There is no
hope on the academic horizon for the Ed Graff tenure at the Minneapolis Public
Schools MPS). Nine months into Graff’s
period as MPS superintendent, very little policy or programmatic substance can
be identified that would give one hope for student academic progress, the
latter being the logical reason for the existence of the locally centralized
school district or, indeed, any school or system of schools.
Graff has
made three major initiatives during these early months on the job:
First, he
has thrust the notion of social and emotional learning from the realms of
social psychology and university-based education departments into the elevated consciousness
of officials at the Davis Center (site of MPS central offices, 1250 West
Broadway) and thence to district-wide, site-based staff. Social and emotional learning has all of the
intellectual weight of such past and long-faded pop psychology fads as
transactional analysis (“I’m okay, you’re okay”), featuring as it does the less
than startling observations that students (and other human beings) should be
skilled in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship
skills, and responsible decision-making.
A body of
research suggests that students who are socially and emotionally well-grounded
are better prepared than those who are not to succeed in K-12 and collegiate
education, and in life. As in the case
of so many fads that call to the fore simple matters of ethics and values, the
question is why social scientific research is needed to prove what is so
manifestly proven by logic and the laboratory of everyday life experience. When the social and emotional learning fad is
touted in the context of K-12 education, the key mission of which is to impart
knowledge, the next question left unanswered by Graff and company is the
following:
What
knowledge-intensive academic program is social and emotional learning going to abet?
Lamentably,
the answer is, “none.” No such program
exists in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
As always, the K-5 academic experience of students is attenuated with
regard to the subject areas of natural science, history, geography, economics,
literature, and the fine arts; the
middle school experience is little better;
and the high school experience depends on the ability to succeed in
Advanced Placement classes and International Baccalaureate programs, when student
knowledge base is so flimsy from the substandard education that ensues before
entrance into such classes and programs.
Second,
Graff has reorganized the central administration, ousting Susanne Griffin from
her position as chief academic officer;
newly hiring Suzanne Kelly as chief of staff, Tanya Tennessen as chief
of communications, and Karen DeVet as chief of operations; and elevating Michael Thomas (chief of academic,
leadership, and learning) and Eric Moore (chief of research, innovation, assessment,
and accountability) to higher profile and enhanced supervisory roles within the
central administration. Thomas and Moore
are genuine talents who potentially could make a favorable impact on student
progress, but at present the lack of a driving educational philosophy asserting
the power of knowledge circumscribes the effect that these two talented and caring
educators could have.
Third, Graff
has relied on very astute chief financial officer Ibrahima Diop to help dig the
district out of the $28 million dollar deficit now vexing MPS
decision-makers. Graff, Diop, and other
MPS officials have proffered a plan featuring budget reductions of 10% at the
Davis Center and 2.5% from the schools, with substantial withdrawals from budgetary
reserves. But as I have detailed in
recent articles as you scroll down on this blog, that plan relies heavily on the
illusion of central office cuts: Central
office staff at the Davis Center increased from 551 to 665 from autumn 2015 to
April 2017; thus, when the putative
budget reductions are made at the central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools,
staff will still have increased by 47 members since autumn 2015 and outlays for
Davis Center staff will have risen by $1,629,237.
Following the
three emphases given above for the Ed Graff tenure to date, we face the stark
facts that the educational philosophy of the Minneapolis Public Schools lacks knowledge
intensity, grade by grade cohesiveness, and failure to address the problems of
students lagging below grade level; that
in the absence of such a philosophy and plan of action, any favorable central
office reorganization goes for naught;
and that budget reductions are ensuing in such a way as to sustain the
central office bureaucracy, failing to capture the opportunity for budgetary
shifts toward curriculum overhaul, teacher training, and family outreach that
could over the long term promote student grade level performance and knowledge
acquisition.
Under
circumstances of central office incompetence, school board members theoretically
could step to the fore to promote the needed overhaul of curriculum, teacher training,
academic remediation, family outreach, and budgetary prioritization. But the current membership of the Minneapolis
Public Schools Board of Education offers even less hope than Davis Center
staff. New members Kerryjo Felder, Ira
Jourdain, and Bob Walser are beholden to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers
(MFT) as the moving force behind their electoral victories in November
2016; members Rebecca Gagnon (now board
chair), Kim Elllison, and Nelson Inz treacherously did the bidding of the MFT and Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party in maneuvering against former members Josh
Reimnitz and Tracine Asberry in favor of the Jourdain and Walser candidacies; members Siad Ali and Jenny Arneson are also
beholden to the MFT/ DFL duo; and
putative reformer Don Samuels has been ineffective since his election in autumn
2014. Not one of these MPS board members
has the philosophical grounding or the academic vision of excellence needed to promote
the needed overhaul at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
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