Members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education please strongly consider this message:
Failing to opt for Charles Foust as the next Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools would be a missed opportunity with serious implications:
Foust can be the needed agent for cultural change and acceleration of student progress in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
In his appearances during the semifinalist and finalist phases in the selection process for Superintendent, Foust radiated fervor for academic transformation in the lives of struggling students, with a proven record of turning schools around. He was very specific as to how he has accomplished the considerable feat of moving students from sub-grade level performance in math and reading to sustained grade level or better performance as principal at Fondren Middle School and now at seven middle schools in the Houston Independent School District.
Foust emphasized highly aggressive tutoring for skill acquisition, with an extra hour a day and ten extra days on the calendar so as to serve students having such needs. He superintended close monitoring of student performance as students began to improve, phasing out the intensive tutorial program as students sustained grade-level or better performance over a period of months. In securing the shifts in the school calendar, working with local landlords to better match lease contracts to the schedules of the students and their families, Foust demonstrated an admirable ability to innovate and to pursue logical action to create a context that maximized chances for student success.
In overseeing needed changes in order to induce student progress, Foust manifested the critical ability to recognize immediate needs, aggressively address those needs, and pursue logical courses of action that abetted the program for achieving results. He learned the importance of buy-in on the part of teachers and staff, carefully developing the course of action in consultation with those people most responsible for implementing the plan, listening to accounts of challenges along the way, evolving strategies with stakeholders for overcoming obstacles, then insisting that each person designated for particular roles--- and agreeing to assume those roles--- did the job that she or he said that the person could do.
There was a telling moment at a community gathering for asking questions of the candidates at Webster Elementary School on the evening of Wednesday, 2 December 2015, just after I had asked Charles Foust if he believed in objective testing as a measure of student progress, in the manner of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) and the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR). Perceiving that I opposed such testing, he challenged me with a countering question:
“Well let me ask you: Do you believe in the SAT [for college readiness]?”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “And I believe in the MCAs.”
“Oh, well, then we agree,” Foust replied.
This was enormously impressive:
Foust did not shrink from my question when he thought that I opposed objective testing, asking instead a superbly posed inquiry that I myself in fact often ask people. Objective testing of student progress is not only the most reliable way of determining progress in mathematics and reading--- and the development of other knowledge and skill sets. It also is a fact of student life, so that test-taking is itself a skill that students need to develop as they anticipate taking the SAT or ACT for college entrance.
Charles Foust manifests an ability to engage, trade ideas, differ or agree as the case may be, demonstrating candor and conviction while listening carefully to the other person. He does this with a smile on his face, as if he enjoys hearing what other people have to say, even giving them a chance to change his own ideas, but ultimately stating forthrightly his understanding of the truth.
Everything about Foust’s manner and his proven track record suggests that this is a person who can make change happen.
He is a teacher and loves teachers.
Foust told me that as a teacher he believes that these vital classroom presences are not just facilitators guiding students toward information: They are imparters of information from their own mental stores of knowledge and providers of life wisdom as elders who have experienced the world.
“So, you believe,” I asked Foust, “in imparting particular knowledge sets in grade by grade sequence, so that by the time our students go across the stage at graduation they know, for example, how the Federal Reserve System works; why Reconstruction failed and the consequences of that failure; the difference in the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud and B. F. Skinner?”
“Yes. We must teach the whole child. We need to conduct objective testing so that we know exactly how students are performing in math and reading. And we must have academic standards. But we must go beyond testing and the standards to teach the whole child. We must go deeper. Our children deserve a full and varied education across many subject areas, including history, science, the arts--- and many other areas for giving our students the best education for life that they can have.”
“And you believe that teachers themselves should know these things and are able to impart this information--- that in addition to developing the critical thinking skills of students, and beyond the role of classroom facilitators guiding students toward information, teachers are themselves knowledgeable people who share their expertise with students?”
“Yes. I’m a teacher,” Foust replied.
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In giving honest testimony to his love of teachers and wanting to give them opportunities for buy-in to any program of action for accelerating student progress, Foust exhibits qualities that can be all important in moving Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 forward with strategies that work and that are embraced by teachers.
Indeed, many of these approaches will be derived from those used by teachers who have achieved the best results. Foust will listen to what teachers have to say. He will offer his own considerable wisdom on the best plan for action. And in a spirit of collaboration, teachers will be motivated to fill their students’ brains with the knowledge and skill sets vital not just to function but to prosper in the world beyond their K-12 years. Instruction will be differentiated as necessary and appropriate to the learner, but common results in the form of shared knowledge and skill sets will be expected for all children.
Consistent with this firm, but flexible as appropriate, approach Foust said that expectations for special education students should be kept high but realistic--- and that while most students should prove that they possess certain knowledge and skill sets via objective testing, with portfolios supplementary demonstrations of student progress, special education students provide the case wherein the portfolio approach can be of value as the prime means for demonstrating progress.
Charles Foust has an amazing ability to communicate:
His views have a big-tent quality capable of uniting people with disparate ideas as to what constitutes an excellent education. Under his leadership, I--- who am ever dubious as to whether people arising from the education establishment actually believe in knowledge-intensive education imparted by appropriately knowledgeable teachers--- can with great conviction foresee students graduating from the Minneapolis Public Schools as led by Charles Foust possessing the knowledge and skill sets upon which critical thinking and lifelong learning are most likely to proceed.
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Everything about the record, philosophy, style, personality, and energy level of Charles Foust suggests strongly that he can make ambitious academic goals such as those in Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 happen:
He believes in the learning capacity of students. He is knowledgeable and believes in knowledge-intensive education. He values excellent teachers. He is an excellent communicator who listens empathetically to struggles in the achievement toward a goal, making adjustments as necessary, but holds firmly to the goal and expects results.
Charles Foust is a leader, a communicator with the ability to achieve unity amidst diversity, the change agent that the locally centralized school district of the Minneapolis Public Schools needs at this critical juncture.
Under his leadership, the culture of the school district will be transformed:
Teachers and staff will come to believe in the learning capacity of students of all demographic descriptors, and they will pursue courses of action that make knowledge and skill acquisition on the part of all students a reality.
Members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education should seize this opportunity to embrace a person whom they called into their midst, who demonstrated the qualities for which they were and should be searching, and did it all with manifested love and spirit for the job for which he was being interviewed.
Charles Foust should be the next Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
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