While the Protracted Search for a Superintendent Continues, Academic Quality of the Minneapolis Public Schools Remains Low

One year ago, I counseled members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education not to engage in a protracted search for a new Superintendent.


My observation, detailed in many articles on this blog, was that nothing in the way superintendents are trained works to produce the kind of professionals likely to articulate a program for bringing excellence to the public schools.


We got lucky with Bernadeia Johnson, who included in her professional history experience outside the education establishment, so that she was able to elude the heavy odds prevailing against those whose professional trajectory follows more traditional routes.


Superintendent Johnson did identify the most vexing problems facing the Minneapolis Public Schools (and all centralized public school systems) >>>>>


>>>>>  She recognized the need to slim the centralized bureaucracy and move sources close to the classroom in her Shift program.


>>>>>  She acted on the long-prevailing need to address low academic achievement at schools with high enrollments of students from families of low income and frequently dysfunctional home situations by elevating attention to those needs after identifying High Priority Schools.


>>>>>  And she addressed the curricular inconsistency long endemic to the Minneapolis Public Schools, especially at the K-5 level, by establishing the Focused Instruction program for implementing cohesive grade by grade curriculum throughout the K-12 years.


If we followed through on those programs established during the Bernadeia Johnson tenure, we would overhaul the Minneapolis Public Schools in such a way at to establish the knowledge-intensive education that students of all demographic descriptors must have--- the system of education that I have presented in many articles on this blog.


But now, just when members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education seemed to have followed through on the protracted process against which I argued in such a way as to arrive at a viable selection in Sergio Paez as Superintendent--- the process became vitiated, much bungling ensued, and a situation even worse than that which I feared now abides. And as the search now appears likely to drag on into summer, personnel at the Minneapolis Public Schools are not acting vigorously enough to move on the promising programs from the Bernadeia Johnson years.


Meanwhile, all of the old conditions endemic to the education establishment and the debased culture of the Minneapolis Public Schools remain unchanged >>>>>


>>>>>  Teachers are still trained terribly according to the errant philosophical precepts and programs of professors in departments, schools, and colleges of education.


>>>>>   Once in the classroom, most teachers prove to have too little knowledge and to be mediocre at imparting necessary knowledge and skill sets to the students with whose education and therefore lives they are entrusted; a few teachers find their way to excellence, but a like number are so inept that they never should have entered the classroom.


And, specifically, in the schools and classrooms of our students at the Minneapolis Public Schools,


>>>>>  too many videos or DVDs are shown;


>>>>>  too many worksheet-filled “packets” are distributed;


>>>>>  too little discussion and teacher-dispensed knowledge occurs;


>>>>>  too many field trips occur in which students have little preparation and limited idea of the purpose;


>>>>>  too many students endure the presence of inept substitutes due to teacher absences and midyear resignations;


>>>>>  and students move forward on a very slim skill base in mathematics and reading; and abominable training in literature, fine arts, natural science, history, government, economics, psychology, world languages, and the industrial and technological arts.


The pool of possible superintendents is unlikely to produce any candidate who is a sure bet to have the training and experience necessary to address these problems that are at the core of the public schools dilemma. Whoever is selected will need lots of help from a few capable people able to point that superintendent in the right direction. Thus, the real task before the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education is to opt for the least objectionable selection from a murky pool of candidates;  then to train attention on the vexing and long-abiding problems detailed above and identified by Bernadeia Johnson in the programs of Shift, High Priority Schools, and Focused Instruction.


To move the Minneapolis Public Schools in the direction of delivering knowledge-intensive education with retrained teachers possessing the knowledge necessary to impart such an education; and bequeath to our students that excellence of education that will send them forth culturally enriched, civically prepared, and professionally rewarded;


we must cease distractions presented as we lurch from unnecessary crisis to unnecessary crisis;  select the best candidate for Superintendent available;  but in doing so know that any such person will need the counsel of the few apt educational professionals and knowledgeable people able to guide and support the new leader in addressing the problems and furthering the programs that can lead us to excellence in education in the classrooms of the Minneapolis Public Schools.