Mar 18, 2017

Much Like the Trump Administration, MPS Superintendent Ed Graff and the MPS Board of Education are an Unfailing Source of Journeys into the Ludicrous (or >Wo Gei Tamen Yidian Yanse Kankan<)


There is a saying in Mandarin Chinese that goes, Wo gei tamen yidian yanse kankan, that means, “I flashed them a little color” or, less literally, “I guess I told them a thing or two.”

 

Perpend:

 

I delivered a strong blow to Ed Graff and the members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education at the monthly meeting this past Tuesday (14 March).

 

Graff has been bringing some students and teachers in for some feel-good moments at the beginning of most school board meetings, so it usually falls to me to destroy that mood.  This time, though, Graff got caught.  He brought in a high school drama group that is led by a very issue-savvy young teacher. 

About 15 members of the group delivered a powerful dramatic tale of an all too typical case of an African American adolescent who is pulled by beneficent and nefarious forces in his life but succumbs to the nefarious and pays the consequences in expulsion from school and the likelihood of falling ever more completely into the company of those who exerted the negative influence. 

 

The refrain at the end of the piece was sounded as, "Minneapolis School Board-----  This is your fight, too!  Minneapolis School Board---  this is your fight, too!  Minneapolis School Board---  This is your fight, too."

 

So guess what my first line was?  You guessed it, wise readers and fellow K-12 revolutionaries:

 

"You heard 'em, Northfield School Board---  This is you fight, too!"

 

I then said, "Gary Marvin Davison,  New Salem Educational Initiative, just this ol' centerfielder's two-bounce throw from the outfield to home plate here in North Minneapolis.

 

"What do these things have in common:  the relationship between the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty, Siddhartha Gautama, the Shi'ite-Sunni split and why that's important today, the significance of the rise of the Ottoman Empire and the consequences of its fall, the location of the Mediterranean Sea on a map and any sense at all of its historical and continuing importance, the fact that the 19th century means essentially the 1800s and not the 1900s, the way in which both Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein changed perceptions of life in the 20th century---  and the multiple meanings of any of the following terms:  liberal, conservative, socialism, communism, and---  I kid you not---  even capitalism and democracy?      

 

"These are things that your students do not know.  I know that they do don't know them.  Remember that you cannot fool me.  I teach a broad subset of your students.  They go to your schools to get breakfast and lunch, interact with their peers, participate in extracurricular activities, and receive a modicum of foundational academic skills;  they get their real education in their two hours a week with me.  You cannot fool me.

 

"And then there is the matter of the students whom you really abuse:  Fewer than 20% of African American and American Indian males achieve at grade level on math and reading assessments;  only 52% of African American students and 39% of American Indian students graduate within four years.

 

"And I know what you're doing.  Remember, I'm the guy whom you will never fool. Mark Dayton, Brenda Cassellius, and Rebecca Gagnon have vitiated the MCAs, so now you're going to pretend that you're going to align the curriculum with the much harder ACT, herd all students into an arena to take that test, then when poor kids come up with 13s or 14s or 15s, basically middle school performance levels on that college preparatory exam, you're going to say that's okay because you've got them socially and emotionally prepared, and even thought one-third of your graduates will need remedial instruction at the university, you'll claim that that's all right because they'll have the traits of persistence and dedication that will carry them on through."

 

"So you're fakes and frauds, and you know that I know you are.  So, now remember, as I leave here this evening to go take care of the babies whom you academically abuse during the daytime, then as I return, you say to yourselves, 'That's the guy that we will never fool.' "

 

Usually the large assembly room contains mainly central office bureaucrats, but on this evening there were a good number of students, so instead of stony silence I got a fair number of hand-claps.  The members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education had bracingly chastened look on their faces after having received the double whammy of the drama troop and myself.

 

……………………………………………………………..

 

The revolution thus continues at an ever accelerating pace.  Folks are nervous, especially since a $28 million dollar deficit is inducing another round of central office cuts.  

 

Ed Graff is boldly leading the school board on a three-day trip on which no responsible or discerning educator would venture to lead---  to Chicago for a conference at which the focal presentation is going to be made by an organization called CASEL(Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning).  Graff and the board are actually going to tour schools in that titan of educational excellence, the public school system of Chicago, to find out all of the good things that the education professor's latest creed, Social and Emotional Learning, is accomplishing.

 

I did some research and found out that in the very year that Ed Graff won an award from CASEL and the school board was declining to renew Graff's contract, the Anchorage school system was coming off a year of academic results that were worse than those of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

Much as journalists’ references to the escapades of Donald Trump and his administration go, I could not make anything up more ludicrous than this band of ne’er-do-wells’ routine exercises of human foible.

 

You’ll find many detailed accounts as you scroll on down the blog.

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