There is no
strategy for achieving the strategy.
That is,
there is no viable scheme in place for advancing student achievement in the
Minneapolis Public Schools according to Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020.
This document
was approved at a September 2014 meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools
Board of Education. Ambitious targets
were offered in what was termed the “big, bold spirit of the 5-8-10 plan”
included the following, to be attained in the run-up to year 2020:
>>>>> 5 percent annual increase in students
overall meeting or exceeding state standards in reading
and math;
>>>>> 8 percent annual increase in students meeting
or exceeding state standards in reading
and math for
MPS’s lowest performing students;
>>>>> 10 percent annual increase in the four-year
graduation rate
Officials at
MPS declared that “Our targets are intentionally
high to reignite a sense of urgency in the system and ensure that everyone is
operating with growth mindset. Meeting
these targets is absolutely possible. Under
this plan, we will achieve our vision of every child graduating college and
career ready.”
The key goals for Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 were as follows:
1) Improved
Student Outcomes
2)
Equity
3)
Family and Community Partnerships
4)
Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff
5)
Stewardship
6) Resources
for Students and Schools
Not one of
these goals has any chance of being fulfilled.
Decision-makers
at the Minneapolis Public Schools have failed to inaugurate a viable program
for achieving the goals of the strategic plan.
Nearly
halfway through the period though during which Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 was to be achieved,
though, there has been a general stagnation in student performance and many of
the results actually show regression.
Consider
these figures:
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%x
Asian
2014 2015 2016
Male 44.1% 47.4%
45.4%
Female 51.3% 53.4%
54.1%
White/ 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% 33.8%
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%
What
explains this wretched performance halfway through the period in which Strategic
Plan: Acceleration 2020 was to
achieve enhanced student outcomes, equity, and a change in culture promotive of
achievement for all?
Specifically,
point by point, the reasons are as follows
1)
Improved Student Outcomes
No cohesive
plan has been advanced to move students toward grade level performance on the
Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs).
There is teacher union (Minneapolis Federation of Teachers) resistance
to the MCAs. Specific training for the
MCAs begins late and varies wildly from school to school. Inasmuch as the MCAs are based on Minnesota
state academic standards, teachers should be teaching the requisite grade level
skill sets throughout the academic year, but most teachers are not rendering
adequate instruction for acquisition of knowledge and skill sets, and very few
are giving acceptable preparation for taking an assessment in the format of the
MCAs.
2)
Equity
Equity
depends on giving students of all demographic descriptors a chance to master
the same knowledge and skill sets. The
official Educational Equity Framework for the Minneapolis Public Schools is
jargon-infested and useless as a guide to achieving equity. The Office of Black Male Achievement and the
Department of Indian Education have been ineffective in advancing the academic
performance of their target populations.
There is no cohesive program of academic remediation (tutoring) available
throughout the school district. And
equity will only be made possible when the Department of Student, Family, and
Community Engagement is greatly expanded for the direct delivery of services
and resource referral to economically and functionally challenged
families; no such program of outreach
to families has been articulated or discussed.
3)
Family and Community Partnerships
In addition
to the failure to provide direct services and resource referral to struggling
families, officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools also do not have a
coherent plan for utilizing partnerships.
Partnerships arise when connections are made by outside agencies, each
of which brings a service to the district on its own terms and according to its
own processes. Minneapolis Public
Schools officials have failed to articulate a clear philosophy of
knowledge-intensive education and a plan for ensuring fundamental skill
acquisition upon which such knowledge attainment can proceed. Partnerships are thus utilized in segmented,
program by program fashion, rather than put to use in the service of a coherent
plan for building student skill and knowledge.
4)
Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff
Officials at
the Minneapolis Public Schools have never confronted the problem of abominable teacher
training in departments, colleges, and schools of education. Teachers come to them woefully
underprepared. Many decision-makers at
MPS have themselves been subjected to the wretched training and the approach to
education promoted by professors, devaluing as that approach does the acquisition
of logically sequenced skillsets and the attainment of broad and deep knowledge
across the liberal arts curriculum.
Administrators are themselves ill trained in university-based programs
leading to certification and licensure;
they are not well-placed to design a plan for the overhaul of curriculum
and the training of teachers and principals that will be necessary to assure
excellence of MPS staff.
5)
Stewardship
The district
of the Minneapolis Public Schools is now facing a $28 million dollar budget deficit. MPS
officials have proffered a plan featuring budget reductions of 10% at the Davis
Center (central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools, 1250 West Broadway) and
2.5% from the schools, with substantial withdrawals from budgetary reserves. But 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.
6)
Resources for Students and Schools
According to
the Shift strategy of the tenure
(2010-2015) of Bernadeia Johnson, MPS resources were to be focused on students
and classrooms and away from the Davis Center.
As indicated above, this has not happened. The central MPS bureaucracy has grown more
bloated rather than slimmed in the originally intended fashion.
………………………………………………………..
The district
of the Minneapolis Public Schools ironically has no strategy for achieving the avowed
strategy of its decision-makers. There is no viable scheme in place for
advancing student achievement in the Minneapolis Public Schools according to Strategic
Plan: Acceleration 2020.
Details on the situation summarized above are among the most important of
an abundance of meticulously accumulated facts that I present in my nearly complete book,
Understanding
the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current
Condition, Future Prospect.
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