14 August 2017 Retreat Demonstrates Need for a New School Board and More Assertive Leadership at the Minneapolis Public Schools

On Monday, 14 August 2017, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education held its summer retreat with Superintendent Ed Graff and other leaders of the school district.

 

This event passed under the radar of the general public but was every bit as important as the regular monthly meetings that occasionally draw large turnouts to protest such things as racially insensitive reading curriculum and a new contract for School Resource Officers (SROs, police officers placed in the schools).

 

At the retreat, an outside consultant led board members in a discussion that focused mainly on Strategic Plan Acceleration 2020, approved by the board three years ago. 

 

The plan envisioned five (5) percentage point annual increases in students meeting or exceeding state standards in reading and math for the general MPS student population, a comparable eight (8) percentage point increase for lowest-performing students, and a ten (10) percentage point increase in the four-year graduation rate.

 

Six goals drive Strategic Plan Acceleration 2020: 

 

1)  Improved Student Outcomes

2)  Equity

3)  Student, Family, and Community Partnerships

4)  Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff

5)  Stewardship

6)  Resources for Students and Schools

 

According to the plan, MPS board members and administrative decision-makers regard the school as the unit of change.  

 

As I have detailed in many articles, three years into the six-year period for which this plan applies, achievement levels have been essentially flat and in some demographic categories have decreased.  The ambitious goals for academic increases become a cruel mockery in such a situation.  Equity cannot be realized when academic achievement for African American, American Indian, and Hispanic students is so low.  This calls into question the effectiveness of teachers, school leaders, and staff;  overall stewardship of resources;  and how well those resources are being targeted for allocation to students and schools for the realization of academic gains.  And under such a situation, partnerships with students, family, and community become strained---  as manifested in several recent rowdy school board meetings.

 

Strategic Plan Acceleration 2020 becomes a mere pile of paper in such a situation.

 

Yet at the 14 August retreat, board members expressed general satisfaction with a plan for which lofty goals have not been realized and which a year ago brought unfavorable comments from consultant Michael Casserly (head of the oxymoronic Council of Great City Schools), who said that he had never seen such a site-focused (as opponent to district-wide) plan work. 

 

A few discordant notes were strummed:

 

Bob Walser gave a twenty-minute presentation in opposition to standardized tests as the measure of student performance, implying opposition to the importance placed on student scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) and other objective measures of student performance.

 

Kerryjo Felder called for the elevation of equity as a paramount goal, clearly integrated with and guiding the course for attaining the other goals.

 

After Graff presented his vision for academic year 2017-2018, Felder and fellow board member Nelson Inz called for more specificity as to how the goals of Graff and fellow administrators were to be attained.  Graff’s vision focused on the goals of achievement, equity, engagement, and accountability, with firm attention to the expressed desire on the part of teachers for training in the advancement of student literacy, an emphasis on social and emotional learning, a major focus on equity, and the institution of a multi-tiered system of support.

 

Consider the jargon infestation of the foregoing paragraph and consider the similarity in that regard with Strategic Plan Acceleration 2020.

 

Felder and Nelson were on to something really important but did not press the case. 

 

Otherwise, board members seemed to approve of Graff’s vision for academic year 2017-2018.   Asked to rate Graff’s plan for items of focus, board members Rebecca Gagnon, Jenny Arneson, and Siad Ali gave the plan 5 out of 5 points;  Nelson Inz and Kim Ellison gave the plan a 4;  Bob Walser abstained (saying that a debate on standardized testing should take place first);  and KerryJo Felder assigned a rating of 2, citing lack of specificity and paramount attention to equity as the only member giving the plan low marks.  Don Samuels and Ira Jourdain were not present for vote.

 

………………………………………………………………………..

 

My own message to Graff and the school board would be as follows:

 

Academic achievement is the paramount goal for a system of public education, and for academic year 2017-2018, these five items should be given prime emphasis: 

 

1) knowledge-intensive curriculum; 

 

2) thorough retraining of teachers capable of imparting such a curriculum; 

 

3)  a cohesive, district-wide program of remedial instruction for elevating struggling students to grade level in reading and math; 

 

4)  direct provision of resources and resource referral for struggling families;  and

 

5) continued paring of the central office bureaucracy. 


Social and emotional responsiveness to the needs of students, and students’ own internalization of social and emotional values, should be assumed as necessary to support academic advancement and put to the service of academic goals.

 

This is the program that will be necessary to realize the goals of Strategic Plan Acceleration 2020;  without such a program, the strategic plan is just a fantasy of goal-setting.  

 

…………………………………………………………………………………..

 

Siad Ali had a bright moment when he said that student achievement is the most important matter for consideration in a system of education;  other goals may be worthy, he said, but without academic achievement the system becomes a social service agency rather than a school district.

 

This value should have been discussed in full at the 14 August meeting.

 

Walser’s opposition to objective measurement should have been thoroughly confronted and dismissed.

 

The matter of Graff’s lack of specificity should have been given great emphasis, because there was nothing said at the meeting to instill confidence that there will be any advancement of student academic achievement during the 2017-2018 school year.

 

That last clause bears repeating:

 

Nothing was said at the 14 August 2017 retreat of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education by either Superintendent Ed Graff or members of the board to instill confidence that there will be any advancement of student academic achievement during the 2017-2018 school year.

 

Read and consider that observation, get it in your gut, and know, then:

 

We need to elect a new school board, and the Ed Graff tenure as Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools is in deep trouble.