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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