Associate Superintendents and Curriculum Specialists Among Those Cut by Alternate Universe MPS Superintendent Gary Marvin Davison in Paring 400 Positions at the Davis Center: Clear Focus is on Academic Achievement and Professionalized Teacher Corps

In paring  400 positions at the Davis Center (central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools [MPS], 1250 West Broadway), I (Gary Marvin Davison) am as Alternate Universe MPS Superintendent signaling our clear focus on academic achievement with a now professionalized teaching contingent.

 

I have already indicated in a previous article that I am eliminating the Office of Black Male Achievement, the Department of Indian Education, and the Department of College and Career Readiness;   former heads of those MPS central office enclaves have been invited to apply for positions that will make better use of their skills, should they be selected to fill the newly defined positions.

 

The Davis Center will now have a greatly slimmed staff of 150 people, a major shift from the 550-650 staff members that have typically filled the halls of the building housing the MPS central bureaucracy.  Inside the new Davis Center administration, the emphasis will be on programming emanating from the Department of Academic Achievement.  Staff in this department will focus on designing knowledge- intensive, skill-replete curriculum to be implemented in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years;  and the teacher training program necessary to impart such a curriculum.   As detailed in a previous article, the new curriculum will carefully observe the Minnesota Department of Education academic standards, with major reference also to grades K-6 subject area information generated by the Core Knowledge Foundation of E. D. Hirsch and by the K-12 curriculum that I detail in the August 2014 edition of Journal of the K-12 Revolution:  Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

 

My Davis Center staff cuts are made in the context of the greatly professionalized teaching force that will result from the rigorous new teacher training program.   Teachers will now all hold legitimate academic masters degrees and will emerge from their years of training and internship with a full grasp of the curriculum that they are to impart.  Prospective principals will be required to meet the same academic degree requirements as teachers in their buildings, so that they, too, will have a deep understanding of the new knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum.

 

In this context of teacher and principal academic professionalization, we will have no one on staff bearing the titles of Curriculum Specialist or Associate Superintendent.  Teachers themselves will be masters of curricular matters.  Principals, previously mentored ineffectively by Associate Superintendents, will now meet the same rigorous academic standards as teachers, and they will serve year-long internships before gaining consideration for employment.   In their roles as site-based administrators, they will handle managerial details while recognizing great authority for professionalized teachers and Family Relationships and Resources Program staff members to assume responsibility for fulfillment of the duties for which they have been highly trained.

 

With site-based staff positions now occupied by professionalized teachers, principals, and family resource specialists, we will be reversing the previous central office- school building staff relationship:

Curriculum will be articulated and staff training will be provided by those operating at the central level;  the same rigorous, knowledge-intensive, skill replete curriculum will be implemented across the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools, according to standards and training emanating from the Davis Center.   But with common curriculum and district-wide standards clearly understood, great authority will be invested in site-based teachers, administrators, and family resource specialists to impart excellent education to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

With site-based academic and family resource staff properly trained according to standards and programs overseen by members of the Department of Academic Achievement, the greatly reduced central office staff at the Davis Center will otherwise focus on legal, financial, operational, maintenance, security, and food service matters.

 

Hence, as Alternate Universe Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, I am highly centralizing academic standards and staff training while then giving great authority to site-based professionals to implement our rigorous academic program.  Paring of the central bureaucracy will mean a reduction of approximately $30 million in total expenditures for Davis Center salaries, abetting my plan to increase salaries for the newly professionalized teaching force, from the current $64,000 median to a median of $85,000.

 

In implementing my five-point program of knowledge-intensity, teacher training, tutoring and academic enrichment, family relationships and resources, and reduction of the central office bureaucracy, I am signaling a clear focus on academic achievement and respect for a professionalized staff trained to provide truly excellent education to students of all demographic descriptors.