Jan 30, 2017

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.  

 

 

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