13 June 2017 Minneapolis Pubic Schools Board of Education Meeting Full of Symbolism as to the K-12 Education Dilemma--- And Indicators as to Why School Board Members Rebecca Gagnon, Kim Ellison, KeriJo Felder, Bob Walser, and, >>>>> Especially, Nelson Inz <<<<< Should Be Ousted

The 13 June 2017 (last evening as I write this article) meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education was full of symbolism as to the K-12 education dilemma and replete with indications as to why we must oust Rebecca Gagnon, Kim Ellison, KeriJo Felder, Bob Walser, and---most especially---  Nelson Inz---  from the school board.

 

The Public Comments phase of the meeting contained numerous important indicators of the problems in our schools.

 

I was first up as usual, focused this time on the opportunity afforded me by the name change of Alexander Ramsey Middle School to Justice Page Middle School, with the latter moniker given in honor of Alan Page, the former Viking football player who went on to serve as the first African American on the Minnesota Supreme Court and to establish a foundation that each year distributes hundreds of small grants to students of color and young people of low income.  I seized the opportunity to review the importance of the years 1805, 1825, 1837 and 1851 for the loss of territory by the Dakota people;   the years 1863, 1867, and 1889 of similar losses by the Ojibway;  and the years 1887, 1934, 1950s, and 1975 in the evolution of an erratic Minnesota and United States policy toward Native Americans.  I noted that this a familiar historical motif whereby an industrializing, high technology-focused invading power sends an indigenous population whose lives are embedded in the natural world scrambling to mount an effective response. 

 

I articulated the unsentimental view that along the way there has been ignobility and nobility on both sides and in the most thematic moment told school board members that they should not feel too satisfied with their hippy dippy liberal selves (a type for whom I as a radical activist has little regard) in making the name change from Ramsey to Page:  I confronted the board members with this concluding statement:

 

As long as only 16% American Indian males and 21.7%  American Indian females in the Minneapolis Pubic Schools are demonstrating grade level proficiency in math respectively;  and the comparable figures are 15.3 % and 24.9% for reading, you must devise an effective strategy for addressing those deficiencies or you will be at least as culpable as you deem Alexander Ramsey [territorial governor during the 1862 Dakota Uprising] to be.   

 

There then ensued a slew of Public Comments on the following issues: 

 

>>>>>    the lack of air conditioning and manifest building inadequacies at Loring K-5 in the far northern part of North Minneapolis;

 

>>>>>   bullying incidents, unwelcoming attitude, and generally hostile environment toward parents at Anderson K-8 north of East Lake Street in South Minneapolis; 

 

>>>>>    student dislike of SPOs (School Police Officers) in their schools;

 

>>>>>    disenchantment on the part of MPS Federation of Teachers President Michelle Weiss with failure to reinstate teachers of color and other staff members in school sites, as seemingly promised by school board members the evening of a rowdy remonstration by a sizable crowd for such reinstatement; 

 

>>>>>    and a plea to reinstate various sports programs that have been cut in the context of  budgetary exigencies.

 

Board members then proceeded to approve the name change of Alexander Ramsey to Justice Page, adopt the new Benchmark literacy curriculum, and discuss at length the need to dedicate resources for board retreats, at which matters of school board values will be considered as the district moves forward to meet various challenges.

 

And, very prominently on the evening’s agenda, with Chief Financial Officer Ibrahima Diop up front to answer questions, board members approved on a 6-3 vote a budget plan that cuts 10% of expenditures at the Davis Center (central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools at 1250 West Broadway), another 2.5% from school sites, and draws $16 million from the reserve fund to limit the current deficit to $4.5 million.               

 

Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education Chair Rebecca Gagnon then tried to secure support for an amendment to the budget proposal that would limit expenditure for teacher evaluations and student assessments to the state minimum.  Board member Don Samuels smelled a rat on this one, effectively told Gagnon that this should wait for further discussion, and most of the board concurred---  so that the budget proposal passed without that amendment.

 

On this issue, Gagnon is doing the bidding of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, whose members would do away with all evaluations and assessments if they could.  Fellow MFT toady Nelson Inz, although voting against Gagnon’s rush-rush amendment, took the opportunity to make his own statement against infringement on teacher time by state mandates.

We must work to oust these two school board members, along with Kim Ellison, Kerryjo Felder, and Bob Walser.  Gagnon, Inz, and Ellison are given to platitudinous praise of the efforts of a teaching staff that has failed our young people but who pay for their electoral campaigns.  Kerryjo Felder is a grandstander who fails to grasp the central challenges of the Minneapolis Public Schools.  Bob Walser is an extreme opponent of student assessments and the silliest, most gossamer school board member I have ever witnessed.

 

Jenny Arneson, Ira Jourdain, and Siad Ali are also connected to the MFT.  But the former two have taken encouraging stances, including comments last evening arguing that the entire 12.5% budget cut should have come at the Davis Center.   Ali is an effective representative of the Somali community and is the most open to dissenting views of any of the current school board members.   Samuels’s main virtue is that he is not tied to the MFT---  but his effectiveness would be at the extreme minimum of any graph depicting school board member performance.

 

This is a mediocre assemblage of school board members, which since school boards are generally terrible means that the Minneapolis iteration is typically ill-focused, philosophically inept, and politically purchased.

 

The 13 June 2017 meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education contained numerous Public Comments articulating dissatisfaction with district policy.  As usual, much of the comment was inchoate, the sort that conventionally is the province of the wounded masses, who don’t know all that much but do know that they are hurting and they are being cheated.

 

Superintendent Ed Graff, Research and Assessment Chief Eric Moore, and Academics, Leadership, and Learning Chief Michael Thomas have made some adroit moves and now stand a chance of charting a better course for the Minneapolis Public Schools. 

 

We must work to oust Rebecca Gagnon, Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison, Kerryjo Felder, and Bob Walser, all of whom stand as impediments to progress, and we should monitor the performance and stances of Jenny Arneson, Ira Jordain, Siad Ali, and Don Samuels.

 

The 13 June 2017 meeting of the MPS Board of Education was full of high symbolism, featuring generally particularistic complaints from the wounded masses, indications of school board member inadequacy, and a few stray signs of hope.

 

We must stay attentive to the signs of hope, work to shape its best prospects for a knowledge-intensive, skill replete education of excellence, and oust most of the current membership of the MPS Board of Education who stand in the way.