.
I talked to Carla and Carlos about the situation, about needing to maintain focus on what’s important even in the midst of familial turmoil. There is a way out, I told them, as I tell all of my students, through the power of education and the development of an alternative, high set of ethical standards.
They listen. They know. They are grateful that someone takes the time to hear their story and offer loving advice.
And they each had success with their respective mathematical challenges. Frowns and deep furrows turned to smiles and to crinkly folds at now mirthful eyes.
When I let Carla and Carlos off at the duplex that evening, they each thanked me profusely and said how fun the evening had turned out for them.
They said that they didn’t really want to get out of the car.
I said, “Yeah, but you gotta. You gotta be good examples for Cortez. That’s the future, you know. And so are you.”
Carla smiled and Carlos reached from the back seat to give my shoulder an appreciative clap.
“Next Thursday at 7:00 PM, right?” Carla asked.
“You betcha,” I answered.
“Can’t wait,” Carlos said.
“Well we’ll all wait, but it’ll be so good to see you then, as always. Now go take good care of that little brother--- and your very valuable selves.”
Carlos and Carla smiled boldly.
I waited for them to enter their abode, turned off the ignition, and went upstairs to talk to Auntie Marianna about how we could help Elena to attain some stability and wrest herself from her violent and codependent relationship.
……………………………………
Close to 38th Avenue South and 4th Avenue South in Minneapolis, Carla Martinez Padilla (Grade 10, Roosevelt High School) and Carlos Padilla (Grade 9, Washburn--- but in transition to an alternative high school) came tumbling out of their duplex on a Thursday evening in November at 7:00 PM. This is the time of week that I typically pick these two up for transport to New Salem Missionary Baptist Church and our weekly two ours of intensive academic study.
Carla and Carlos were tired and disgruntled that evening.
I was a bit surprised, because I had recently worked very hard through my extensive community and familial contacts to locate these two after some very disturbing family incidents found the brother-sister duo scrambling for stable residential and academic situations--- and both Carla and Carlos had been grateful for my efforts and very cheery at the prospect of resuming their studies with me.
I overlooked the sluggish returns to my initial greetings and began with my litany of questions:
“What are you doing in math right now?”
“How about English?” “History?” “Physics?” “Health?”
Carla gave me good answers to those questions, confiding that all of her grades were at “C” or better, except that she was going to be staying after school for credit recovery in physics and health. Before I lost touch with Carla for a while, she had been making “A’s” and “B’s” at South High School. But multiple familial dislocations and a shift to Roosevelt had undermined her academic performance, so she and I are strategizing for a return to “A”-“B” territory.
Carla desperately wants to avoid the pattern within her own nuclear unit that would predict job prospects fluctuating between Taco Bell and nothing at all. She had been so upbeat in her return to my instruction but on this evening was having a hard time holding herself together.
Brother Carlos also answered my questions but couldn’t relate anything from the world of the classroom because the paperwork had already started on his transfer from Washburn to an alternative high school when the building of the latter was cited for deficiencies, leaving him in academic limbo until the structural issues in the edifice were resolved: Officials at Washburn wouldn’t let him attend class at that high school.
...........................................................................
We got to New Salem and I directed Carla and Carlos into different classrooms for individual study, since the two are at very different levels in math and reading. Carla is more adept at the latter, Carlos more skillful at the former.
I sketched out a bevy of review problems on the old-fashioned chalk boards already installed upon our taking up church residence at the site at 2507 Bryant Avenue North a few years ago, having moved up the street from our former location at the corner of Lyndale Avenue North and 26th Avenue North (both locations are just across a field from Nellie Stone Johnson K-8 school of the Minneapolis Public Schools).
My students love the chalk board, pining for the end of our academic sessions when I let them write on it.
And for my purposes, the chalk board is ideal in its immediacy and efficiency: An adroit teacher possessed with abundant knowledge often works best and most efficiently with the simplest of tools.
For Carlos, I sketched out problems involving percentages, mixed numbers, and ratios. He complained that the ratio problems were too hard. This is typical for many impoverished kids from dysfunctional families who have experienced so much failure that they don’t want to try anything new.
I patiently explained how to do the ratio problem to Carlos and, given his mathematical aptitude, he quickly grasped the concept. Carlos now said that the problem was easy and declared, “I like ratio problems.” This, too, is typical for students for whom dread becomes delight upon achievement of success.
Over to Carla’s room, I sketched out some multiplication problems. Carla actually has good mathematical aptitude, but she buzzed through K-5 classes with many concepts not mastered, so we are still scrambling to catch her up. She can do rudimentary algebra and geometry problems, but failure to master multiplication and division often gets in her way--- so I am ever backing up and putting skill mastery in proper sequence for Carla--- even as we attend to homework covering concepts prevailing in her current math and other classes.
Carla was balky at first and not properly attentive.
After multiple attempts to seize her attention with my usual banter and chicanery, I stopped, looked Carla square in the eye, and said:
“Carla, this is Gary you're talking to. You know, the guy who cares about you, comes and picks you up every Thursday evening, and is doing everything he can to catch you up in school to the point that you need to be--- and have said that you want to be. I really need your attention and to hear a more respectful tone in your voice.”
Carla continued balky in her manner and sulky in her demeanor.
“Carla, we may need to have a long talk with Auntie Marianna when we get back.”
“I ain’t living with her no more,” came Carla’s reply.
“So did you shift back downstairs to your mom?” Carla’s mom Elena lives downstairs in the duplex. The much more responsible Auntie Marianna lives upstairs.
“Yes.”
So that was the problem.
...........................................................................
Elena, mother to Carla and Carlos, is forty years old but an emotional adolescent. She has had numerous male companions and is now shacked up with an abusive alcoholic, Marco. Marco is actually a hard worker in the construction trades, but he cannot control his drinking and has a ferocious need instead to control Elena. Elena has a hard time keeping jobs in any event and has shown an inclination to accede to Marco’s demands that she not work.
This gives Marco the classic male dominance over the economically vulnerable female. The situation has produced multiple fights, angry separations, codependent reunions, thrown objects, and cries from both the older Carla and Carlos and younger brother (Grade 4, Folwell) Cortez.
The specific reason that Carla and Carlos were disgruntled on this particular evening, I found out, was that Elena was eager for the two of them to return before 9:30 PM so that they could take over responsibility for Cortez while she and Marco went out nightclubbing.
...........................................................................
And so it goes.
I talked to Carla and Carlos about the situation, about needing to maintain focus on what’s important even in the midst of familial turmoil. There is a way out, I told them, as I tell all of my students, through the power of education and the development of an alternative, high set of ethical standards.
They listen. They know. They are grateful that someone takes the time to hear their story and offer loving advice.
And they each had success with their respective mathematical challenges. Frowns and deep furrows turned to smiles and to crinkly folds at now mirthful eyes.
When I let Carla and Carlos off at the duplex that evening, they each thanked me profusely and said how fun the evening had turned out for them.
They said that they didn’t really want to get out of the car.
I said, “Yeah, but you gotta. You gotta be good examples for Cortez. That’s the future, you know. And so are you.”
Carla smiled and Carlos reached from the back seat to give my shoulder an appreciative clap.
“Next Thursday at 7:00 PM, right?” Carla asked.
“You betcha,” I answered.
“Can’t wait,” Carlos said.
“Well we’ll all wait, but it’ll be so good to see you then, as always. Now go take good care of that little brother--- and your very valuable selves.”
Carlos and Carla smiled boldly.
I waited for them to enter their abode, turned off the ignition, and went upstairs to talk to Auntie Marianna about how we could help Elena to attain some stability and wrest herself from her violent and codependent relationship.
Nov 8, 2015
Plan of Action for Officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools in the Overhaul of K-12 Education
Note >>>>> If you scroll on down to the next article, you will gain an understanding of how I go about the processes of the New Salem Educational Initiative that can be extrapolated for application in the Minneapolis Public Schools as a guide for the plan of action that I advocate in this article.
…………………………………………
In order to become an effective imparter of K-12 education to young people of all demographic descriptors, officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools must do the following things >>>>>
1 >>>>> Define a knowledge-intensive, logically sequenced, grade by grade curriculum for delivery grade-by-grade throughout the K-12 years.
Officials in the Minneapolis Public Schools must embrace knowledge as the key component of an excellent K-12 education
. ……………………………………………………………………..
At the grades K-5 level, teachers must deliver well-defined skill and knowledge sets.
Present staff responsible for curriculum should be charged with the task of defining what children in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade should learn in each of those years. The focus for learning at this level should be in math, natural science (with an emphasis on biology, chemistry, and physics--- but including geology and health), literature & language arts, fine arts (visual and musical), history (incorporating geography, government, and other social sciences and humanities), and economics. Instruction in natural science should emphasize biology, chemistry, and physics--- but should include information on all of the earth and health sciences. Economics and history should be specified for detailed coverage, with the latter incorporating a great deal of information throughout the social sciences and humanities.
By the time students complete their K-5 years, they should have mastered the four major arithmetic operations; know how to perform all operations with fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, and simple probability; understand how to construct and interpret tables, charts, and graphs; and demonstrate significant skill in beginning algebra and geometry.
Students at the completion of the K-5 sequence should have a strong sense of the distinction among biology, chemistry, and physics; and to understand the essentials of the key contributions of scientists to the understanding of the human body; plants and animals; key elements of the periodic table, molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles; and the fundamental principles of physics, including a comparison of Newton’s laws of motion with the universe described by Albert Einstein in terms of energy, mass, and velocity.
Students upon completion of the kindergarten through fifth grade curriculum should have read many literary classics of the European, Asian, African, and American traditions, and they should have a firm understanding of English language usage.
These students should understand major genres of painting, sculpture, and architecture across the world. They should hear great music from the baroque, classical, and romantic periods of Europe; and the American traditions of blues, jazz, rock and roll, country, rhythm and blues, and hip-hop musical genres. They should come to understand technical aspects of music such as pitch, melody, timbre, composition, and instrumentation, with an appreciation for the way in which technical aspects differ according to international setting.
Students upon graduation from Grade 5 should have gained a thorough overview of world and American history, with much information imparted as to world religions, philosophy, and psychology as major ideas set in historical context. And students should understand the economic principles of the capitalist system, with the ability to contrast these principles with those of other economic systems such as socialism and fascism.
……………………………………………………………………..
At the grades 6-8 (middle school) level, students should continue to study the key subjects of mathematics, natural science, literature & English language usage, fine arts, history, and economics; and they should be required to study a non-English language for the acquisition of one year of secondary world language credit.
Students also should have elective courses available in technical and technological fields such as plumbing, woodworking, electronics, computer technology, and auto mechanics.
The guiding principle in curriculum design at the grades 6-8 level should be preparation for Advanced Placement courses and specialized study in high school (grades 9-12):
Math at the Grade 8 level should be a challenging course conventionally identified as Algebra I.
Natural science study throughout grades 6-8 should be at ascending levels of sophistication leading to Advanced Placement courses for all students in high school in biology, chemistry, and physics.
Literature and English usage courses should be preparing students at a level enabling them to enter high school functioning so as to take the Advanced Placement exam in English by the end of Grade 9.
Students at the grades 6-8 level should continue to study the fine arts so as to be prepared to opt for specialized study in high school, readying themselves for participation in choir and for study of a selected musical instrument at a high level of skill.
And at the grades 6-8 level, students should continue to master world history, American history, and economics at ascending levels of sophistication, with applications to current events and in preparation for specialized study in high school.
. ……………………………………………………………………..
At the grades 9-12 (high school) level, students will be prepared to take Advanced Placement and specialized courses:
At Grade 9, all students will train for and take Advanced Placement courses in English, United States history, and biology.
At Grade 10, all students will train for and take Advanced Placement courses in world history and chemistry.
At Grade 11, students will train for and take an Advanced Placement course in physics.
At Grade 12, students will train for and take an Advanced Placement course in calculus.
Other required courses in grades 9-12 will include world literature in Grade 10; at least one additional year of world language, for a total of two secondary world language courses, continuing from middle school; Grade 12 research in English (with options for research in various academic fields); Grade 12 research in natural science; and Grade 12 microeconomics and macroeconomics (one semester each).
Other than these required courses, at Grade 11 students will be given many options for specialized courses in literature: Spanish, French, German, African American, African, Hispanic, and Native American literature; and classical and Shakespearean drama.
Also at Grade 11, students may opt for specialty courses in classical Greek and Roman history, medieval European history, European Renaissance and Reformation, Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, African history, Asian history, Latin American history, and psychology.
And in each semester of their academic years in high school, students will opt for courses from a category known as FIT (fine, industrial, and technological arts): sculpture, history of art, music composition, choral singing, marching band, jazz band, popular music, classical music (including music from the European baroque, classical, and romantic periods), history of music, auto mechanics, plumbing, woodworking, construction trades, culinary arts, electrician training, electronics, computer science, and forensic science.
. ……………………………………………………………………..
2 >>>>> Train teachers capable of imparting this knowledge-intensive curriculum.
Delivery of such a knowledge-intensive curriculum will require teachers of high intellectual caliber who are passionate about the world of knowledge. Grasping that such teachers are not produced by terrible conventional training programs in departments, schools, and colleges of education, officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools will have to design their own program of teacher training, as follows:
At the grades K-5 level, prospective teachers will be thoroughly retrained in the facilities of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
All prospective teachers at grades K-5 will be required to study for a Masters of Liberal Arts degree.
They will study for one full academic year over the course of five-day weeks of intensive study under the instruction of college and university professors and other experts commissioned to teach the courses. Prospective K-5 teachers will, over the course of 33 weeks (the academic year minus holidays), study mathematics through calculus (total of ten [10] weeks); biology, chemistry, and physics (total of six [6] weeks; world and American history (total of eight [8] weeks); literature and English usage (total of five [5] weeks); and fine arts (visual and musical, total of four [4] weeks).
They will do so to demonstrate their intellectual acumen and versatility; to enable them to envision the academic road ahead and to articulate that vision to their students; and to be ready to instruct the many students capable of studying at very advanced academic levels during the K-5 years.
Following the intensive academic year taking intensive courses in major disciplines, prospective K-5 teachers will over the following summer complete and defend a master’s thesis.
Each prospective teacher will then serve a full academic year of internship under the best experienced teachers available, and will for at least two months of that time engage in student teaching.
After completing all requirements for the Masters of Liberal Arts degree and serving the academic year of internship, the prospective teacher will be evaluated for employment in the Minneapolis Public Schools. At first, prospective K-5 teachers will come to the teacher retraining program of the Minneapolis Public Schools possessing formal teacher certification from one of the established conventional programs, or according to present alternative certification processes. In the course of time, officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools will work with a college or university to gain recognition for its program of teacher retraining as an alternative licensure program.
At the grades 6-8 (middle school) level, prospective teachers will study through to both the bachelor’s (B. A. or B. S.) and master’s (M. A. or M. S.) degrees before applying for a position in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The bachelor’s and master’s degrees may not be in the field of education, but rather should be in disciplines such as mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, English, art, music, history, economics, and political science.
After completing the master’s degree in a legitimate academic discipline, each prospective teacher at grades 6-8 will then serve a full academic year of internship under the best experienced teachers available, and will for at least two months of that time engage in student teaching.
After serving the academic year of internship, the prospective teacher will be evaluated for employment in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Certification will be obtained in one of the ways as given for teachers at grades K-5: traditional, alternative, or recognition of the graduate study and internship sequence required by the Minneapolis Public Schools as an alternative licensure program.
At the grades 9-12 (high school level), the process will be as with prospective teachers at grades 6-8: They will study through to both the bachelor’s (B. A. or B. S.) and master’s (M. A. or M. S.) degrees before applying for a position in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The bachelor’s and master’s degrees may not be in the field of education, but rather should be in disciplines such as mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, English, art, music, history, economics, and political science.
Additionally, prospective grades 9-12 teachers will be encouraged to study through to the Ph. D. in the relevant legitimate academic discipline, with generous remuneration offered for doing so. Such academic qualifications will provide highly trained high school teachers for providing Advanced Placement and university-level courses on the high school campuses of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
After completing the master’s degree and, ideally, the Ph. D. in a legitimate academic discipline, each prospective teacher at grades 9-12 will then serve a full academic year of internship under the best experienced teachers available, and will for at least two months of that time engage in student teaching.
After serving the academic year of internship, the prospective teacher will be evaluated for employment in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Certification will be obtained in one of the ways as given for teachers at grades K-5 and grades 9-12: traditional, alternative, or recognition of the graduate study and internship sequence required by the Minneapolis Public Schools as an alternative licensure program.
………………………………………………………
3 >>>>> Eliminate most positions at the central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools and greatly enhance outreach to families.
At the central school district level, certain positions relevant to school finance, building maintenance, public communications, legal matters, and transportation will be retained. But otherwise, the objective should be to move any truly necessary positions out to the building level.
At the level of the school building, there will be much new emphasis placed on building a staff of people highly adroit at communicating with and visiting families of students.
Once curriculum has been defined and teachers retrained in the manner specified in sections 1 and 2 above, there will be little need for full-time curriculum specialists or a chief academic officer.
Assistant superintendent positions should also be eliminated, according to a shift to a site-based focus and a strengthening of the building principal position.
The building principal should have great authority and responsibility in the hiring and evaluation of teachers, with her or his own review by the superintendent determined by the academic results achieved according to the performance of students taught by those hired, evaluated, and retained by the building principal.
. ………………………………………………………
Moving to put in place these administrative policies would put the Minneapolis Public Schools in a position to deliver an education of truly knowledge-intensive excellence, with a staff of intellectually engaged and pedagogically skilled teachers--- and to offer the public locally centralized school district in Minneapolis as a model for utilization by other urban school districts.
…………………………………………
In order to become an effective imparter of K-12 education to young people of all demographic descriptors, officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools must do the following things >>>>>
1 >>>>> Define a knowledge-intensive, logically sequenced, grade by grade curriculum for delivery grade-by-grade throughout the K-12 years.
Officials in the Minneapolis Public Schools must embrace knowledge as the key component of an excellent K-12 education
. ……………………………………………………………………..
At the grades K-5 level, teachers must deliver well-defined skill and knowledge sets.
Present staff responsible for curriculum should be charged with the task of defining what children in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade should learn in each of those years. The focus for learning at this level should be in math, natural science (with an emphasis on biology, chemistry, and physics--- but including geology and health), literature & language arts, fine arts (visual and musical), history (incorporating geography, government, and other social sciences and humanities), and economics. Instruction in natural science should emphasize biology, chemistry, and physics--- but should include information on all of the earth and health sciences. Economics and history should be specified for detailed coverage, with the latter incorporating a great deal of information throughout the social sciences and humanities.
By the time students complete their K-5 years, they should have mastered the four major arithmetic operations; know how to perform all operations with fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, and simple probability; understand how to construct and interpret tables, charts, and graphs; and demonstrate significant skill in beginning algebra and geometry.
Students at the completion of the K-5 sequence should have a strong sense of the distinction among biology, chemistry, and physics; and to understand the essentials of the key contributions of scientists to the understanding of the human body; plants and animals; key elements of the periodic table, molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles; and the fundamental principles of physics, including a comparison of Newton’s laws of motion with the universe described by Albert Einstein in terms of energy, mass, and velocity.
Students upon completion of the kindergarten through fifth grade curriculum should have read many literary classics of the European, Asian, African, and American traditions, and they should have a firm understanding of English language usage.
These students should understand major genres of painting, sculpture, and architecture across the world. They should hear great music from the baroque, classical, and romantic periods of Europe; and the American traditions of blues, jazz, rock and roll, country, rhythm and blues, and hip-hop musical genres. They should come to understand technical aspects of music such as pitch, melody, timbre, composition, and instrumentation, with an appreciation for the way in which technical aspects differ according to international setting.
Students upon graduation from Grade 5 should have gained a thorough overview of world and American history, with much information imparted as to world religions, philosophy, and psychology as major ideas set in historical context. And students should understand the economic principles of the capitalist system, with the ability to contrast these principles with those of other economic systems such as socialism and fascism.
……………………………………………………………………..
At the grades 6-8 (middle school) level, students should continue to study the key subjects of mathematics, natural science, literature & English language usage, fine arts, history, and economics; and they should be required to study a non-English language for the acquisition of one year of secondary world language credit.
Students also should have elective courses available in technical and technological fields such as plumbing, woodworking, electronics, computer technology, and auto mechanics.
The guiding principle in curriculum design at the grades 6-8 level should be preparation for Advanced Placement courses and specialized study in high school (grades 9-12):
Math at the Grade 8 level should be a challenging course conventionally identified as Algebra I.
Natural science study throughout grades 6-8 should be at ascending levels of sophistication leading to Advanced Placement courses for all students in high school in biology, chemistry, and physics.
Literature and English usage courses should be preparing students at a level enabling them to enter high school functioning so as to take the Advanced Placement exam in English by the end of Grade 9.
Students at the grades 6-8 level should continue to study the fine arts so as to be prepared to opt for specialized study in high school, readying themselves for participation in choir and for study of a selected musical instrument at a high level of skill.
And at the grades 6-8 level, students should continue to master world history, American history, and economics at ascending levels of sophistication, with applications to current events and in preparation for specialized study in high school.
. ……………………………………………………………………..
At the grades 9-12 (high school) level, students will be prepared to take Advanced Placement and specialized courses:
At Grade 9, all students will train for and take Advanced Placement courses in English, United States history, and biology.
At Grade 10, all students will train for and take Advanced Placement courses in world history and chemistry.
At Grade 11, students will train for and take an Advanced Placement course in physics.
At Grade 12, students will train for and take an Advanced Placement course in calculus.
Other required courses in grades 9-12 will include world literature in Grade 10; at least one additional year of world language, for a total of two secondary world language courses, continuing from middle school; Grade 12 research in English (with options for research in various academic fields); Grade 12 research in natural science; and Grade 12 microeconomics and macroeconomics (one semester each).
Other than these required courses, at Grade 11 students will be given many options for specialized courses in literature: Spanish, French, German, African American, African, Hispanic, and Native American literature; and classical and Shakespearean drama.
Also at Grade 11, students may opt for specialty courses in classical Greek and Roman history, medieval European history, European Renaissance and Reformation, Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, African history, Asian history, Latin American history, and psychology.
And in each semester of their academic years in high school, students will opt for courses from a category known as FIT (fine, industrial, and technological arts): sculpture, history of art, music composition, choral singing, marching band, jazz band, popular music, classical music (including music from the European baroque, classical, and romantic periods), history of music, auto mechanics, plumbing, woodworking, construction trades, culinary arts, electrician training, electronics, computer science, and forensic science.
. ……………………………………………………………………..
2 >>>>> Train teachers capable of imparting this knowledge-intensive curriculum.
Delivery of such a knowledge-intensive curriculum will require teachers of high intellectual caliber who are passionate about the world of knowledge. Grasping that such teachers are not produced by terrible conventional training programs in departments, schools, and colleges of education, officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools will have to design their own program of teacher training, as follows:
At the grades K-5 level, prospective teachers will be thoroughly retrained in the facilities of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
All prospective teachers at grades K-5 will be required to study for a Masters of Liberal Arts degree.
They will study for one full academic year over the course of five-day weeks of intensive study under the instruction of college and university professors and other experts commissioned to teach the courses. Prospective K-5 teachers will, over the course of 33 weeks (the academic year minus holidays), study mathematics through calculus (total of ten [10] weeks); biology, chemistry, and physics (total of six [6] weeks; world and American history (total of eight [8] weeks); literature and English usage (total of five [5] weeks); and fine arts (visual and musical, total of four [4] weeks).
They will do so to demonstrate their intellectual acumen and versatility; to enable them to envision the academic road ahead and to articulate that vision to their students; and to be ready to instruct the many students capable of studying at very advanced academic levels during the K-5 years.
Following the intensive academic year taking intensive courses in major disciplines, prospective K-5 teachers will over the following summer complete and defend a master’s thesis.
Each prospective teacher will then serve a full academic year of internship under the best experienced teachers available, and will for at least two months of that time engage in student teaching.
After completing all requirements for the Masters of Liberal Arts degree and serving the academic year of internship, the prospective teacher will be evaluated for employment in the Minneapolis Public Schools. At first, prospective K-5 teachers will come to the teacher retraining program of the Minneapolis Public Schools possessing formal teacher certification from one of the established conventional programs, or according to present alternative certification processes. In the course of time, officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools will work with a college or university to gain recognition for its program of teacher retraining as an alternative licensure program.
At the grades 6-8 (middle school) level, prospective teachers will study through to both the bachelor’s (B. A. or B. S.) and master’s (M. A. or M. S.) degrees before applying for a position in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The bachelor’s and master’s degrees may not be in the field of education, but rather should be in disciplines such as mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, English, art, music, history, economics, and political science.
After completing the master’s degree in a legitimate academic discipline, each prospective teacher at grades 6-8 will then serve a full academic year of internship under the best experienced teachers available, and will for at least two months of that time engage in student teaching.
After serving the academic year of internship, the prospective teacher will be evaluated for employment in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Certification will be obtained in one of the ways as given for teachers at grades K-5: traditional, alternative, or recognition of the graduate study and internship sequence required by the Minneapolis Public Schools as an alternative licensure program.
At the grades 9-12 (high school level), the process will be as with prospective teachers at grades 6-8: They will study through to both the bachelor’s (B. A. or B. S.) and master’s (M. A. or M. S.) degrees before applying for a position in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The bachelor’s and master’s degrees may not be in the field of education, but rather should be in disciplines such as mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, English, art, music, history, economics, and political science.
Additionally, prospective grades 9-12 teachers will be encouraged to study through to the Ph. D. in the relevant legitimate academic discipline, with generous remuneration offered for doing so. Such academic qualifications will provide highly trained high school teachers for providing Advanced Placement and university-level courses on the high school campuses of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
After completing the master’s degree and, ideally, the Ph. D. in a legitimate academic discipline, each prospective teacher at grades 9-12 will then serve a full academic year of internship under the best experienced teachers available, and will for at least two months of that time engage in student teaching.
After serving the academic year of internship, the prospective teacher will be evaluated for employment in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Certification will be obtained in one of the ways as given for teachers at grades K-5 and grades 9-12: traditional, alternative, or recognition of the graduate study and internship sequence required by the Minneapolis Public Schools as an alternative licensure program.
………………………………………………………
3 >>>>> Eliminate most positions at the central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools and greatly enhance outreach to families.
At the central school district level, certain positions relevant to school finance, building maintenance, public communications, legal matters, and transportation will be retained. But otherwise, the objective should be to move any truly necessary positions out to the building level.
At the level of the school building, there will be much new emphasis placed on building a staff of people highly adroit at communicating with and visiting families of students.
Once curriculum has been defined and teachers retrained in the manner specified in sections 1 and 2 above, there will be little need for full-time curriculum specialists or a chief academic officer.
Assistant superintendent positions should also be eliminated, according to a shift to a site-based focus and a strengthening of the building principal position.
The building principal should have great authority and responsibility in the hiring and evaluation of teachers, with her or his own review by the superintendent determined by the academic results achieved according to the performance of students taught by those hired, evaluated, and retained by the building principal.
. ………………………………………………………
Moving to put in place these administrative policies would put the Minneapolis Public Schools in a position to deliver an education of truly knowledge-intensive excellence, with a staff of intellectually engaged and pedagogically skilled teachers--- and to offer the public locally centralized school district in Minneapolis as a model for utilization by other urban school districts.
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