Curriculum Overhaul Should Now Be Top Priority for Superintendent Ed Graff--- And in This Pursuit, Graff Will Have to Overcome Deficiencies in His Own Academic Training

Now that Ed Graff has achieved success in administrative reorganization and demonstrated astute judgment in personnel evaluation, he must move forward with the implementation of knowledge-intensive curriculum, teacher training, family outreach, and continued slimming of the central bureaucracy at the Davis Center (central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools, 1250 West Broadway).

Graff must first think through his educational philosophy and overcome the deficiencies in his own academic training.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Alaska, Anchorage;  elementary education is the weakest program on any university campus.   Aside from that degree, Graff holds a master’s degree in education administration from the University of Southern Mississippi.  This latter degree is the same sort of credential obtained by the school principals and central office administrators who have failed our children across the United States, and in Graff’s case was earned at a low-tier institution in a state with the nation’s worst academic outcomes.  Graff also claims post-master’s coursework in curriculum, educational leadership, and instruction of the sort dispensed by education professors who have inflicted their vapid educational philosophy on teachers and administrators who have gone forth to establish our wretched system of K-12 education.

So Graff must move beyond the shibboleths of critical thinking and lifelong learning.  He must actually become an acute analyst as to matters of curriculum and pedagogy, and he must become a learner of the sort he has never been.  He should read widely in world literary classics, steep himself deeply in the ethnic history and cultures most prevalent in the Minneapolis Public Schools, educate himself in the social and natural sciences, and pursue to ever greater heights his professed propensity for the fine arts.  Michael Thomas and Eric Moore, as Graff’s key advisers, should continue their own promising scholarly pursuits, and these three (Graff, Thomas, Moore) should move with all due sense of urgency to overhaul curriculum.  

Those seeking to establish such a curriculum should read as many works by Core Knowledge Foundation founder E. D. Hirsch as possible, including The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them (1996) and the parent resource books, What Your [Preschooler, Kindergartener, First Grader, Second Grader, Third Grader, Fourth Grader, Fifth Grader, Sixth Grader] Needs to Know, for which Hirsch has served as chief editor for volumes that have appeared as initial and updated editions since the 1990s. And those aspiring to establish the ideal K-12 curriculum should also read the August 2014 edition of my Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, in which I detail curriculum for all grades K-12.

In my own work, I follow Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum closely for grades K-5; then I detail curriculum for grades 6-8 and 9-12 that would follow logically from the foundation laid at grades K-5.

in the August 2014 edition of my academic journal, Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, I present a fully developed K-12 curriculum with the knowledge-intensity necessary for an excellent education.

Here I summarize the curriculum that should be implemented by Graff, Thomas, and Moore:

Curriculum for Grades K-5

At the K-5 level, students will focus on the key liberal arts areas of mathematics, natural science (geology, biology, chemistry, and physics), literature & English usage, history & economics, and fine arts (music & visual arts). In mastering such a rich curriculum, students graduating from Grade 5 will acquire knowledge of mathematics through introductory algebra and geometry. They will have knowledge of the earth’s formation and defining qualities; the chronological emergence and defining characteristics of plant and animal forms; fundamental facts concerning subatomic particles, the structure of the atom, molecular structures, and the array of elements found on earth; and the basic laws of gravity and motion, especially as contrasted in the work of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.

 

Students will graduate from Grade 5 having read widely in classical literature, including Western classics, world literature, and literature specific to a multiplicity of ethnic groups. Students at K-5 will gain detailed overviews of United States and world history (necessarily including the history of many ethnic groups); and they will master the fundamental concepts of microeconomics and macroeconomics. Students will graduate from Grade 5 having mastered a great wealth of information pertinent to the theory and forms of the visual and musical arts, and they will learn how to play at least one musical instrument.

 

Graduates from Grade 5 will have a mastery in these informational realms that exceeds the knowledge and skill level evidenced by many high school graduates today.  These knowledge and skill sets will continue development in middle school (grades 6-8) so as to solidify student academic foundations for very advanced study in high school.

Curriculum for Grades 6-8
               

Curriculum at the level of the middle school (grades 6-8) will follow logically from the knowledge and skill base established during grades K-5.

Students will emerge from Grade 8 with knowledge of mathematics through Algebra II and in functions, statistics, and trigonometry. They will gain advanced understanding of all major concepts in biology, chemistry, and physics. Students at grades 6-8 will continue to read at ever rising level of sophistication the great works of classical literature, including Western classics, world literature, and literature specific to a multiplicity of ethnic groups, and they will write expositional and argumentative essays. Grades 6-8 students will also build highly sophisticated knowledge bases in United States history, world history, political science (including United States political processes, United States Constitution, and world governmental systems), microeconomics and macroeconomics--- and gain foundational knowledge in psychology, sociology, and anthropology.

 

As they graduate from Grade 8, students will have an enormous knowledge base pertinent to the visual and musical arts, mastery of at least one musical instrument at each student's maximum possible level of skill, and opportunities to participate in choral, band, and ensemble musical groups.

During the grades 6-8 years, students will assiduously study at least one foreign language. Students will take physical education at each grade level, 6-8.  They will be given opportunities to acquire skills in vocational trades (including the skills of the electrician, auto mechanic, and the carpenter). And they will acquire strong foundational knowledge relevant to computers and other devices of contemporary technology.

Graduating from Grade 8 with mastery in these informational realms, students will possess knowledge and skill sets that exceed those evidenced by many high school graduates today.


Curriculum for Grades 9-12

At the high school (grades 9-12) level, then, students can proceed to acquire knowledge that we associate with mastery at the level of first and second year university students, and at two-year

colleges of both the liberal arts and technical type. All students (except those facing genuine learning disabilities, who will be given the most challenging instruction possible) in grades 9-12 will take sequential courses in calculus as preparation for Advanced Placement. They will take Advanced Placement courses in biology, chemistry, and physics; in American and world history; and in English. Students will pursue options for study in specific geographical and topical areas of world history (e.g., history of the Roman Empire, dynastic China, Africa, African America, Latin America, medieval era, early modern era, contemporary [recent] history).

 

High school students will take courses in classical English and world literature, and they will opt for specialized courses similar in geographical and topical focus to those given for history.  All students will take college preparatory courses in economics and psychology, and they will have elective course options in sociology and anthropology. And all students will continue to develop skills in the visual and musical arts, with opportunities to participate in choral, band, and ensemble musical groups.

All students at grades 9-12 will study a world language through the second year college level. Students will take two years of physical education and have various physical education options beyond two years. High school students will select from various courses in the vocational and technological arts.  

 

Thus, all students will be well-prepared for study at either liberal arts or technical colleges, and at universities, upon high school graduation. No student will be tracked for either of these options; rather, each student will graduate with the confidence that she or he has the preparation for pursuing post-high school courses of study of either type.

 

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The curriculum detailed above is rigorous and achievable.

Students enrolled in the academic sessions that I conduct in the New Salem Educational Initiative are now engaged with such a rich curriculum via their reading of my new book (which I am now perfecting as my ninth published work), Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.

Students in the Minneapolis Public Schools deserve such an education of K-12 excellence.

I am absolutely dedicated to a course of action that will impel the Minneapolis Public Schools to become a model for other locally centralized school districts via the impartation of such an excellent education.

 

Nothing in Ed Graff’s background suggests that he has the training necessary to grasp and implement such curriculum.  But his having exceeded expectations thus far in the areas of administrative reorganization and bureaucratic paring gives me hope that he can overcome the deficiencies in his own training to exceed expectations in the critically important matter of curriculum overhaul.

 

And to be sure, Ed Graff’s ability to overhaul curriculum along the lines detailed above will determine his success as Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools---   for, more importantly, curriculum overhaul is imperative in charting promising futures for students who have been waiting a very long time for an excellent education.