Very Few Decision-Makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools are Scholars of Academic Merit--- A Major Reason For the Low Quality of Education

Ed Graff, the new Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, is not a scholar and has little regard for knowledge as the focus of K-12 education. 


When I have questioned Superintendent Graff as to whether his focus on "social and emotional learning" ultimately is meant to serve the purposes of delivering an excellent education in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts, he refuses to recognize the acquisition of knowledge as central to K-12 education.  Instead, he retreats to verbiage attesting to a focus on the well-rounded child for whom knowledge is only part of the goal in sending the student into the world after thirteen years of K-12 education.


Readers of the articles on this blog know that I build strong relationships with my students and families and do everything I can to attend to their social and emotional needs.  They know also that I have been a teacher of inner city, particularly African American, young people, for over 40 years---  and regard cultural responsiveness as inherent to an excellent education.  But my readers also know that I advance what should not be an exactly astonishing premise:   Students should go across the stage at graduation with heads full of knowledge from the liberal, technological, and vocational arts. 


Because the level of education in the Minneapolis Public Schools is so low, I have been impelled to write a new book (with eleven of fourteen chapters now complete), Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, that will give my students an efficient, comprehensive education in the fields of economics, psychology, political science, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, English usage, fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics.


Ever since I began a teaching career that has landed me in every situation of which one is likely to think as pertinent to K-12 and university education (and many additional experiences teaching in Taiwan and in a Missouri prison), I have always been dedicated to the proposition that a teacher should be a scholar:


I was a triple major at Southern Methodist University in political science, history, and psychology.  I got my M. A. in Chinese history at the University of Iowa and proceeded to a Ph. D. in Chinese history at the University of Minnesota.  I speak Mandarin and write and read Chinese with a high level of fluency, have some facility in another Chinese dialect (Minnan or Taiwanese), and read Japanese and Spanish.  I have authored eight published works, most of them on Amazon, three of which are focused on Taiwan (Culture and Customs of Taiwan [authored with Barbara Reed], A Short History of Taiwan:  The Case for Independence, Tales from the Taiwanese) and may be found in university libraries and government agencies all over the world.  Two books for which I served as the sole writer and researcher were published locally for the Minneapolis Urban League;  these publications were The State of African Americans in Minnesota 2004 and The State of African Americans in Minnesota 2008.  I also authored A Concise History of African America for Seaburn Press in New York City. 


A metaphor for my career is found in my life of May 1993, when I defended my doctoral dissertation on The Fate of Farmers in Taiwan, 1945-1990 while teaching at the alternative school of the social service agency, The City, Inc., which served troubled youth, many of whom had gang affiliations.


I say all of this by way of making clear that I am of the conviction that I must do what I advocate for others:


A teacher should be a scholar.


I am the most enthusiastic teacher of young people whom you will ever find, and I am a dedicated and constantly practicing scholar.


But what I take as a prime obligation of the teacher to be a scholarly presence in the world runs counter to what E. D. Hirsch refers to as the "Thought-World " of the education establishment.


Compare my credentials with those of key decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools:



Superintendent Ed Graff


Post-Master's Degree work in curriculum, educational leadership, and instruction
Master's Degree in Educational Administration, University of Southern Mississippi
Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education, University of Alaska Anchorage


Michael Thomas, Chief of Schools


Ed.D.: Educational Leadership, University of St. Thomas (anticipated)
Superintendent and Administrative Licensures, University of St. Thomas
MSW, University of Minnesota
B.A.: Social Work, University of St. Thomas




Susanne Griffin, Chief Academic Officer


Superintendent Licensure, Minnesota State University-Mankato Educational Policy and Administration (58 credits toward Doctorate) and Administrative Licensure, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
M.S.: Communicative Disorders, University of Wisconsin–Madison
B.S.: Secondary Education and Speech/Language Pathologist Licensure, University of Wisconsin–River Falls




Stephen Fisk, Deputy Chief of Schools


Ed.D.: Urban Education Leadership, University of Illinois at Chicago
M.S.: Mathematics, Chicago State University o C.A.S.: Administration, National-Louis University M.A.: Education, Saint Xavier University
B.S.: Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign




Macarre Traynham, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning


Ed.D.: Educational Leadership & Equity, Lewis and Clark College (anticipated)
M.A.: Educational Administration, California State University
Administrative Licensure, Portland State University
B.S.: Mathematics, Norfolk State University




Christina Platt, Project Manager for Teaching and Learning


Master of Public and Nonprofit Administration, Metropolitan State University
B.A.: Sociology, University of Minnesota–Minneapolis
Certification: Career Development Facilitator, Normandale College




Notice the absence of scholarly credentials in these professional portfolios.  Degrees in departments, schools, and colleges of education are professional degrees that carry none of the academic weight of degrees in fields such as (for example) mathematics, chemistry, history, English, or fine arts.  A degree in social work is also a professional degree.

One has to look hard for true academic credentials in the above list. 


Deputy Chief of Schools Stephen Fisk has the most impressive credentials, with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in math.  His doctorate, though, is in education.


Director of Teaching and Learning Macarre Traynham has a bachelor's degree in mathematics, but all of her advanced degrees are in education.


Teaching and Learning Project Manager Christina (Tina) Platt has a bachelor's degree in sociology, but her master's is in public administration.


Very notably, the those at the top of the administrative hierarchy at the Minneapolis Public Schools have the least academically legitimate credentials of all.  Ed Graff and Michael Thomas have credentials solely in education and other professional degrees.  Susan Griffin is admirably trained in speech disorders, but that is not a specialty central to the academic curriculum;  and all of her advanced training is in education.


Otherwise, among other staff at the central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools at the Davis Center (1250 West Broadway in North Minneapolis), the most talented person working in that building is Director of Research, Evaluation, and Assessment Eric Moore, a superlatively skilled statistical wunderkind who holds a Ph. D.


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




With all of that time spent in training of the vapid sort rendered by education professors (see my many articles on this lamentable situation), we come to understand why so many people who hold the futures of our precious young people as an unfulfilled trust believe so little in academic rigor:


These putative education professionals have not been trained in academically legitimate fields, and their professional degrees have been earned in programs that are not even close in rigor to those found in law and medical schools.  With this latter observation, in fact, we arrive at the conclusion that those who make policy at the level of the locally centralized school district are neither scholars nor high-level professionals:


People working at the level of the locally centralized school district are just people who did what they needed to do to rise high in the school district hierarchy that has failed our young people for decades.


And thus do we get the knowledge-poor education delivered by the Minneapolis Public Schools.


Thus do our high school graduates stride across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is a degree in name only.


Thus do one-third of graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools need remedial course work if they ever are admitted for matriculation on college and university campuses.


>>>>>    And thus does the revolution in K-12 education that I am waging and that you must join become a matter of vital importance for the young people whose destiny will determine their personal futures---   and the fate of the family named Human.