Culturally Responsive Teaching and Social and Emotional Learning Are Insufficient to Address the Academic Deficiencies and Knowledge-Deprivation of Students in the Minneapolis Public Schools

What do these topics from the world of knowledge have in common?

 

>>>>>    The nature of the Big Bang and the approximate age (13.8 billion years) of the universe

 

>>>>>    The evolution of life on earth, including rudimentary life forms, plants and animals, then the sequential presence of Australopithecus, homo habilis, and homo erectus, culminating in the appearance of about 100,000 years ago

 

>>>>>    The anthropological distinction between culture and civilization, with an ability to give salient representations of the first of these on earth

 

>>>>>    Major historical events and civilizations such as those of the Greeks and Romans;  Qin and Han Dynasty China;  the pre-Mughal and Mughal empires of India; the great west African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai;  the key actors and ideas of the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment

 

>>>>>    The difference in the terms Christian, Protestant and Roman Catholic

 

>>>>>    The ways in which Judaism gave rise to Christianity and Hinduism gave rise to Buddhism

 

>>>>>    The historical and current differences between Shiite and Sunni Muslims

 

>>>>>    The historical currents of West Asia and Central Asia, with specific reference to the nations of Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan

 

>>>>>    The essential difference in the physics of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein

 

>>>>>    The difference in the psychological theories and research of Sigmund Freud and B. F. Skinner

 

>>>>>    The difference between federal deficit and debt;  the structure of the U. S. federal budget;  how the latter involves fiscal policy, while the Chair Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors determine monetary policy, largely independent of the executive and legislative branches

 

>>>>>    How  the Electoral College works

 

>>>>>    The many complex and nuanced meanings of such terms as liberal, conservative, and communist

 

The answer to the questions, “What do these topics from the world of knowledge have in common?,”

could be many;  my emphasis here is that my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative come to me from the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) inevitably with little information on any of these topics.  When we read serious magazine, newspaper, and journal articles;  or train to take the ACT;  I have to take great amounts of time teaching mini-courses because my students have learned so little in the abysmal MPS schools.

 

The Culturally Responsive Teaching emphasized by MPS Teaching and Learning Director Macarre Traynham;  and the Social and Emotional Learning stressed by new Superintendent Ed Graff are not ever going to address the sort of knowledge-deficiency exhibited by the students of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

We should by all means train our teachers to be culturally knowledgeable and responsive;  and nurture our precious young people to internalize self and mutual respect.

 

But then the goal of an excellent education should be the impartation of vast reams of knowledge so that students go forth to lives of cultural enrichment, civic preparation, and professional satisfaction.

 

Both of my nearly complete books, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education;  and Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect, are written in response to the terrible quality of education delivered by the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

The first book provides the liberal arts portion (economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, fine arts, English usage, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics) of an excellent education that should across the K-12 years also include the technological and vocational arts.

 

The second exposes the failure of the Minneapolis Public Schools to deliver such an education and provides the philosophical and organizational underpinning that will be necessary to do so.

 

What is at stake is our ability to deliver a favorable answer to another vital question:

 

Will our nation ever be the democracy that we imagine ourselves to be?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Need for Specificity in Naming Those at the Minneapolis Public Schools Who Are Culpable for Disastrous Student Outcomes

Discussions focused on K-12 education most often are devoid of specificity.

 

One often hears members of the MPS Board of Education refer to the “wonderful teachers” of this school district.  They praise members of the central office (Davis Center, 1250 West Broadway in Minneapolis) staff for their hard work and responsiveness to calls for assistance on matters pertinent to the school board;  here they have cited, for example, such people as Maggie Sullivan of Human Resources or Ryan Strack, who worked to get the recent (8 November 2016) bond issue passed.  But one rarely hears any questioning of teacher or central office staff performance.

 

The conclusion that would emerge from these sorts of comments is that all teachers are wonderful and that all administrators are offering exceptional service to the community served by the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

And yet, these are the most salient results from objective measures regarding student performance for the academic years ending in 2014, 2015, and 2016:  

 

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%

 

 

Malcolm X would have compared effusive praise for MPS staff with the abysmal statistical record given above and say, in his penetratingly spare way, “As you can see, there’s a contradiction here.”

 

And indeed there is.

 

                                     ………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Many in the education change movement are just as lax in their language and ineffective in their efforts as are members of the education establishment:

 

Many of those who profess to be working for education change broadly condemn the Minneapolis Public Schools and other locally centralized school districts as “hopeless” and advocate the opening of more charter schools or the move to a voucher system. 

 

Those who do work for systemic change almost all focus on the levels of state and federal governance:  At the state level, reformers advocate for policy pertinent to such matters as alternative certification of teachers, change in teacher tenure rules, and the inauguration of merit pay;  at the national level, reformers focus on such matters as nationwide standards and methods for prodding education systems across the nation to address the lagging performance of American students as recorded by objective measures such as those of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).  

 

But state and national level efforts inevitably founder as forces of the political left and the political right work to undermine even promising programs such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

Thus have I determined that my efforts will be focused at the local level, because in the United States citizens have a penchant for “local control.”  State and national efforts, aside from the provision of funding, mostly fail as mandates at those levels are resisted at the local level.

 

I am a lone voice during Public Comment at monthly meetings of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.  Many people voice a myriad of particularistic concerns expressed by those with vested interests:  termination or continuation of employment for a staff member in a given school due to controversial circumstances;  academic programs to be terminated or inaugurated;  athletic facilities to be built or not built---  and the like.  But no one asks the type of questions that I do, focused on matters of overall teacher quality;  logically sequenced, knowledge-intensive curriculum;  cohesive, well-articulated district-wide tutoring;  services and resource referral for struggling families;  or paring of the central office (Davis Center) bureaucracy.

 

And no one besides myself is currently asking the questions that should be asked of specific staff members, queries that relate to the performance of members of certain departments as to whether they are advancing teacher quality, knowledge-intensive curriculum,  effective tutoring, or outreach to struggling families.

 

So, dear readers, know that I will continue to ask penetrating questions, submitted to Data Requests, which is then obligated to forward my questions to the specific personnel of relevance.

 

Those to whom I will focus most of my questions will include MPS staff members such as Superintendent Ed Graff;  Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Michael Thomas;  Deputy Chief Academic Officer Susanne Griffin;  Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Macarre Traynham;  Focused Instruction Project Manager Christina (Tina) Platt;  Director of College and Career Readiness Terry Henry;  Office of Black Male Achievement Director Michael Walker;  Department of Indian Education Director Anna Ross;  Chief Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop;  Chief Executive Officer of Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore;  Executive Director of the Office of Student, Family, and Community Partnerships Director Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson;  and Scott Weber in Human Resources.

 

I have asked many such questions before.  Eric Moore and Ibrahima Diop have been very forthcoming; and this has generally been true for Scott Weber.

 

Nan Miller, who works for General Counsel Amy Moore, generally receives such questions at Data Requests.  She has often been dilatory and obfuscating in handling questions submitted to Data Requests.  In an extreme case, she claimed that my questions would require such a great amount of staff time that I would have to pay $1,700 for the extra burden exerted on staff.  Instead, I asked the question directly to one of the most talented members of the Minneapolis Public Schools---  and got the information within fifteen minutes.  When, during a term encompassing calendric year 2015 and part of 2016, Michael Goar served as Interim Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, I on occasion went to him directly to hasten the response from Nan Miller.  Just as Ms. Miller deserves disapprobation for responses that have at times been ludicrous, Mr. Goar deserves credit for his legacy of openness and being forthcoming with public information. 

 

I’ll keep you posted, as I pose my next round of questions, as to the quality and efficiency displayed on the part of Ms. Miller at Data Requests, and on the part of the staff members responsible for responding in a forthcoming and substantive manner.  I am close completion of two new books and will use the information requested in this fresh set of questions as I assemble the definitive draft of one of those volumes, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect.  I trust that I will receive answers to most of my queries, but any insufficient or nonresponse will be duly recorded and become part of the story that I am telling.  

 

 

The Civic Responsibility to Ask Tough Questions That Can Determine Life or Death

We have the civic responsibility to ask tough questions of those who bear the responsibility for imparting an education of excellence to our precious children.

 

Whether or not one has received an excellent education can determine life or death.

 

Because of the forces of history, too many African American people in the United States still dwell in communities at the urban core that cause severe strain on familial economy, safety, and relationships.  Restricted housing covenants first crowded many economically challenged families into certain areas of Minneapolis;  when fair housing laws made moving away from the central city a viable option for black middle class families, the latter frequently joined their white counterparts in flight to the suburbs.  Left behind in much of North Minneapolis and certain areas of South Minneapolis was an overabundance of the economically poorest families in the city.

 

From the 1970s until the present day, cheap housing attracted other poor families to these areas of Minneapolis, many of them African American migrants from Southside Chicago;  Kankakee, Illinois;  Gary, Indiana;  Detroit;  and the like.  Others migrated from Mexico and Central and South America.  And from Laos came Hmong immigrants who bore the burden of association with Americans on whose side they had fought in the Vietnam War.  From Somalia and other war-torn areas came immigrants hoping for a better life.

 

To the central city came so many people looking for a more promising future for their children.  Education is the key to that future, a future of professional satisfaction to be sure, but just as important a future of cultural enrichment and civic preparation.

 

We have an obligation to provide that future, and to provide that future we must develop a system of K-12 education that can serve all of our precious children.

 

If because of the circumstances of history, students from economically challenged families face an array of problems not as frequently faced by children of the middle class, we must help those students and their families solve their problems.  We must develop a system that meets their economic and social needs, gets them to school, and works persistently to ensure that they achieve grade level performance in math and reading and then move forward to a logically sequenced, knowledge-intensive education in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts.

 

Professionals at the Minneapolis Pubic Schools have never designed such a system for providing for the social well-being and educational advancement for students of all demographic descriptors. 

 

This can be deadly:

 

Young people who recoil from their home environments, and then find school an equally aversive place to be, with a high degree of frequency succumb to the life of the streets and find themselves running on a fast track to prison.  Some are murdered on the first laps of that track.

 

That’s the reality.  I’ve witnessed this scenario multiple times during my 25 years in North Minneapolis.

So impelled by the necessity to induce staff of the Minneapolis Public Schools to provide an education of excellence to students of all demographic descriptors,  I ask the tough questions.

 

I will keep asking until I get answers.

 

It’s a matter of life and death.    

 

The Rigorous College Preparatory Program of the New Salem Educational Initiative >>>>> Providing an Excellent Education to Students from Challenging Circumstances

In my program, the New Salem Educational Initiative, I provide an excellent education to young people from extraordinarily challenging economic circumstances:

 

For twenty-three years I have directed and taught in the Tuesday Tutoring Program of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church;

 

and for twelve years I have directed and personally provided all of the academic instruction in a seven-day-a-week program for students who gather with me in groups ranging from one to five participants.

 

Ever since I stepped into a classroom forty-three years ago, I have had boundless faith in the potential of students of all demographic descriptors to respond to the highest academic challenges, posed in an environment that radiates my confidence and conveys in no uncertain terms my love for the young people whose futures I regard as my personal responsibility.

 

As my regular followers and readers know, I am now nearing completion of two books (I have written eight books previously, most of them on Amazon, three of them on Taiwan found in libraries and government agencies all over the world):

 

One of these two new books,  Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education,  provides the excellent education for which I advocate, delivering compact courses over fourteen chapters pertinent to economics, psychology, political science, world religions, world history, America history, African American history, English Usage, literature, fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics;

the other book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect, proceeds in three parts giving, in order, objective information regarding the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools,  analysis of that information, and a philosophy that should guide the school district toward a promising future.

 

The latter book ultimately reveals the flaws of the Minneapolis Public Schools and indicates a route to transformation;  the former book provides a curricular model that should guide the Minneapolis Public Schools in the future.

 

As you scroll on down this blog, you will find an exam that I have generated for the Psychology chapter   of Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.  This is the type of exam that I will devise for all fourteen of the chapters in that book.  I have three students who recently concluded their study of the  Psychology chapter and now are poised to take the exam.  I always model good performance on exams and writing assignments for my students:  I believe passionately in the importance of my being an exemplar of what I expect from them.

 

Accordingly, my students presently concluding their study of the Psychology chapter, will now take the exam.

 

Then I will go over my own responses with them, so that they can see clearly any flaws in their own responses and how they should meet my expectations.  As we go over those responses, I will provide any further explanation necessary for these students to gain full knowledge of the key concepts that we have already covered in the chapter and that I now expect on the exam.  I stress to my students that they need not and should not reproduce my words.  But they should demonstrate firm knowledge of the subject area and an ability to analyze the material.  Any exams for which near perfect understanding is not yet demonstrated will be retaken and discussed until such an understanding is attained.

 

Further, we will return to the material many times, as we integrate our knowledge into other subject areas of study.

 

I emphasize to my students that knowledge is forever;  information learned should be information retained.

 

As you scroll on down, you will now have your own opportunity to take the Psychology exam.

 

For you, who have not read the Psychology chapter from Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, this will be your opportunity to test your own existing knowledge.

 

You’ll be testing your own performance against young people who wake up to gunshots in the night, whose families scramble to put food on the table and meet this month’s rent.

 

After you’ve taken the exam, scroll on down to the next entry, at which I provide my own responses to the questions posed on the Psychology exam of my own composition.

 

Good luck.

 

 

 

               

 

 

 

College Preparatory Psychology Exam of the New Salem Educational Initiative

College Preparatory Psychology Exam


Composed by Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.

 

Director, New Salem Educational Initiative

I.  Identification   (30 points)

 

1.  id

 

2.  ego

 

3.  superego

 

4.  positive reinforcement

 

5.  negative reinforcement

 

6.  punishment

 

7.  Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Human Needs”

 

8.  schemas (in Cognitive Psychology)

 

9.  neuron

 

10.  synapse

 

 

 

 

II.  Essay   (70 points)

 

In a well-organized, well-written essay, give very succinct summaries of the following schools of psychology:  psychoanalytical school;  behaviorist school;  humanist school;  cognitive school;  and neuropsychological school.  After you have provided these brief but informative summaries, contrast the major tenets of these schools of psychology, emphasizing key differences in perspective but also mentioning any similarities that you observe.