Decision-Makers in the Minneapolis Public Schools Must Address Problems of Curriculum and Teacher Quality: Focused Instruction Must Take Precedence Over Community Partnership Schools

Much in the manner of Pierre Bezukhov, decision-makers in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) are ever busy turning a screw stripped of its threads, committing their energies to great whirls of action that have little favorable effect.


Pierre Bezukhov is the character in Tolstoy’s War and Peace whose flings with altruistic action (attempting but failing to free his serfs, embracing the ideals of the Masonic Brotherhood) never match his propensity toward the life of a wastrel womanizer whose esteem in high society masks the deep failure to respond to a soul that longs for purpose.


Tolstoy writes,


No matter what he thought about, he always returned to these same questions which he could not solve and yet could not cease to ask himself. It was if the thread of the chief screw which held his life together were stripped, so that the screw could not get in or out, but went on turning uselessly in the same place.


And so it is with the officials of the Minneapolis Public Schools. Ever awhirl in the distraction of the moment, they never get around to locating the principal reasons for their dilemma and therefore never address their most vexing problems.


The key problems are those pertinent to curriculum, teachers, and the proper allocation of resources. During the tenure of Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson, the three signature programs of Shift, High Priority Schools, and Focused Instruction went into effect with the goal of addressing these problems.


The aim of Shift is to concentrate resources close to the classroom so as to address the needs of all students. Interim Superintendent Michael Goar, who took over for Johnson just over a year ago, did eliminate 120 positions in the central offices at 1250 West Broadway. But student-based budgetary allocation has been delayed in deference to well-heeled Southwest Minneapolis residents who are concerned about shifting more resources to schools with many special needs students, or those with many children receiving free or reduced price lunch.


High Priority Schools are now under the supervision of Associate Superintendent Laura Cavender, who has demonstrated seriousness of intent and some measurable progress; but we need to see much more improvement in mathematics and reading skills of students in schools at which achievement has lagged for many years.


Focused Instruction, which aims to define grade by grade knowledge and skill sets for consistent implementation throughout the school district, gathered momentum as a program under the tenure of MPS Teaching and Learning Director Mike Lynch. Well-received by many teachers trained for implementing a more knowledge-intensive curriculum, Focused Instruction also faced a great deal of push-back from union chief Lynn Nordgren, other representatives of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, and even some personnel working closely with Lynch at the level of the central office.


Energy and attention devoted to Focused Instruction have waned under Interim Superintendent Goar. New Teaching and Learning Executive Director Macarre Traynham and Focused Instruction Project Manager Tina Platt have had very low profiles compared to Lynch. 


Goar has emphasized a less promising program also articulated during the Bernadeia Johnson years:   Community Partnership Schools. Approved institutions (of which there are now four within MPS) function much like charter schools, operating on the basis of site-based management, with much input from building administrators, teachers, parents, and students.


Focused Instruction and Community Partnership Schools potentially function at cross purposes: Focused Instruction is a program emanating from the central office; Community Partnership Schools are given much autonomy in exchange for an as yet ill-defined accountability.


Local control resonates with many people, and the use of pejoratives like “top-down management” has a facile appeal to those who do not understand the importance of common purpose. But understand that the best school systems in the world are found in nations (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, Finland) in which curriculum is set at the national level. In the United States, our fixation on local control undermines initiatives at the national level.


Thus, I am working to impel personnel at the Minneapolis Public Schools to rid themselves of distractions, proceed with district-wide implementation of Focused Instruction, and assume responsibility for training teachers at the level of the central school district who have the ability to impart information pertinent to mathematics, natural science, literature, history, economics, the fine arts, and world languages at all grade levels; with reading embedded in all of these knowledge-intensive subject areas.


Only by rectifying the current deficiencies in curriculum and teacher quality can officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools ensure the knowledge-intensive education of excellence for which students have long waited.


Otherwise, in adaptation of Tolstoy, these officials will be always returning to the same improperly addressed questions, acting ineffectually, as if the thread of the chief screw that should hold the Minneapolis Public Schools together has been stripped, unable to get in or out, turning uselessly in the same place.