Detailed Information from the MPS Website >>>>> Unanswered Questions and Shallow Claims of "Transparency" >>>>> Vote "No" on the MPS 8 November Referendum

As you, my readers, scroll on down this article, you will find all of the information pertinent to the 8 November 2016 Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) referendum as provided by the school district's officials at the Referendum portal of the MPS website.


Before you read the information provided by MPS, read first this immediately following communication that I sent to MPS officials on 21 September 2016.  Very crucially, know that I got not a single answer to any of these questions, either in writing, or in a conversation that I had with two very cordial MPS officials whose cordiality nevertheless could produce no answers.


Thus, consider first this inability of officials at MPS to respond to a single one of the following questions:


September 21, 2016

To those at the Minneapolis Public Schools responsible for answering inquiries regarding the 2016

referendum that will be on the 8 November ballot : 


With regard to the indicated uses for the Minneapolis Public Schools' 2016 Referendum, please answer the following questions:

Concerning tutoring:   

1)  Specifically what percentage of referendum funding will be used for tutoring programing? 


2)  What would be the per year cost of tutoring programming?

Please provide details on the tutoring programming that will be provided, indicating whether or not the tutoring programming will be during school, after school, or during summers;  the subject area content that will be the focus of the tutoring program;  and details on who will be providing the instruction.

3)  What changes will be made in current tutoring programming and what new initiatives will be launched? 

4)  How many students will participate in the tutoring program each year?

5)  At what grade levels will tutoring be provided?

6) What measures of tutoring effectiveness will be used?

With regard to plans for professional development and curriculum that supports and integrates academic and social emotional learning:

 1)  Please provide details on this curriculum.

 2)  What will be the per year cost of professional development and curriculum for social and

emotional learning?

Regarding other issues:

1)  Will the indicated 591 teachers for managing class sizes be teachers added to current staffing levels--- or will they be teachers sustained in currently existing positions with the use of these funds?

2)  Please specify the duties of the "academic specialists" listed under plans for referendum funding. 


3)  What is the projected per year cost for these specialists?

4)  Please provide details on the indicated "math, science, and early literacy curriculum and materials" given as uses of referendum funding.  What will be the per year cost of the curriculum and materials?

5) Will the indicated "classroom technology" be for new expenditures or to maintain current levels of funding of this type?  What will be the projected in this per year funding for this use? 

Please provide answers to these questions as soon as possible.

My thanks---

Gary

Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.

Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
(Cell) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  (given in communication, omitted on blog)


>>>>>

With that communication in view, consider that tax collections for the levy,

while falling in 2017, would be absent entirely if a "No" vote results in failure of the referendum (as I am recommending)---   and also (if the referendum lamentably passes) that taxes might go up in subsequent years of the total nine years for which any approved levy would be valid.

Know then that this show of "transparency" by officials at MPS is a mere façade.

With, then, an appropriately skeptical eye, read the information provided by MPS officials, as follows:

>>>>>

Pertinent Information, Given at the "Referendum"

Portal at the Minneapolis Public SchoolsWebsite

The Board of Special School District No. 1 (Minneapolis Public Schools) has proposed to renew the school district’s existing referendum revenue authorization of $1,604.31 per pupil, which is scheduled to expire after taxes payable in 2016. The revenue will be used to manage class sizes and provide supportive services and activities for students. The proposed referendum revenue authorization would increase each year by the rate of inflation and be applicable for nine years, beginning with taxes payable in 2017, unless otherwise revoked or reduced as provided by law. Shall the increase in the revenue proposed by the board of Special School District No. 1 be approved?

Vote Nov. 8. 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.


To locate your polling place or get information about absentee voting or voter registration, visit vote.minneapolismn.gov.


Prepared and paid for by Minneapolis Public Schools. This publication is for informational purposes only and is not meant to advocate for or against a ballot question. 612.668.0000 www.mpls.k12.mn.us


NOTICE OF SPECIAL ELECTION


How do I vote?


Polls will be open on Nov. 8, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.


You can find your polling place and information about voter registration by visiting vote.minneapolismn.gov.


The polling places for this election will be the same as those for the General Election as determined by the City of Minneapolis. All voters in Minnesota may now choose to vote before Election Day by absentee ballot. Early voting starts on Friday, Sept. 23, by mail or in person.
To request an absentee ballot application or for additional information, please contact the City of Minneapolis at 311 or 612-673-3000.


 Vote Nov. 8 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.


To locate your polling place or get information about absentee voting or voter registration, visit vote.minneapolismn.gov. Prepared and paid for by Minneapolis Public Schools.


This publication is for informational purposes only and is not meant to advocate for or against a ballot question. 612.668.0000 www.mpls.k12.mn.us


NOTICE OF SPECIAL ELECTION What is an operating referendum and what does it do? An operating referendum is part of school funding in Minnesota. Nearly all school districts rely on referendum revenue to cover part of the cost of education. Operating referendum questions ask voters to authorize a specific amount of funding per pupil that comes from local property taxes. For MPS, the renewal amount is $1,604.31 per pupil including an annual inflation adjustment. Why is it needed?


The funding we receive from the state has not kept up with inflation or the rising costs of doing business. In order to provide high-quality educational services and support students’ learning, school districts need funding from other sources such as the referendum, grants and federal government.


How would funds from the referendum renewal be used?


If passed, the revenue would be used to manage class sizes and provide supportive services and activities to students. A majority of the funding would be used to pay for teachers and support staff.
For example, in the 2016-2017 school year budget, total referendum revenue provides the funding for more than 750 educator positions.


What happens if the referendum fails?


MPS will have to make difficult decisions about how to operate the district without a substantial portion of the budget. This may significantly impact class sizes and the current services and opportunities we provide students and families across the district.


MPS 2016-2017 budget


Total referendum revenue 13%
All other revenue 87%
Including revenue from the federal & state governments and grants Minneapolis Public Schools estimated annual taxes for referendum renewal


Median Single Family Residential Valuation in the School District


The figures in the table are based on school district taxes for the referendum levy only, and do not include tax levies for other purposes.




How will my property taxes change if the referendum passes?




Property value (Residential, homesteads, apartments and commercial-industrial property)
Estimated annual taxes if referendum passes




                                                 2016       2017     Net change


$100,000                                  $126      $116       –$10
$125,000                                  $157      $146       –$11
$150,000                                  $189      $175       –$14
$175,000                                  $220      $204       –$16
$200,000                                  $252      $233       –$19
$205,000                                  $259      $239       –$20
$225,000                                  $283      $262       –$21
$250,000                                  $315      $291       –$24
$300,000                                  $378      $349       –$29
$350,000                                  $441      $408       –$33
$400,000                                  $504      $466       –$38
$450,000                                  $567      $524       –$43
$500,000                                  $630      $582       –$48
$600,000                                  $755      $699       –$56
$700,000                                  $881      $815       –$66
$800,000                               $1,007      $932       –$75
$900,000                               $1,133   $1,048       –$85
$1,000,000                            $1,259   $1,165       –$94
$1,250,000                            $1,574   $1,456     –$118
$1,500,000                            $1,889   $1,747     –$142
$2,000,000                            $2,518   $2,329     –$189






Learn more about Minneapolis Public Schools’ 2016 referendum


On Nov. 8, Minneapolis voters will be asked to renew the school district’s current operating referendum authorization, which expires after the 2016-17 school year. If passed, funding would help Minneapolis Public Schools manage class sizes and provide supportive services and activities for students. The request would authorize the referendum for nine years and be annually adjusted for inflation. Property taxes are not projected to increase if the referendum renewal passes.


Vote 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.


To locate a polling place or get information about absentee voting or voting registration, visit vote.minneapolismn.gov.


[Sample Ballot for the 8 November Referendum]



SCHOOL DISTRICT QUESTION RENEWAL OF EXPIRING REFERENDUM REVENUE AUTHORIZATION State law does not require uses to be listed, but in an effort to be transparent, MPS provides the uses in the ballot language. The amount of funding allocated to each use is determined through the annual budget process.


The Board of Special School District No. 1 (Minneapolis Public Schools) has proposed to renew the school district’s existing referendum revenue authorization of $1,604.31 per pupil, which is scheduled to expire after taxes payable in 2016. The revenue will be used to manage class sizes and provide supportive services and activities for students. The proposed referendum revenue authorization would increase each year by the rate of inflation and be applicable for nine years, beginning with taxes payable in 2017, unless otherwise revoked or reduced as provided by law. Shall the increase in the revenue proposed by the board of Special School District No. 1 be approved?


BY VOTING “YES” ON THIS BALLOT QUESTION, YOU ARE VOTING TO EXTEND AN EXISTING PROPERTY TAX REFERENDUM THAT IS SCHEDULED TO EXPIRE.


The Minneapolis School Board is asking for an authorization for the next nine years. An annual inflation increase will help with growing costs.


YES          NO


State law requires this statement, even for a renewal.


The existing referendum authority was last approved in 2008 and expires after the 2016-17 school year.




What is an operating referendum?


Operating referendum questions ask voters to authorize a specific amount of funding per pupil that comes from property taxes to fund the operations of school districts. Nearly all school districts in Minnesota receive referendum revenue. For MPS, the expiring amount is $1,604.31 per pupil. For the 2016-17 school year, the total referendum revenue, including the Board approved “Local Optional Revenue” of $424 per pupil, is approximately $74 million. This represents about 13 percent of the operating budget.


Minneapolis Public Schools is committed to using its resources in the most effective way to impact student achievement.


Budgets are posted online so community members can see how funds are used.


We use referendum funds to directly impact student achievement.


In order to ensure the referendum dollars have the greatest impact on students, the funding would be used to pay for:


*  The positions of teachers, counselors, social workers, behavioral or academic support staff;


*  Opportunities for students such as tutoring, leadership development, and mentoring programs, after-school activities; and/or


*  Professional development and curriculum that supports and integrates academic and social and emotional learning.


591 classroom teachers to manage class sizes across the district
82 academic and behavioral specialists
81 teachers and support staff for English Learners
Math, science, and early literacy curriculum and materials
Classroom technology


If the referendum fails, Minneapolis Public Schools will have to make difficult decisions about how to operate the district without a substantial portion of the budget. This may change the current services and opportunities we provide students and families, including class sizes.


More resources and information are available at www.mpls.k12.mn.us/referendum2016, including the official ballot language, property tax information and links to district budgets.


“Prepared and paid for by Minneapolis Public Schools. This publication is not circulated on behalf of any candidate or ballot question.”

Consider again my opening comments pertinent to the foregoing attempt by MPS officials to get your vote and, seeing through the façade,

Vote "No" on the Minneapolis Public Schools 8 November 2016 referendum.

Michael Walker is a Talented Youth Worker, But His Approach in the Office of Black Male Achievement is Ineffective and Deeply Flawed >>>>> Another Reason to Vote "No" on the MPS 8 November Referendum

As you scroll on down this blog, you will read many articles arguing for a "No" vote on the 8 November referendum of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) seeking renewal of the current tax levy that would yield $74 million in the current academic year of 2016-2017, constituting 13% of an operations  budget total of about $580 million---  and keep such funding in place for anther nine-year period.


My message is that officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools need a wake-up call that will jerk them into a sense of urgency for addressing the many unsatisfactory features of the current MPS approach, involving matters of curriculum, teacher quality, academic remediation (tutoring), family and community outreach, and bureaucratic paring.


In the article immediately below as you scroll on down the blog, you'll witness an admission on the part of MPS officials that there is no coherent approach to tutoring and no single individual with responsibility for administering tutoring programs.


The lack of such tutorial cohesion is calamitous, impeding elevation of academic performance in a school district in which fewer than 46% of students achieve at grade level.


Now consider this question that I recently posed for response by personnel in the Office of Black Male Achievement >>>>>


>>>>>  Beyond what can be extrapolated from MCA and MMR data, has any report thus far been issued as to the effectiveness of Michael Walker's program at the Office of Black Male Achievement in raising the academic performance of African American males in mathematics and reading? 


Surmised answer >>>>>


No.


No such report has been issued.


Please confirm or provide the report.






The confirmation of my supposition was, unfortunately, given in this reply from the Office of Black Male Achievement  >>>>>


The graduation data reported by MinnPost [which cited a slight rise in grade point averages (still languishing in the low "C" range) for participating students but with no reference to MCA testing data] is the only metric that we can presently provide. However, what Michael [Walker] would point out is that we are not solely focused on the math and reading scores, we are focused on racial identity, which directly correlates to academic self-concept of students. As they move through their journey and along the continuum, their academic self-concept increases which will mean higher GPAs. And we’re only 2 years into the program, so it’s early to have produced those kinds of outcomes.


Office of Black Male Achievement Director Michael Walker is an extremely adroit youth worker, assigned to head this office that was initiated in 2014.  But two years into the Acceleration 2020 Strategic Plan, which forecasts an annual rise of 8 percentage points in the academic performance (linked to scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments [MCAs]) for underachieving students, no such improvement has occurred.  And, as observe in the following data, for African American males achievement has actually declined    >>>>>




Percentage of Students Recording
Grade Level Performance on MCAs:


Disaggregated Data for Academic Years
Ending in 2014, 2015, and 2016


                   
Math                 


                                                           


African American                  2014       2015      2016 




Male                                         20.8%    22.0%    19.1%




Female                                     21.2%    20.7%     20.5%


Reading                 


                                                           


African American                  2014       2015      2016 




Male                                        18.8%     18.5%   18.2%


Female                                     24.0%     24.5%   23.4%




Thus do we arrive at the year 2016 with African American male academic performance on the decline, with below 23% achieving at grade level for mathematics and reading considered together.


Michael Walker's program at present involves cultural identity consciousness raising for 175 students, with plans for system-wide expansion.  But that system-wide implementation should have already occurred, if the program is to be effective in achieving the goals of the 2020 Plan.  More seriously, the current plan actually has no chance of succeeding in academic terms:  Improvement in cultural self-concept will not alone raise achievement to grade level;  such improvement will only occur with an explicit program of tutorial assistance for the acquisition of the requisite mathematics and reading skills.  


In the failure to implement a program that would meet the goals of the Acceleration 2020 Strategic Plan and actually raise the achievement of African American males, we witness another example of  ineptitude piled on ineptitude at the Minneapolis Public Schools.


Record your disgust at the inability of officials at MPS to address any of the most critical needs of the students they have in their trust   >>>>>


Vote "No" on the 8 November referendum of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

The Lack of a Cohesive, Staff-Administered Tutoring Program for Raising Achievement Levels at the Minneapolis Public Schools >>>>> Register Your Dismay with a "No" Vote on the 8 November Referendum

Today I received an answer to a question for which I had been waiting two weeks, a response to the third of four queries posed at the same time to officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). 


This one concerns tutoring programs coordinated by staff at MPS.


I correctly anticipated the answer to this question, given in my wording as follows:



3) Is there any one person at the Minneapolis Public Schools whose responsibility is to coordinate and provide cohesion to the multiple tutoring programs?


Surmised answer >>>>>


No.


We have no one with this responsibility.


Please confirm or provide the name of the person.


This was the response that I received today, reported by an able official after receiving information from the MPS Department of Teaching and Learning:


Teaching & Learning (in other words from the district level) does not oversee any specific tutoring programs. We definitely have outside agency’s [sic] such as Reading Corps and Reading Partners that work with individual schools implementing their own programs within the schools. These mostly include volunteers trained by the agency to work with students identified by teachers as needing additional supports.


The lack of a cohesive, staff-administered tutoring program confirmed in this answer, while expected, is reprehensible, given that less that 46% of students at MPS achieve grade level performance in reading and mathematics.


I discussed this situation in a prior article, based on information that I had been able to obtain via perusal of MPS websites, listening to my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative, personal visits to multiple schools, and talking to various MPS officials.  Ever the meticulous seeker of factual information, I posed the above question to secure a direct answer in writing that could leave no doubt about the truth that I had discovered.


In that previous article, I included the following comments:

Tutoring efforts at the Minneapolis Public Schools constitute an ineffective hodgepodge.


R. T. Rybak departed the reformist nonprofit agency Generation Next before that organization delivered on its promises to enroll a bevy of tutors to help struggling public school students in Minnesota. This was after officials at Generation Next committed two years of staff time to arrive at the obvious conclusion that aggressive remedial instruction should be rendered to ensure that all students are reading and performing mathematical operations at level of school enrollment by grade 3.


Students at K-5 and K-8 institutions in the Minneapolis Public Schools receive some help through the Beacons after school program. But academic assistance in Beacons is not high quality or properly measured for effectiveness, and students spend as much after school time in recreational pursuits as they do in striving to achieve academic proficiency. 


Those wishing to sign up as volunteers for the Minneapolis Public Schools may sign up under categories that include Community Volunteers, Elementary Literacy Tutor Program, and Adult Education Volunteers. Other programs included on the MPS website for prospective volunteers that have relevance to tutoring include Math Corps, Reading Corps, City of Lakes Americorps, and 15 VISTA. 


But there is only one person--- Kaylie Burns Gahagan--- with prime responsibility for coordinating volunteers, not all volunteers render academic instruction, and there has been no major effort to place a sufficient number of tutors working to advance the academic prospects of all students needing remedial instruction in all schools.


In asking voters on 8 November to approve the posed referendum, officials at MPS are claiming that resources generated with this tax levy will be used directly to promote the academic advancement of students.  But the careful reader of this claim comes quickly to understand that the precise amounts or percentages allocated to critical programs that can actually boost student achievement are lacking.


The absence of any outlay for the hiring and training of high-quality tutors in tandem with the failure to designate a coordinator for MPS tutoring programs, signals grave incompetence in addressing the most fundamental academic needs of students.




Register your dismay for this lack of a cohesive, staff-administered tutoring program for raising achievement levels at the Minneapolis Public Schools, along with your disgust for the general ineptitude at MPS as detailed in my recent articles >>>>> 


Vote "No" on the 8 November Referendum of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

A Telling Lack of Response from Nan Miller at Minneapolis Public Schools Data Requests--- with Many Additional Implicit Reasons to Vote "No" on the 8 November Referendum

On 13 October 2016 I submitted the request given below to Nan Miller and Data Requests personnel at the Minneapolis Public Schools.  No answer has been forthcoming as of the posting of this article on this blog on the late evening of 26 October 2016.


While I would be happy to have viable responses, the questions were framed in such a way as to
surmise the following:


>>>>>    Tutoring, vitally needed for students in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) who are calamitously functioning below grade level in reading and mathematics, is abominably disarticulated at MPS, not clearly accounted for in the budget, and without any single person designated for responsibility in coordinating the various inadequate efforts.


>>>>>     Outreach to struggling families of students---  so as to provide counseling, resource referral, and adjustment of life circumstances in ways vital to the academic performance of young people from families of poverty and frequent dysfunction---  is unacceptably understaffed and far down on the list of MPS priorities.


>>>>>     With the academic performance of African American males the single most prominent of many blemishes on the academic record at MPS, there still is no report extant on the progress that Michael Walker (Director of the Office of Black Male Achievement at MPS since 2014) is making addressing the pertinent issues.  Mr. Walker is a talented youth worker, but whether his talents are being fully utilized is very much in doubt, given that academic performance of African American males on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) has actually declined since 2014, with two years of the six-year Acceleration 2020 Strategic Plan having already passed.


Given these observations, and assuming that my surmises are correct, this ineptitude on the part of officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools becomes part of an accumulating case for delivering a wake-up call with a "No" vote on the 8 November referendum issue.


Here is the communication of reference >>>>>



October 13, 2016


Data Requests Personnel, Nan Miller, and Pertinent Officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools---


I seek in this request confirmation for answers to questions for which I have tentatively surmised the prevailing essential facts.


The questions are these:


1) Is there a total figure that can be identified in the current budget of the Minneapolis Public Schools for all tutoring programs?


Surmised answer >>>>>


No.


We have no idea how much is spent as an aggregate figure on the various tutoring initiatives at the Minneapolis Public Schools.


Please confirm or provide the relevant figure.


2) Is there a total figure that can be identified in the current budget of the Minneapolis Public Schools for all efforts to reach out to families of students facing major challenges of poverty or familial functionality?


Surmised answer >>>>>


No.


We have no idea how much is spent as an aggregate figure on such initiatives at the Minneapolis Public Schools.


Please confirm or provide the relevant figure.


3) Is there any one person at the Minneapolis Public Schools whose responsibility is to coordinate and provide cohesion to the multiple tutoring programs?


Surmised answer >>>>>


No.


We have no one with this responsibility.


Please confirm or provide the name of the person.


4) Beyond what can be extrapolated from MCA and MMR data, has any report thus far been issued as to the effectiveness of Michael Walker's program at the Office of Black Male Achievement in raising the academic performance of African American males in mathematics and reading?


Surmised answer >>>>>


No.


No such report has been issued.


Please confirm or provide the report.


I am leaning toward advocating rejection of the current referendum, for which my discernment of answers to these questions weighs heavily. If I have not gotten responses from you by the morning of Tuesday, 18 October, I will assume that my tentative suppositions are correct.


I will very much appreciate your provision of answers to these questions, so that my recommendations may be as well informed with factual material as possible.


With best regards---


Gary


Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
(Cell) ~~~~~  (provided in the above communication, omitted on blog)



The lack of response to this request and to these questions---  especially assuming that my surmises are correct---  become part of the mounting case to


Vote "No" on the 8 November referendum of the Minneapolis Public Schools. 

A Multi-Day Series Detailing the Obligation to Vote "No" on the Minneapolis Public Schools Referendum on 8 November >>>>> Atoning for the Multiculpability of a Society Too Little Interested in K-12 Education

We say that we care about education.


But we don't.


Not like we should, or say that we do, or like to think with all of those calls for an "excellent education"  emanating from politicians, businesspeople, would-be educators, newspaper editorial staffs, broadcast journalist, many people in many corners---


We just don't care.


Enough.


Not nearly enough.


If we did, we'd solve the problems that plague public education---  because they are soluble.


But they remain unsolved, unaddressed, because we don't care enough.


We are forever placing our hopes, such as the are, where they cannot be realized.


I have told you on this blog that Mayor Betsy Hodges cannot address the problems of K-12 education from her perch.  Keith Ellison can only do so much, as can Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken.  Even Governor Mark Dayton and Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius are in position to do more harm than good, beholden as they are to political constituencies who invariably oppose favorable change.


But even favorable change over the long term can only happen with those who have enough courage to act at the local level as represented by the Minneapolis Public Schools, making public comments, meeting with officials, evaluating performances of those at the locally centralized school district who are after all on the public dole, in many cases $100,000-plus welfare recipients.


But, instead, people complain from afar, at long distances from where courageous action can actually make a difference. 


For be assured, in the United States, wherein a fixation on local control abides, the needed overhaul of K-12 education will only happen at the local level.


So  >>>>>


All of you living in Linden Hills and on Lowery Hill who send your children to private schools and do not agitate for change in the public schools   >>>>>    guilty.


All of you in the Southwest enclaves of Minneapolis who support your kids in opting out of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs), knowing that the exam of importance for  them will be the ACT---  but in the meantime making more complicated our evaluation of student performance for our neediest kids   >>>>>   guilty in the extreme.


All of you at the Star Tribune who opine for better education year after year with inevitable futility while failing to devote a fulltime column to matters that could actually promote change   >>>>>  highly guilty.


Administrators at our colleges and universities who look the other way as inept education professors send young teachers into the field, because teacher training programs are cash cows to rival the young athletes whom you also abuse   >>>>>   most assuredly guilty.


And on it goes to every quarter of our society, including those roosts occupied by those of you now reading this article  >>>>>   you too are guilty.


As am I, until I can focus the attention of enough people at the level of the locally centralized school district so that meaningful change reaches those students who have been waiting a very long time for the education that they should have to live lives as culturally enriched, civically prepared, and professionally satisfied citizens.


So address our collective guilt.


Atone for our multi-culpability.


Take a stand and tell those who seek more of your public dole that in an overall budget of
$850,000,000 and an operating budget of $580,000,000, they'll just have to do without that 13% ($74,000,0000) for their ineffective operations, the welfare payments for themselves that they seek to protect their overstaffed, overpaid, ineffective sinecures.


Tell them to come back next time with priorities focused not on maintenance of a failed system, but on teacher training, cohesive tutoring program, and family outreach efforts that can reverse the outcomes that you readers will see as you scroll on down this blog.


 Vote "No" on the 8 November referendum of the Minneapolis Public Schools.


To do so is your civic responsibility for promoting the needed overhaul of K-12 education at the only level where it really matters in the United States,


 >>>>>   the locally centralized school district, a specific iteration of which is the school district of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

A Multi-Day Series >>>>> Decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools Are Failing Students and Have No Viable Plan for Academic Advancement >>>>> Vote "No" on the 8 November Referendum

Decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools are now either operating on wildly improbable assumptions or knowingly making false declarations via the district’s Acceleration 2020 Strategic Plan and a document called the Educational Equity Framework:


The 2020 Plan sets targeted increases of 5% per year in academic achievement levels of MPS students as a whole; a comparable figure of 8% for the most academically challenged students; and 10% for the four-year graduation rate.


But two years into this six-year plan, academic achievement levels are mostly flat and for American Indian and African American males have even declined. The graduation rate still languishes at 64% overall for the district as a whole; the four-year graduation rate for American Indians and African Americans is just 36% and 52% respectively.


Consider these figures, from among the most recent data provided by the Department of Research, Evaluation, and Development (REA) at the Minneapolis Public Schools:


Percentage of Students Recording Grade Level Performance on MCAs:
Disaggregated Data for Academic Years Ending in 2014, 2015, and 2016


Math                                   


African American              2014          2015          2016


Male                                    20.8%       22.0%        19.1%


Female                                 21.2%       20.7%       20.5%


African (Somali, Ethiopian, Liberian--- late
20th/early 21st century immigrant populations)


                                          
                                            2014           2015        2016
                                        


Male                                    24.2%        25.0%      23.6%


Female                                 24.1%        25.9%      21.5%


Hispanic                              2014          2015          2016


Male                                     32.1%        33.5%      32.1%


Female                                 29.4%         30.3%     30.4.%


Native American/ American Indian


                                             2014          2015          2016


Male                                     19.9%         16.5%     16.0%


Female                                  25.0%         21.9%     21.3%


Asian                                   2014          2015          2016


Male                                     44.1%         47.4%      45.4%


Female                                  51.3%         53.4%      54.1%


Whites/ Caucasian             2014          2015          2016


Male                                      76.7%         78.4%      77.4%


Female                                   77.0%         77.9%     78.4%




All Students                         2014          2015          2016


Male                                       43.1%         44.3%    42.9%


Female                                    43.9%         44.5%    44.4%




Percentage of Students Recording Grade Level Performance on MCAs: Disaggregated Data for Academic Years Ending in 2014, 2015, and 2016


Reading                                               


African American                  2014          2015          2016


Male                                         18.8%         18.5%     18.2%


Female                                      24.0%         24.5%     23.4%


African (Somali, Ethiopian, Liberian--- 
late 20th/early 21st century immigrant populations)


                                                  2014          2015          2016


Male                                          18.8%         19.3%     20.4%


Female                                       27.6%         24.3%     23.2%


Hispanic                                   2014          2015          2016


Male                                           22.0%         22.9%     24.7%


Female                                        24.5%         26.6%     27.6%


Native American/ American Indian


                                                    2014          2015          2016


Male                                            18.3%         13.9%     15.3%


Female                                         23.6%         26.1%     25.9%


Asian                                           2014          2015          2016


Male                                             36.0%         35.8%     38.8%


Female                                         44.7%          44.1%     50.6%


White/ Caucasian                       2014          2015          2016


Male                                             75.3%          74.3%     74.0%


Female                                          81.0%          80.2%     80.0%


All Students                                2014          2015          2016


Male                                             39.2%           38.7%     39.6%


Female                                         45.3%            45.1%     45.8%




Both Acceleration 2020 Strategic Plan and the Educational Equity Plan merely offer page-filling verbiage, constituting documents the chief value of which is to provide legal cover and an appearance of action, in the absence of any viable program for achieving favorable academic results.


Thus was I appalled when, in his “State of the Schools” address, Superintendent Ed Graff conveyed a desire “to change the narrative” about the Minneapolis Public Schools, declaring the school district to be “MPS Strong,” thus adding to the prevailing fiction attending the abiding slogan at the Minneapolis Public Schools, declaring that every student will be “Career and College Ready.”


This is wretched.


This is wild sloganeering that has no bearing to reality.


Such declarations come in full frontal view of the statistics given above, in the knowledge that less than 46% of the district’s students are achieving at grade level in reading and math; and that for American Indian and African American males less than 20% are achieving at grade level.


But there are lives in the balance.


The sanguine, feel-good message that Graff spouts suggests an imperviousness to the reality of the sanguinary consequences produced when young people who face challenges of familial poverty and frequent dysfunction are then ill-served by their schools.


Putative academic institutions that should impart knowledge and skills paving a route out of cyclical generational poverty instead lay pipelines running from failing schools to the life of the street and on to institutions of incarceration.


The Minneapolis Public Schools is at the moment nowhere close to any of those programmatic features necessary for the attainment of educational excellence, specifically,


1) installing a knowledge-intensive, clearly sequenced curriculum throughout the K-12 years;


2) retraining teachers, who come out of teacher preparation programs ill-equipped to deliver such a curriculum;


3) designing and implementing a coherent program of skill acquisition for failing students, replacing the disarticulated, inadequate tutoring initiatives currently prevailing;


4) greatly expanding outreach and services to students who come from challenged economic and familial circumstances; and, so as to make possible the preference that should be given to these priorities,


5) cutting the central school district bureaucracy by at least 25% from its presently bloated staff count of about 550 members.


Decision-makers at the national level can do little to make structural change in K-12 education in the United States.


But you have the power to take action at the level of the locally centralized school district with the deliverance of the vitally necessary wake-up call to local-level decision-makers whose actions forever affect the lives of our precious young people.


There are lives in the balance.


Make the needed statement.


Vote “No” on the MPS referendum on 8 November.

In the United States, Activism for Public Education Must be Exerted at the Level of the Locally Centralized School District >>>>> Implications for Your Vote ("No") on the 8 November Referendum

For those of you concerned about public education in this political year, understand that with the local control impetus in the United States, your focus of action must be at the level of the locally centralized school district. Such votes matter much more than the hopes that you might futilely project on candidates vying for office at the national level.


A chance to exert your activism in Minneapolis will come this looming election day of 8 November 2016, the same day on which you will opt for candidates at the national, state and local levels.


On matters of foreign policy, trade, federal budgetary decisions, abortion, philosophy of jurisprudence for appointments and decisions at the Supreme Court, and a range of other issues your decision for Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, or other presidential candidates is very important. Your vote for the candidates vying to represent Minnesota in the United States Senate or House of Representatives likewise carries great weight. And your selection of candidates standing for state and local positions also bears heavily on matters of expenditure and revenue, the projects that do or do not materialize as a result of those budgetary decisions, and action taken on a range of social issues.


But while state-level education is a bit more important than most education policy set at the national level, your real influence on matters pertinent to education comes at the local level:


National and state programs for education come and go:


I have detailed in my academic journal, Journal of the K-12 Revolution:  Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota) and in many places on this blog (including one very detailed five-article series) how the great promise of No Child Left Behind (NCLB, a specific iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) was eventually undermined by politicians of both left and right inclination, and from both Democrats and Republicans. During the period encompassing the administration of President Barack Obama, NCLB was largely impaled by a waiver application system put in place by the United States Department of Education. Then NCLB was entirely superseded by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of Congress in December 2015, bearing significant policy changes as the new iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.


Under the policies of the gubernatorial administration of Mark Dayton, with Brenda Cassellius at the helm of the Minnesota Department of Education, a waiver application was issued and, after initial rejection, was approved after the second attempt. Policy shifts at the state level serve to indicate differences between NCLB and ESSA:


Under NCLB, scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) determined whether a school was failing or succeeding for not having given evidence of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) across all ethnic groups identified via disaggregated data. Failing schools in Minnesota, as was the case across the nation, had to allow outside private tutoring firms to vie for the provision of academic remediation. After about a half-decade of successive annual failure, failing schools faced mandatory staff and programmatic restructuring.


Now, under ESSA, utilization of contracted private tutoring firms has been eliminated. In Minnesota, the MCAs in math and reading are still administered at grades 3-8; and at the high school level, MCAs are still given at grade 10 (reading) and grade 11 (math). But under a new Multiple Measurement Rating System (MMRS) MCA scores are now combined with additional measures of success that take into account graduation rates and student progress from year to year. And, while students once had to prove grade level writing skills In a state-mandated assessment at grade 9, and to demonstrate grade-level performance on the Grade 10 Reading MCA, the writing test has been eliminated and grade level performance on the reading test is no longer required for graduation.


Meanwhile, great opposition has arisen across the nation to Common Core, the programmatic attempt by a private committee of scholars and other members to institutionalize curricular rigor and continuity across the nation. In Minnesota, the Brenda Cassellius administration has adopted Common Core standards for reading but not for mathematics.


But even states wherein both major facets of Common Core were at first adopted, opposition now casts the program in doubt. What had been an ingenious state-by-state adoption strategy by scholars seeking the nationwide continuity witnessed in the best education systems of the world (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Finland, Germany) foundered in confrontation with those asserting the primacy of local control.


.......................................................................


And so it goes in the United States.


And so we have it in Minnesota.


This is why you must exercise any activist tendencies that you have by focusing your own convictions and initiatives at the level of the locally centralized school district.


Funding and certain mandates impelled by pressures for equity do emanate from national and state decision-makers. But policies pertinent to student progress are almost all of local provenance.


And thus it is that you must consider the power that you will demonstrate by a vote of “No” on the revenue referendum of November 8 in Minneapolis--- or comparable opportunities awaiting you readers living in other locally centralized school district areas.


Other articles soon forthcoming will explain why decision-makers need the wake-up call that would be delivered via your "No" vote on the referendum.


Please begin with the first article that I posted on this issue, appearing next as you scroll down.  

Voters Should Give MPS Officials a Wake-Up Call on 8 November with a "No" Vote on the Referendum

Voters should give decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) a wake-up call on 8 November by voting “No” on the proposed tax levy.


In proposing this levy, officials at MPS seek to renew the school district’s existing referendum revenue authorization of $1,604.31 per pupil, forecasting that for academic year 2016-2017 the total revenue generated will be $74 million, which amounts to 13% of the district’s general operating revenue of approximately $580 million. If voters vote “No” on the referendum, the current levy allocation will expire at the end of the stipulated nine-year period and that $74 million in revenue will be lost.


If the referendum fails, MPS decision-makers convey that they “will have to make difficult decisions about how to operate the district without a substantial portion of the budget.”


And this is exactly why citizens should vote “No” on the referendum: to induce MPS officials to make those difficult decisions that heretofore they have shown disinclination to make.


I have followed events at MPS and conducted research on the inner workings of this school district for many years, doing so with great intensity in the course of the last 27 months, including academic years 2014-2015, 2015-2016, and the current academic year 2016-2017 to date. From my observations and research, I offer the following account:


After Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson’s resignation went into effect at the end of January 2015, members of the MPS Board of Education conducted a two-phase search for new leadership that was bungled in many ways. During the first phase, these school board members missed the opportunity to hire Houston Independent School District turnaround specialist Charles Foust, got pounded with a public relations fiasco that whirled around their candidate of choice, and then were impelled by protesters to reverse what had seemed an imminent decision in favor of Interim Superintendent Michael Gore.


In a second phase that lasted from late winter through May 2016, school board members ultimately opted for former Anchorage, Alaska, Superintendent Ed Graff.


With that decision, based on my most recent observations and research, here is the predicament now prevailing in the Minneapolis Public Schools after the two-phase search that cost approximately $250,000:


The Minneapolis Public Schools is now operating on wildly improbable assumptions embedded in the district’s Acceleration 2020 Strategic Plan and a document called Educational Equity Framework:


The 2020 Plan sets targeted increases of 5% per year in academic achievement levels of MPS students as a whole; a comparable figure of 8% for the most academically challenged students; and 10% for the graduation rate. But two years into this six-year plan, academic achievement levels are mostly flat and for American Indian and African American males have even declined. The graduation rate still languishes at 64% overall for the district as a whole and is under 50% for American Indian and African American males.


The Educational Equity Plan is a jargon-infested document, full of bromides proclaiming a coming attitudinal shift at MPS to honor cultural diversity and attend intensely to the needs of students of color. But the document offers timelines during which meetings will be held, reports will be delivered, and cultural sensitivity training will be administered, without conveying any information on the strategies actually likely to raise academic performance for students of color.


Against a backdrop of terrible school performance recorded recently in the MPS Report Card based on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) results for 2016 and similar results for the Multiple Measurement Rating (MMR) that incorporates data on individual student growth, new Superintendent Ed Graff is conveying a desire “to change the narrative” about the Minneapolis Public Schools. He touts the slogan “MPS Strong,” knowing that less than 43% of the district’s students are achieving at grade level in reading and math; and that for American Indian and African American males less than 20% are achieving at grade level. The sanguine, feel-good message that he delivered during his “State of the Schools” address attests to an imperviousness to reality that could have sanguinary consequences:


Ill-educated inner city youth frequently succumb to the life of the street and travel pathways destined for incarceration.


The Minneapolis Public Schools is a school district that needs transformative change rather than shibboleths forecasting favorable results in the absence of a compelling plan for delivering an education of excellence to all of our precious children.


For the needed change to transpire, decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools need to install a knowledge-intensive, clearly sequenced curriculum throughout the K-12 years; retrain teachers, who come out of teacher preparation programs ill-equipped to deliver such a curriculum; install a coherent program of skill acquisition for failing students, replacing the disarticulated, inadequate tutoring initiatives currently prevailing; greatly expand outreach and services to students who come from challenged economic and familial circumstances; and, so as to make possible the preference that should be given to these priorities, cut the central school district bureaucracy by at least 25% from its presently bloated staff count of about 550 members.


Against a backdrop of two years wasted in route to hiring a very conventional superintendent, terrible academic results that give the lie to the 2020 Plan, and the lack of any budget prioritization that would include the five most necessary initiatives given above, voters need to give a wake-up call to decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools:


Vote “No” on the MPS referendum on 8 November.  

From Their Springboards of Knowledge, True Teachers Will Vault Us from Our Present Pools of Ignorance

On Friday, 14 October, I conducted a highly rewarding academic session with [data privacy pseudonyms] sisters Carla Ramirez, Maria Ramirez, and Felicia Ramirez.


We are reviewing my Psychology chapter from Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, which they covered with me last spring; we are now conducting a second read for full retention of factual content and energetic discussion.


On that 14 October we finished a review of the Psychoanalytical School of Freud; and went through the fundamentals of the Skinnerian Behaviorist School.


I get so excited when I teach this material:


Just think how much fascinating discussion can flow from consideration of Id----Ego---Superego. the conscious---unconscious---subconscious, the Oedipal complex----Electra complex; and then positive reinforcement---punishment---negative reinforcement, fixed and variable schedules of reinforcement, and the acquisition and extinguishment of behavior.


Then imagine the responses that I get when I push my students to consider that nothing that they do in a given day occurs because of free will--- but rather because of deterministic forces of either the Freudian or Skinnerian kind.


Wow--- the stuff of life.


But I am just as interested when going over any of the other fourteen major subject areas covered in the book.


I can tell that Carla, Maria, and Felicia--- and indeed all of my students--- have rarely if every experienced this kind of knowledge base or enthusiasm from a teacher.


They have such a hunger to know and to be taught in this way.


To inspire an excellence of education that is founded on the knowledge and desire to communicate is the goal that I will pursue until the end of my days.


....................................................


But for at least four decades, those low-level functionaries in departments, colleges, and schools of education known as education professors have fostered the idea of teacher as one who need have no specialized knowledge but rather should be skilled as a "facilitator" who guides students toward knowledge.


Along with the advocacy of education professors for constructionist ideology and other ideas that are "progressive" in name only, this notion of teacher as primarily a "facilitator" has left our students knowledge-poor and accrued consequences far from "progressive."


I truly chafe when I receive accounts of teacher lassitude, minimal competence, and knowledge-poverty.


And I receive such accounts with great frequency from my students.


I encourage my students to stay in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). They can get meals, socialization, and extracurricular activities while they get most of their real education in their two hours a week with me.


In the meantime, as an expanding part of my activity in the New Salem Educational Initiative, I am assiduously pressuring decision-makers at that school district to generate a knowledge-intensive curriculum; thoroughly retrain teachers capable of delivering that curriculum; develop a well-articulated and cohesive approach to skill acquisition for students now languishing far below grade level; put in place family outreach workers who will connect with parents and guardians right where they live; and greatly slim down the bureaucracy so as to focus resources on students and teachers.


While I am pressuring officials to do what they should be doing, my students can get most of their real education with me in two compact hours per week, as we move through my new and nearly complete fourteen-chapter Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education (see snippets close by and also farther along as you scroll down this blog).


............................................................


The true teacher is a person of great knowledge, intent on passing that knowledge on to students who seek the particular information and wisdom that the teacher has to impart. Think Socrates, Aristotle, Confucius; and, indeed, the renowned scholar in many a field to whom serious graduate students flock for seminal guidance.


We've lost so much of that sense of teacher as a person of knowledge, whose pedagogical art lies primarily in the intense desire to communicate on the foundation of a treasure house full of reading, research, reflection, and writing.


We'll have advanced from this ignorance in which humanity is now mired when knowledge and those who possess deep learning are valued. I am one given to facing brutal reality, the harshest truth, but I am also an inveterate optimist who envisions a future stage at which we will achieve a breakthrough of consciousness allowing us to overcome the limitations of a 100,000-year sojourn on an Earth 4.5 billion years old.


True teachers will lead the leap from a springboard of knowledge

A Reminder to My Readers Concerning the Essential Purpose of >Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education<

Beginning in March 2015 I began to write a new book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.  This book offers a complete education of the type that every high school student, and for that matter every university student, should want to have.  The book offers fourteen chapters covering economics (macro-and micro-), political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature (English and world literature in translation), English usage, fine arts (visual and musical), mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics.


Most high school students should graduate with an understanding of these subjects but do not.  This is true for most public schools, of which the locally centralized schools district of the Minneapolis Public Schools is a subset, and is true for even well-regarded private schools.


And while university students gain excellent training in their field of focus, sometimes going on to even more specialized training at the professional, master's, or doctoral level, even the best liberal arts curricula do not offer a truly comprehensive education needed to function for high-knowledge citizenry. 


Thus, many people look back on courses that they took in high school and college and wish that they remembered more of what they had learned;  or they reflect on their educational experiences so as to wish that they had taken courses in the key subject areas given above.


This book offers knowledge to a knowledge-poor citizenry, the latter matter of which is detailed in
Rick Shenkman's Just How Stupid Are We?, findings from which I offer in summary as you scroll down a few articles.


In reading serious articles on various topics with my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative, including those that appear on practice ACT exams, I invariably have found myself teaching mini-courses across the range of subjects covered in this new Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.  Writing this volume will have the advantage of making the conveyance of the needed background information much more efficient and complete.


Over the course of the last few months, I have posted snippets from the book on many of the subject areas up through chapter ten.  As you scroll down to the very next article on this blog, you will find a snippet from the chapter that I am writing now---   Chapter Twelve, Biology.


Look also for snippets from the chapters on chemistry and physics in the weeks to come, as I endeavor to complete this book before the year 2016 yields to a new annum, 2017.