Apr 25, 2017

Questions that >Star Tribune< Reporter Beena Raghavendran Failed to Ask South High School Principal Ray Aponte


Beena Raghavendran once again did a kit-glove piece on a staff member of the Minneapolis Public Schools in her recent gentle and favorable treatment of South High School principal Ray Aponte (“A Portrait of Change in the Schools,” Star Tribune, April 23, 2017).  Raghavendran fails to ask any of the questions that truly matter.

 

Raghavendran’s piece finds Aponte in a flurry of motion on a typical morning, handing out pats on the back, shouting hellos, checking his email, and pondering student schedules.  Despite his exertions, he notices little details like the new braces on the teeth of one of his students.  Like one of the new-model principals, according to Ravhavendran’s portrayal, Aponte is no stuck-in-his-office leader of this school site, so busy is he bolstering achievement, supporting teacher development, and ensuring that those entering his building feel safe and welcome.  Aponte avowedly finds gratifying his opportunity to build relationships with students he knows are going to change the world.

 

Forth goes Aponte, remembering birthdays, maintaining an ordinary position in the lunch line, expressing concern when a student has missed a week of school, trying to keep classrooms small and programming  coinsistent amidst budget cuts, and advocating for Advanced Placement courses that earn college credit and save families money in the long run.  As to the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) that his students are currently taking and the fact that last year 60 percent of his students opted out, Aponte says, “I have to be okay with it.  I’m an advocate for South High School.”

 

Beginning with that last comment, consider the questions that Raghavendran should have asked Aponte but did not:

 

She should have asked why, if Aponte is an advocate for South High School, he would ever be okay with students opting out of state-mandated tests.  She should have asked him if the English teacher at South High School who last spring actually sent a form home to parents that encouraged students to opt out was ever disciplined, or if anyone put pressure on that teacher or on Aponte himself to discourage such refusal to take the test by which Eric Moore (MPS chief of research, innovation, assessment, and accountability) and staff consider the main measure of student achievement.

 

Raghavendran should have further noted that according to the Acceleration 2020 Strategic Plan, which articulates Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) strategies and goals for academic years running from 2014 through 2020, the general body of MPS students shall record five (5) percentage point increases in academic growth every year and those students who have been functioning far below grade level shall record eight (8) percentage points in academic growth.  Moore and staff measure progress toward goals mainly by MCA results.  How can results be measured if students are opting out?

 

According to the most recent data available from spring 2016, South High School recorded the second worst results on the MCA reading assessment, with just 14 percent of students taking the test recording proficient performance;  results from Roosevelt High School yielded that same 14 percent figure, while that for North High School (5 percent) was worse;  however, comparable results from the other traditional high schools Southwest (65 percent), Washburn (49 percent), Henry (32 percent), and Edison (28 percent) high schools were two to three times better the MCA reading assessment figure for South.

 

As to scores on the MCA math assessment, the staff at Henry High School deserves kudos for having their students record 59 percent proficiency on a test that is a rigorous measure of high school math achievement;  other scores ranged from 7 percent proficiency at North High School to 33 percent proficiency at Southwest High School;  embarrassingly, so few students at South High School took the test that the report from Aponte’s school was “No Data.”

 

What, Raghavendran should have asked, does this say about the teachers that Aponte is developing and the academic atmosphere that he is creating?  How are students likely to change the world or go forth to successful university experiences on the strength of those Advanced Placement courses when one-third of students graduating from the Minneapolis Public Schools will need to take remedial courses in math and reading?  

 

Ray Aponte is deeply culpable for overseeing the lamentable academic results recorded by South High School.

 

Star Tribune reporter Beena Raghavendran is just as culpable for not asking Aponte the questions that should be asked.

 

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