The Community
Café held at the Davis Center of Minneapolis Public Schools was just as much a
sham as was the World Café event held a few weeks back at Southwest High
School. Once again, under the banner of Reimagine
Minnesota and moderated by the head of the research firm hired by the Association of Metropolitan School
Districts (AMSD) to stage these events, the superintendents of the
Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools and those from nearby suburbs pretended
via their paid proxies to seek public opinion as to how to achieve equity in
the public schools.
As with the
first event, the second revealed that the superintendents’ pose is mere persiflage
in which the highly controlled format of small-group discussions is guided in such
a way as to enable those responsible for our terrible public schools to claim
that they have backing for policies that they already intend to pursue and
positions that they already have taken.
For insight
into what those positions might be, take a look at these legislative
initiatives as posted on the website of the Association of Metropolitan School
Districts;
AMSD Assessment Position Paper
(Update February 2016)
State policymakers should take advantage of the flexibility provided under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to design a state accountability system focused on improving student learning. The new system should reduce the number of required standardized tests by allowing school districts to use innovative, local assessments and replace the high school MCA exams with a nationally recognized college entrance exam. The state should also make available to school districts a career interest survey and the Optional Local Purpose Assessment.
AMSD Facilities Funding Position Paper
(Updated November 2016)
The Association of Metropolitan School Districts urges the Governor and Legislature to continue to implement the recommendations of the School Facilities Financing Work Group including enhancing debt service equalization and establishing new facilities improvement revenue to allow school districts to address safety and security needs and add needed classroom space for expanded early learning programming.
AMSD Charter Schools Position Paper
(Updated November 2016)
The Department of Education should be directed to identify which, if any, exemptions from state law or rule allow charter schools to increase student achievement or increase efficiencies. The Governor and Legislature should extend any identified exemptions to all school districts. In addition, the State should fully reimburse school districts for the cost of providing transportation and special education services to charter school students.
AMSD Compensatory Revenue Position Paper
(Updated November 2016)
The compensatory revenue formula should be enhanced by increasing the base funding for students from low-income families. It is important that the formula continue to provide additional resources for schools with high concentrations of low-income students to provide the programming and learning opportunities necessary to close the achievement gap.
AMSD Early Childhood Education Position Paper
(Updated Dec. 2016)
The Association of Metropolitan School Districts supports expanding access to school-based prekindergarten programs. Funding for prekindergarten programs must be sufficient to ensure essential program components including licensed teachers, support staff, transportation and sufficient classroom space.
AMSD Guns on School Property Position Paper
Updated Nov. 2016
Any person, whether or not they have a permit to carry, who knowingly possesses, stores or keeps a dangerous weapon on school property in violation of state law, should be charged with a felony with the exception of licensed peace officers or military personnel performing official duties.
AMSD English Learner Position Paper
(Updated Nov. 2016)
The Association of Metropolitan School Districts supports increased funding for the English learner program to ensure that English learners have the opportunities and resources necessary to achieve State and Federal standards.
AMSD Mandate Reduction and Local Control Position Paper
(Updated Dec. 2016)
The Association of Metropolitan School Districts supports eliminating unnecessarily restrictive mandates that increase administrative expenses and limit the ability of locally elected school boards to address the unique needs of their students and community. AMSD also supports broadening the levy and decision-making authority of locally elected school boards, including allowing school boards to renew an existing operating referendum by a majority vote of the board.
AMSD School Employee Health Insurance Position Paper
(Updated Nov. 2016)
The Association of Metropolitan School Districts opposes the establishment of a mandatory statewide health insurance pool for school employees and supports restoring inherent managerial rights and reducing the regulations related to the Health Insurance Transparency Act and the Public Employee Insurance Program.
AMSD Special Education Position Paper
(Updated Dec. 2016)
The Association of Metropolitan School Districts supports increased state funding for special education to ensure that all students have the resources and opportunities necessary to achieve state and federal standards.
AMSD Vouchers Position Paper
(Updated Nov. 2016)
The Association of Metropolitan School Districts opposes the diversion of public funds to nonpublic schools through the use of vouchers and extending K-12 tax credit to private school tuition. Furthermore, the State should require that any school receiving public aid or enrolling students from families receiving public educational subsidies be accessible to all students and comply with all state laws and rules that are applicable to public schools.
Thus, the legislative agenda for the Association of Metropolitan School Districts calls for increased base funding for low-income students (known as compensatory aid), and for facilities, special education, and English learner programs; argues for tighter oversight of charter schools; opposes the use of publicly funded vouchers for students seeking to attend private school; and seeks to eliminate the Minnesota Comprehensives (MCAs) in favor of locally devised assessments at the grade K-5 and grade 6-8 levels and for a nationally recognized college entrance exam at the high school level.
There is no coherent philosophy of education that drives any of these legislative policy initiatives except for the protection of the status quo. The legislative goals are typical for the education establishment, which seeks to increase funding in the absence of any programmatic changes that would provide a higher quality of education for students, to protect the prerogatives of locally centralized school districts against the state from which they seek funding, and to eliminate the standardized tests that have shone such a harsh light on the failures of those school districts.
Nothing on the AMSD legislative agenda would increase the likelihood of the impartation of equitably excellent education to students of all demographic descriptors enrolled in the public schools.
If these were true professionals, they would be vigorously presenting a program of academic excellence in which equity is firmly embedded. But, as I have detailed in many articles on this blog, administrators and school board members of the Minneapolis Public Schools have no clearly stated or viable philosophical principles. What must pass for some approximation of such principles comes out in the form of such education professor shibboleths as “critical thinking,” “lifelong learning,” and “social and emotional learning” that are mere smoke-screens behind which administrators, teachers unions, and school board members hide while rendering a skill-devoid, knowledge-poor quality of education that mocks the very meaning of education.
Meanwhile,
the education establishment does not welcome true “critical thinking” on the
part of opponents and gives very little evidence of “lifelong learning” toward improving upon the poor knowledge base
with which those trained in departments, colleges, and schools of education
emerge. Vapid testimonies to the
importance of “social and emotional learning” enable administrators to pretend
that programs based on values that should be assumed in the delivery of
knowledge-intensive education will lead to improved educational outcomes, when
in fact such schemes become a diversion from the awful academic performance of
students in the Minneapolis Public Schools and other locally centralized school
districts.
But, as long
as public school officials are pretending to inquire as to how we are to
achieve equity, understand the following:
>>>>>
Equity in
the Minneapolis Public Schools will become reality with the impartation of a
knowledge-intensive curriculum to students of all demographic descriptors. This will only be achieved when the
curriculum is thoroughly redesigned, teachers are trained to deliver such a
curriculum, a coherent program of remedial instruction is articulated and
implemented, services are delivered directly and by referral to families facing
challenges of poverty and functionality, and expenditure for the central
bureaucracy at the Davis Center is greatly reduced so as to shift resources to
the four priorities just mentioned.
Not one of
these tenets of a uniformly excellent curriculum is currently part of the
program of the Minneapolis Public Schools:
Time at the
K-5 level is mostly wasted due to curricular weakness in natural science,
history, government, economics, literature, and the fine arts Middle school curriculum is also weak; even in classes that bear titles similar to,
or include these, subjects, the knowledge base of teachers is limited, there is
an overreliance on worksheets and packets, class discussion is minimal or
absent entirely, and homework is often given in the absence of explanation or
necessary background information to contextualize the material to be learned. Only at the high school level in Advanced
Placement (AP) classes do students gain access to a knowledge-intensive
curriculum; but many students who take
AP classes are unprepared by the weakness of their prior educational experiences
to succeed in rigorous courses, and many teachers do not have the knowledge
base or the pedagogical ability to impart information at this level.
Teacher
training in departments, schools, and colleges of education is abysmal, so that
teachers arrive woefully unprepared to teach the classes to which they have
been assigned. This is particularly true
for teachers at the K-5 level, who earn their degrees in the weakest major on
any university campus. Middle school and
high school teachers are also undertrained for the delivery of information with
the necessary breadth and depth. Masters
degrees are pursued in education departments and do not strengthen the
teacher’s subject area expertise. And
students do not receive training placing them on the ground, in the homes, in
the communities that constitute the environments of students living at the
urban core.
In the
Minneapolis Public Schools, there is little outreach to students whose families
face challenges of poverty and dysfunction.
The slimly staffed Department of Student, Family, and Community
Engagement is ineffective. For the
achievement of equity, we need a large contingent of staff members who are
comfortable on the streets and in the homes of our most challenged student
populations, connecting with them in conversation and organized for the provision
of direct services and resource referral.
The
Minneapolis Public Schools has no cohesive tutoring program designed to get
students lagging disastrously behind academically up to grade level. Equity can only be achieved when a large
tutoring force is trained and used to render the remedial instruction necessary
to prepare all students for a rigorous, skill-replete, knowledge-intensive
education.
And if
officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools are serious about achieving equity
they will greatly reduce the central bureaucracy at the Davis Center, which has
re-staffed and is more bloated now than was the case when Interim
Superintendent Michael Goar oversaw a reduction back in spring 2015.
With the
program of curricular overhaul, teacher training, academic remediation, family
outreach, and bureaucratic paring, the officials of the Minneapolis Public
Schools would achieve the equity that they purportedly seek.
Since these
officials did not in this evening’s sham of a meeting genuinely seek community
opinion that is very likely to affect the AMSD policy agenda, it is all the
more imperative that I continue to press the case for the five-point program
that I summarize above, so as to induce the needed initiatives that could
actually result in an excellent and equitable education for all of our precious
students, of all demographic descriptors.
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