The seven
articles as you scroll on down cite the facts and figures demonstrative of the
wretched quality of education at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). In accordance with my multiple activist
initiatives for change, I also give in these articles a strong indication of
the program for correction, overhaul, and transformation of MPS into a model of
the locally centralized school district, for which our local iteration is now
typical.
Education
for students in our institutions of K-12 public education in the United States
is wretched.
The public schools
of Minnesota constitute a subset of the public schools of the United
States. The school district of the
Minneapolis Public Schools is a salient representative of the locally
centralized school district in a nation that extols local control. Change in K-12 public schools must in the
United States come at the level of the locally centralized school district and
must include the following observations, definitions, and features.
The unit of change in education must be the
locally centralized school district and must proceed on the basis of an
overhaul of curriculum, teacher
training, academic remediation, family outreach, and the central office
bureaucracy.
There was a
time when I assumed that there were others capable of understanding the nature
of the K-12 dilemma, possessing the ability to conduct the necessary investigations
into the inner workings of at least one locally centralized school district.
I now have
no such faith.
For years I
have observed and had conversations with good-hearted philanthropists and
others of the upper middle and upper classes who express interest in the public
schools while sending their own children to private schools.
I have
interacted extensively and intensively with decision-makers and personnel at
colleges and universities who should but do not have a vision of excellence of
education or integrity in training teachers.
Either due to sins of commission or omission, all key actors in our
nation’s colleges and universities are deeply culpable for the state of K-12
education in the United States.
I have read,
heard, and seen the work of print, radio, and television journalists who address
K-12 issues.
They, too,
are deeply culpable.
I have
written books for the Minneapolis Urban League, studied the history and met
local leaders of the NAACP, worked with members of the American Indian
community and acquired considerable knowledge of Native American history,
talked with people working to provide education to Native American youth, and
considered with great care the education of students of color. The leaders of these populations are among
those implicated in the catastrophe that is K-12 education in the United
States.
And I have
interacted often with others who share with me the conviction that we must
change K-12 education as conducted in the United States and in Minnesota. But the reformers are just as confused as are
members of the education establishment.
Part of the problem is that they are merely reformers, when in fact what
is necessary is the thoroughgoing transformation for which the term revolution
is the appropriate descriptive moniker for the extent of change necessary.
After many
such interactions and having at times placed considerable hope in
representatives from each of these categories, I have found all of them to lack
an understanding of educational excellence and the overhaul necessary to
achieve excellence, all of them culpable for the wretched state of education in
the United States.
Advocates
for education change have little understanding of the need for thoroughgoing overhaul
of the programs, processes, and personnel in our systems of K-12
education. They do not articulate the definitions of an excellent education, and
they are vague as to their programmatic vision.
They do not investigate the specific programs, the personnel, or the
guiding philosophy of the Minneapolis Public Schools or any other central
school district.
Thus, the
efforts of education change advocates offer inadequate direction for the
overhaul of K-12 education that we must have so as to serve all of our precious
children, of all demographic descriptors.
They are
therefore culpable for the wretched quality of education in the K-12 public
schools of Minnesota and across the United States.
Grasp, then,
these features of an excellent education, the excellent teacher, and the purpose
of K-12 education >>>>>
>>>>>
An excellent education is a matter of
excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive curriculum in the liberal,
vocational, and technological arts, with grade by grade specificity to students
of all demographic descriptors.
>>>>>
An excellent teacher is a professional
of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge
to all students.
>>>>>
The purpose of K-12 education is to
send forth citizens who are culturally enriched, civically prepared, and
professionally satisfied.
In the New
Salem Educational Initiative, I model these features of an excellent education,
the excellent teacher, and purpose of K-12 education.
In my nearly
complete books (Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Present Condition, Future Prospect and
Fundamentals
of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education) I respectively present the objective
evidence for the wretched performance of students in the Minneapolis Public
Schools and provide a complete curriculum that will undergird the overhaul.
You will
soon read a description of our Annual New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet,
held on 6 June. In reading the article
on the banquet, you will get a strong sense of what students of all demographic
descriptors can achieve when presented with a knowledge-intensive curriculum by
a superior teacher.
In reading
the seven following articles, you will have the essence of the dilemma in K-12
education, a prescription for revolutionary change, and my seven-day-a-week
commitment to the cause.
Your
question will then be, what are you yourself now going to do?
No comments:
Post a Comment