There have
been no significant improvements in teacher quality or student performance in
the school district since I began, after many years of observing the policies,
programs, and personnel of the school district, a particularly intense period
of investigation from June 2014 until the present (as I write this article on the
final day of December 2016).
In June
2014, Bernadeia Johnson was still the superintendent, having instituted
programs with considerable promise for raising the level of educational quality
in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Johnson
had created the designation of High
Priority Schools, in which student performance had for many years been
particularly low, and she articulated policies that intensified efforts designed
to promote skill acquisition of students in those schools. Johnson had inaugurated Focused Instruction, according to which students at each grade
level in all schools throughout the district would study the same academic subject
(if this aspiration seems a no brainer, know that in the very strange world
created by professors of education curricular consistency is actually derided). And she had launched Shift, by which financial and human resources were to be concentrated
close to the classroom and away from the central bureaucracy.
But
Johnson lacked the physical stamina to advance her policies vigorously and
resigned effective the first day of February 2015. The Minneapolis Public Schools then
languished through the tenure of Interim Superintendent Michael Goar from
February 2015 through May 2016, coterminous with a misguided two-phase search
for a new superintendent that resulted in the selection of the mediocre Ed
Graff, whose school district of Anchorage, Alaska, evidenced no better academic
performance than the Minneapolis Public Schools during his three years as
superintendent--- and whose contract was
not renewed by the Anchorage school board at the end of academic year
2015-2016.
As
detailed in articles as you scroll on down this blog, the district of the Minneapolis
Public Schools now has key departments and personnel who show little promise
for bringing excellent education to the school district:
>>>>> Superintendent Ed Graff, Deputy Chief
Academic Officer Susanne Griffin, Director of Teaching and Learning Macarre
Traynham, and Focused Instruction point person Christina (Tina) Platt do not
believe in knowledge-intensive education delivered broadly and deeply in the
liberal, technological, and vocational arts;
they have been corrupted by the verbiage of education professors who
deceive themselves and the teachers they train by vowing that critical thinking
and lifelong learning can ensue in the absence of factual knowledge and without
ever learning much in thirteen years of K-12 public education.
>>>>> Neither Director of the Office of Black Male
Achievement Michael Walker nor Director of Indian Education Anna Ross demonstrate
any programmatic capability for addressing the poor academic performance of the
students whose achievement is their special focus; and Director of College and Career Readiness
Terry Henry occupies an office in a school district wherein most students are neither
college nor career ready.
Remember
now that the current membership of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of
Education is as follows:
Current Membership of the Minneapolis Public
Schools Board of Education
District
One >>>>> Jenny Arneson
District
Two >>>>> Kim Ellison
District
Three >>>>> Siad Ali
District Four >>>>> Josh Reimnitz
District
Five >>>>> Nelson Inz
District
Six >>>>> Tracine Asberry
At-Large >>>>> Rebecca Gagnon
At-Large >>>>> Carla Bates
At-Large >>>>> Don Samuels
And then
know that as a result of the 8 November 2016 election, the MPS Board of
Education will consist of the following members:
Membership of the Minneapolis Public Schools
Board of Education as of February 2017
District
One >>>>> Jenny Arneson
District
Two >>>>> Kerry Jo Felder
District
Three >>>>> Siad Ali
District Four >>>>> Bob Walser
District
Five >>>>> Nelson Inz
District
Six >>>>> Ira Jourdain
At-Large >>>>> Rebecca Gagnon
At-Large >>>>> Kim Ellison
At-Large >>>>> Don Samuels
The new
school board that will take office as of 1 February 2017 will be a much less
favorable assemblage than the current board.
Consider these important points toward an understanding of the current predicament
of the Minneapolis Public Schools:
>>>>> Carla Bates, Josh Reimnitz, and Tracine
Asberry will be absent on the new board.
These are huge losses.
Carla Bates
has strong political connections to the Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party and
the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) but has demonstrated a propensity
for independent thought and action and a deep concern for educational equity.
Josh
Reimnitz won without DFL/ MFT endorsement in November 2012 but lost narrowly to
Bob Walser (the DFL/ MFT endorsed candidate) in November 2016. Reimnitz is a former participant in the Teach
for America program who has a keen understanding of the need to upgrade teacher
quality.
Tracine
Asberry is an incisive questioner of profound moral courage who pushes district
officials to account for the persistent lack of academic progress of MPS students
in general and of students of color and those on free and reduced price lunch
in particular.
>>>>> On the current board, Rebecca Gagnon is
astute as finance committee chair but is too deeply tied to the DFL/ MFT power
brokers to be effective as an agent of change.
>>>>> Kim Ellison presents a gentle, thoughtful
demeanor, but she too is beholden to the DFL/ MFT and holds no promise as an
agent of change.
>>>>> Nelson Inz is the possessor of a sharp wit
and current experience as a classroom teacher who understands the system as it
is; but he also is tied to the DFL/ MFT
and gives evidence of doubting that genuine change is possible.
>>>>> Damningly, Gagnon, Ellison, and Inz sought
to oust colleagues Reimnitz and Asberry from their current positions; all three actively recruited candidates to
run against Reimnitz and Asberry, and Gagnon specifically endorsed Ira Jourdain
against Asberry while Inz endorsed Bob Walser against Josh Reimnitz.
>>>>> On the current board, Siad Ali is an
effective representative of a heavily Somali district, but his own ties to the
DFL/ MFT undermine any potential he might have as an agent of broad-based change.
>>>>> Board Chair Jenny Arneson runs a good
meeting and here and there articulates a concern for equity; but she, too, is connected to the DFL/ MFT and
too readily defends the current status quo mediocrity of teachers.
>>>>> Don Samuels is a member of the DFT, but he
is a former Minneapolis City Council member and mayoral candidate who has
aligned himself with the cause of education reform; he is given to bombastic statements about the
current crisis in education, so that he generates no support from either the
DFL or MFT as a member of the board.
>>>>> As Kim Ellison abandoned her old District 2
seat to run successfully At-Large, Kerry Jo Felder prevailed with a narrow
victory in District 2 over Kim Caprini;
Caprini is the more thoughtful and broadly informed on matters
pertinent to MPS of the two, but Felder’s candidacy was boosted by her DFL/ MFT
endorsement.
………………………………………………………………………..
Thus, the
weak MPS administration most saliently represented in the cases of Ed Graff,
Susanne Griffin, Macarre Traynham, and Tina Platt; the ineffectiveness of the programs overseen
by Michael Walker, Anna Ross, and Terry Henry; and a new school board with
eight members (all but Samuels) lodged deeply in the hip pockets of the DFL/
MFT will continue the status quo of mediocrity currently prevailing in the
Minneapolis Public Schools in 2017.
I am detailing
all of this in my three-part new book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospects,
which will be complete by mid-February 2017.
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