Navel-Gazing is the Paramount Impediment to Human Progress--- With Implications for the Overhaul of K-12 Education

Navel-gazing is the paramount Impediment to human progress.

 

This is the general dilemma pertinent to the current circumstances of humanity;  and it is chief among those problems that impede our way in revolutionizing K-12 education.

 

Two great psychologists strongly suggest the reasons that cause the great bulk of human beings to be such navel-gazers, that is to be so busy looking distractedly at themselves that they cannot listen to others, understand the circumstances of others’ lives, feel genuine compassion for other people, or act with consistency in a spirit of love.

 

Sigmund Freud offers observations as to what he regards to be the key personality structures of id, ego , and superego: 

 

Actions emanating from the id are impelled by the basic drives for food, water, and sex;  much of a hungry world is understandably concerned with the former two objects of quest, while at this stage of human development  few people have learned how to deal with sex in ways other than crude expression of desire.

 

Actions emanating from the ego are impelled by the drive to establish oneself in the world:  to gain employment, to establish security of habitat, to make a name for oneself, to obtain recognition for achieving those measures communicated by society as indicative of success;  behavior manifested in fulfillment of the aims of the ego are focused on one’s own selfish considerations and, by extension, those in one’s family and very limited inner circle of friends and acquaintances.

 

Actions emanating from the superego are impelled by one’s moral sensibilities, typically bequeathed by one’s parents or parental surrogates;   but since most adults operate according to a substandard ethical code and many adults have moral standards that are clearly wretched, emanations from the superego tend not to reach the highest potential of this structure of the personality, which in that elevated potential would result in altruistic and empathic behavior.

 

Application of Freudian principles result in an interpretation of human activity in the world as driven overwhelmingly by the concerns of the id and ego and under circumstances in which the superego does not reach its highest potential for the manifestation of altruism, empathy, and compassion.

 

Freud’s observations suggest that humankind has no free will, driven as we are by these drives and by unconscious and subconscious forces hidden far below the surface of mental consciousness.

 

This lack of human free will is a chief observation of the great behaviorist psychologist B. F. Skinner, who details the way in which human behavior is determined by our experiences in the world, according to whether we have found particular experiences to be positively reinforced (rewarded with pleasant primary reinforcers of food, water, sex;  or secondary reinforcers such as money, smiles, kind words), negatively reinforced (having an aversive situation removed for the display of a given behavior), or punished (resulting in aversive consequences). 

 

Favorable outcomes for the manifestation of altruistic, compassionate, and empathic behavior can also be powerful secondary reinforcers, but in a world in which morality and ethics are less emphasized than the satisfaction of basic biological drives and the attainment of self-focused desires, the scope for altruistic, compassionate, and empathic behavior is limited.  To combine the constructs of Freud and Skinner, behavioral emanations from the id and ego are much more consistently reinforced than are those highest behavioral expressions of the superego.

 

The result is a world in which people stare incessantly at their navels:

 

When the typical person is having a word exchange (there are very few genuine conversations, so the term “word exchange” is more apt), she or he rarely listens very carefully, so focused is that person on the matter of how she or he is appearing to the other, and so focused on what she or he is going to say once the other person pauses long enough for the inattentive listener to inject her or his own comments into the word exchange.  When a public issue arises in such areas as health care, taxes, economic policy, transportation, and public works the typical response is driven much more by individual and private concerns than by focus on the public good.

 

This is saliently true in the United States, where focus on issues pertinent to K-12 education is trained on individual, private, and localized concerns;  rather than on what is favorable for the attainment of collective, public, and universal aims.  Even for the most engaged parent, paramount and typically exclusive attention is given out of concern for what is best for her or his own child.  There is very little attention given to those philosophical and organizational principles that would actually impart an excellent education to all K-12 students at the level of the locally centralized school district.  Retreat to charter, parochial, or private schools ensues, although such schools are of indifferent and often poor quality and cannot offer the curricular coherency and commonly acquired sets of knowledge and skill that public schools of genuine excellence would provide.

 

We will only progress toward a higher level of human consciousness and better behaviors across the world when we boldly recognize the absence of individual free will.  A human being has no “mind” that is capable of exercising free choices;  rather, she or he has a powerful brain that can be used to make better decisions once the lack of free will is understood and comprehension of the inner and outer determinates of human behavior is attained.  Ironically, we will via better decision-making move closer to achieving the best aspirations of the intuitively seductive but erroneous notion of free will once we realize that free will is a chimeric illusion.

 

Similarly, we will attain better lives for ourselves as individuals when we realize that our only hope is collectively to make decisions that will yield physical and social environments more reinforcing of those altruistic behaviors, jettisoning purely selfish concerns for those empathic and compassionate considerations that will make us better listeners capable of genuine conversation and citizens truly intent on making this one earthly sojourn the best that it can be.

 

We must quit navel-gazing and lift our heads to survey and comprehend the landscape of humanity.

 

 

 

Spirituality as One of the Defining Characteristics of the Happy Person--- with Implications for the Impartation of Knowledge and the Discussion of Ethical Conduct in K-12 Education

One of my most thoughtful correspondents is undergoing some very significant life challenges and recently sent me thoughts with regard to the sustenance she feels given her firm faith in the abiding presence of the Divine in her life.   She offered additional thought-provoking observations on the Divine Copula, the Great I Am, Who is positioned to make that confidently definite statement and other firm comments on past, present, and future, while humankind is more often best positioned to say, "I may," or "I should" engage in some activity, or that something "will probably" happen. 

 

Remember now that in the New Salem Educational Initiative I never let go of a student once she or he has entered my personal universe:  Many of my students grow up knowing me through siblings and other family members, enter my academic program at Grade K, and continue right on into college or university studies.  I now have three students attending college or university, and I count several adults as my students.

 

I shared with the enormously perceptive and spiritually centered person mentioned in paragraph one above the fact that I just assisted one of my students with her speech for a college oratory class (she is in her second post-secondary year) on the topic that she ultimately selected after she and I had discussed numerous possibilities.  Her topic was "The Nature of Happiness and the Traits of the Happy Person";  inasmuch as her speech needed to be research based, I guided her to a Psychology Today article by psychologist David Myers that I used in a psychology class I taught in high school back in the 1990s, and toward a book (The Pursuit of Happiness) by the same author, along with several websites focused on the quest for human happiness.

 

Myers identifies five key qualities of the happy person, seeming to adopt my own distinction between happiness and joy, the latter of which is momentary and evanescent whereas the former is an abiding sensibility.  The five qualities are 1) a genuine sense of self-esteem;  2)  optimism;  3)  a perception of personal control over one's life circumstances;  4) extraversion (outgoing people tend confidently to form sustaining friendships);  and 5) a firm internalized spirituality at the core of one's being.

 

Myers does not identify a particular religion as part of that quintet of factors;  rather, whatever one's spiritual tradition or personal formulation, that sense of spirituality gives one a sense of life having purpose and meaning that contributes greatly to the happy life.

 

We should be aware of this compelling assemblage of qualities descriptive of the happy person as we anticipate overhauling K-12 education for the impartation of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum.

We should build in our students genuine self-esteem by giving them not fatuous praise but rather honest comment on academic accomplishment and ethical conduct.

We should instill in our precious young people a sense of optimistic hope for the future by giving them the excellence of education that leads to cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction;  and an implied sense of how they themselves can live ethically in the world and contribute to the progress of humankind.

With the knowledge and skill sets germane to an excellent education, imbued with a hopeful spirit, young people are likely in the extreme to go forth with a strong perception of control over their lives.

Such young citizens of the future will be comfortable in a multiplicity of human spheres of action, engaging  confidently with their fellows, effectively living in the mode of the extravert, as a matter of cultivated practice even when not a component of one’s original disposition.

And in our design of the most sustaining K-12 experience, knowledge of world religions and discussion of proper ethical conduct should be ever-present in our classrooms in the model for the locally centralized school district that will be the Minneapolis Public Schools.   


Students acquiring knowledge and contemplating ethical behavior via such ecumenical discussion are likely to grow in their own faith tradition, to understand the religious traditions of others, and to gain personal spiritual sensibility in such a way as to contribute to their own happiness and to the betterment of the experience of their fellows on this one earthly sojourn.  

Excellent K-12 education is the foundation for a better world, permeated by the presence of people with abundant knowledge and a firm sense of ethical conduct toward one's fellows. 

Reflections on Thanksgiving as an Expression of Theological Conviction, or >>>>> What More Would You Want Than a Little Red Wagon?

>>>>>        Note to My Readers: 

 

The following article is adapted from my response to a question from one of my most thoughtful followers, who asked me about the validity of optimism in the context of realism, in clear recognition that the world is very troubled in the year 2017.  I regard the response as having prospects for directing attention to the potential of each of these holidays for activating the best, too often latent, inclinations of the human spirit.

 

The adaptation of my response to this highly reflective reader is as follows:  

 

I am a big enthusiast for the Thanksgiving holiday and lament how among the holidays as practiced by Christians in the United States the day of expressing gratitude toward God often gets short shrift as people rush to put up Christmas lights, wreathes, and other decorations, and to be thinking already of Christmas in its all too material aspects. 

 

I love Christmas, but Thanksgiving is a very important day to me and well-embedded in the nature of my personal theology: 

 

My prayers to the Divine are entirely prayers of gratitude, for my many blessings but even for the challenges, which keep me from getting too comfortable and from taking those many blessings for granted, and which inevitably strengthen me for the challenges that will next appear.  Other forms of prayer for me, beyond expression of gratitude, I trust to the Divine to understand in the beating of my heart, in the depths of my soul, in the nature of my actions, and as I interact with my fellow human beings. 

 

Life is a gift, to be treasured, lived at the highest level of commitment, guided always by LOVE.  My overwhelming impulse, especially at this time of year, but also throughout the year is to live life gratefully, as a Song of Gratitude to God for the many opportunities to do well and to do good with the Great Gift of Life, the earthly sojourn that as far as we know comes but once.

 

In my expressions of gratitude to the Divine and in my commitment to contribute my energies to improving the current wretched circumstances of humanity in the year 2017, I am a reflexive, inveterate, unrelenting optimist.  I can constitutionally live life no other way.  My mother, who died at age 96 on 16 September 2017, was such an optimist, and this was even truer of her own mother, my maternal grandmother (who died in 1996 at age 101);  despite facing many challenges in life, this towering spiritual presence was the most joyous person I have ever known.

 

My maternal grandmother lived life as a dedicated teacher as well as mother and friend to all of those in her social universe.  I only found out less than five years ago that she, as a teacher in a small town, requested transfer from a school with a mostly middle class student body to a school in a part of town where children grew up in families of severe poverty.  Inasmuch as this is the same vocational commitment that I have made and now express in the New Salem Educational Initiative and as a K-12 revolutionary, finding out about her request of transfer deepened the connection that she and I felt at the core of our beings from the time I was a very young child, on through adulthood.

 

A story that my grandmother told that always touched my mother greatly was the following:

 

My grandmother always asked the children in her class upon return from the Christmas holiday what they did and what they received as gifts.  To one of her most impoverished students she asked this question and received the simple answer, 

 

"A little red wagon." 

 

My grandmother said, "Well, that's great.  What else did you get?"

 

To which the little boy replied, "Well, what more would you want than a little red wagon?" 

 

Though an optimist, I am a severe critic of life as so many people live it in 2017.  I consider endeavoring to do everything I can do to induce people to think and act more responsibly, to love more fully, to treat all people with respect, and to make our society more equitable to be my sacred responsibility.  God has impressed upon me my need to commit my time to work for a far better, truly excellent education for all of our precious children.  In this work I can express the criticism that I have as a realist disgusted with much of life as it is;  while unrelentingly expressing my view as an optimist that life can and will be so much better. 

 

God, the Divine, Allah, Yahweh, the World Soul---expects no less.

Midweek Missive #458 (XI-8) to Ryan--- Sharing with My Readers a Most Treasured Parting with My Mom

Note to My Readers:  A few times in the past I have shared with you a Midweek Missive to my son Ryan.  Since you have been so kind with your loving thoughts as I returned from my recent six-week sojourn in Dallas;  and since the sentiments expressed resonate in the family called Human;  I decided that this would be one of the Missives that would be of value to share with you, who know my passion for education, and should understand that undergirding that particular passion is an abiding passion for life itself, for my family, and by extension those who dwell commonly on the globe. 

November 16, 2017

My Beloved Ryan---

May the days of mid-November be good ones for you.  I'll miss our recent tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving with you and others gathered at Na's apartment in Dallas, for multiple apparent reasons.  But Barbara and I are very much looking forward to being in Burlington with you at the Yuletide this year.  And I hope that these days leading up to Thanksgiving find you with much over which you feel gratitude, both grounded in the past and under the impetus of your current life and view of the future.

.................................................................

I am living with a lot of gratitude these days, as I reflect on the bevy of amazing people whom I have had in my life, the experiences that I have had in life, and the evolution of my circumstances and thought across many topical spheres.

This is the two-month marker since Na's death as I tap this note out on 16 November, two months after this beloved maternal force breathed her last on 16 September 2017.  I am filled with very specific gratitude as I reflect upon my life's journey with Mom, broadly and then over the course of this last decade and a half, and then again specifically over the course of the last months beginning with the two weeks in June 2017, the nine days at mid-July focused on the multiple birthday celebrations, and then the three weeks that we had together in August.  

Throughout this time I was endeavoring to do everything I could to give Na a vision of living happily, surrounded by joyful, caring spirits, until at least 100 years of age.  I thought that she had a real chance of living to that venerable age, as did her own remarkable mother.  But I also knew that beneath her ferocious spirit and towering courage was a little frail body with a heart that ticked with the assistance of a pacemaker, an artificial valve, and a stint in her Left Anterior Descending Artery.  Time was precious, I knew.  And so it was:  Time was precious and is ever more so upon my reflection.

We had such fun:  long conversations about growing up in McKinney;  life at North Texas University (actually North Texas State University in those days);  experiences at Great Lakes during the war;  life as a family, with all of the humor and mostly outrageous good fortune that triumphed over multifaceted challenges of personality and sorrow.  And we would riff on all of the stories such as those I shared at Na's service, tales that linked our history as mother and son.

My last moments in Na's physical presence were so precious, as if written by Grace on a Divine Script.  We ate our last lunch in the dining room at The Forum.  The sun was shining brightly through the window by the table that had become our own.  We reviewed our three weeks together and spoke of the future.  I broached the matter of her coming to live with Barbara and me in Northfield, conveying to her that Barbara and I had both often in the past and especially recently talked about her doing so.  Mom was so touched by Barbara's enthusiasm at the prospect of her living with us and expressed such love and gratitude for my own sincerity.  With little hesitation, Na said, "Well, there may come a time when I should make that move."  I said with a smile full of optimism and hope that the prospect of her making that move was all the greater since she was going to live to be 105.  She replied with such a sweet expression of countenance and words, full of both hope and weariness:  "Oh, that makes me tired."   She clearly meant, "I'll make the effort, because though I be but little, I am fierce, and because you and the others with whom you have surrounded me give me reason to push on.  But I am frail, and I am tired."

When we returned to her apartment, I did not rush my departure on that Tuesday, 12 September.  She sat at her chair in the living room.  I pulled up one of the dining room chairs that I preferred and sat very close, in the manner that we had for all of those wonderful conversations.  We reviewed again the events of the summer----  those with the two of us, and those with you, Barbara, Gloria, Judy, Dennis, and Beth; and with Drew and Claire.  We reviewed our most recent three weeks again, traded those standard lines that always drew smiles amidst our banter. 

Then, after twenty-five minutes I sensed that if I were to depart that day, the spirit was peeking and prime for the parting words.

My last words to Mom from that perch were, "I love you so very much, Mom."

And hers to me were, "Oh, I love you so much, honey."

Our eyes met and we wordlessly said to each other, "I fully expect to see you again.  But if this is our last moment together in this earthly realm, we could not have shared a better moment, or more love, or willingness and ability to tell each other how we felt."

I kissed Na on the forehead, walked over to hug Gloria, called out something about looking forward to seeing her at Thanksgiving and maybe before, dashed back for one more kiss on the forehead and a very gentle hug.  I waved goodbye as Mom simply and wordlessly smiled forth her abiding sentiments:  She would give life all that she had to give.  But if this parting be our last, this was a moment to treasure with abundant gratitude.

.....................................................................................

And so I am full of gratitude as Thanksgiving approaches this year:  for all of the amazing people who have graced my life, all of those terrific experiences, and the spiritual and philosophical growth that I have felt rise within me over time with increasing recent force.

But my gratitude is most deeply felt at this juncture because of the way that Mom and I scripted a perfect parting.  Tender mercies graced us again, with serendipity, for eternity.

I love you so very much, My Dear Son---

Gary

Ten-Point Platform of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, Distributed at the 14 November 2017 Meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education

At the beginning of the 14 November 2017 meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education, attendees found in every seat a flyer detailing the key points for currently ongoing teacher contract negotiations as identified by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), Local 59.  During the period of Public Comment, MFT President Michelle Weiss went through the platform and advocated for the positions taken by the teachers union.

Below I give the platform exactly as it reads on the flyer.  The platform is full of many harmful ideas and a few good ones, all of which I will discuss in a looming article.

In the meantime, read and ponder the negotiating platform proffered by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, as follows:  

MFT59 10 Point Platform

 

Common Sense Bargaining for the Common Good

 

Beyond Academics:  Educating the Whole Child

 

All students deserve books in the library;  instruments in the band room;  supplies in the art room;  equipment in the gym;  vision, hearing, and dental screenings every year.  Students deserve nurses, social workers, counselors, psychologists, and library media specialists in their schools---  all day, every day.

 

Smaller Class Sizes

All students deserve to have individual relationships with their teachers, as strong relationships create strong classrooms.  Small class sizes allow time for teachers to plan quality lessons, talk to families, talk to each student every day, and give students the attention they need to learn and grow.

Students are More Than a Test Score

All students deserve a broad, rich curriculum including academics, arts, music, language, and trade, emphasizing engagement and authentic learning, instead of preparation for high-stakes tests.  Students deserve teachers and administrators focused on development of quality curriculum in an educational environment that acknowledges and respects backgrounds, perspectives, and learning styles of our diverse communities.

 

Support, Don’t Punish:  Restorative Practices

All students deserve compassion, empathy, and a safe place to learn.  Students deserve educators well-trained in restorative practices.  Schools must move toward practices that build relationships and resolve conflict.  MPS must work to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline.

Clean and Healthy Buildings

All students deserve fully staffed schools that ensure a clean, healthy, and safe environment with soap in the bathroom, safe drinking water, sanitary classrooms, and working air conditioning in every school.

 

Full-Service Community Schools

All students and their families deserve community-based services.  Increasing the number of full-service community schools throughout the city would provide school-based community access to critical services such as healthcare, childcare, dental clinics, adult education courses, and enrichment and recreational opportunities for children from preschool to high school.

Quality Education for All:  Inclusion and Equity

All students deserve high quality education regardless of their special education needs, primary language, race, ethnicity, religion, documentation status, family income, family composition, sexual orientation, gender identity, or zip code.  Students deserve educators committed to disrupting racism and other systems of oppression in our classrooms and schools.  Our schools need to be welcoming to all our students and their families.

Invest in Public Schools

All students deserve a school district committed to fully funded public schools governed by a democratically elected school board accountable to the public.  Students deserve schools that will not close at a moment’s notice, schools that educate all children regardless of their needs, and schools that are staffed by highly qualified, licensed educators.

$15 an Hour for All MPS Employees

All students deserve a school district committed to investing in all employees by paying a living wage.  MPS employees include bus drivers, educators, food servers, secretaries, and engineers who are also mentors to students;  they are also our neighbors and parents to our students.

Recess

All students deserve at least 30 minutes of play and movement on a daily basis.  Recess promotes social and emotional learning such as working together as a team, making friends, and deciding which game to play next.

Will Michael Thomas, Eric Moore, and Cecilia Saddler Grasp the Importance of a Knowledge-Intensive, Skill-Replete K-12 Education? I'll Be Keeping You Posted.

Observations on the New Leadership Structure at the Minneapolis Public Schools (Follow-Up to Previous Article as you Scroll on Down This Blog)

 

As you scroll on down to the next article on this blog, you will find a highly important presentation of information concerning the new leadership structure put in place by Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Ed Graff.  You will find details as to staff working under the supervision of the highest placed administrators in this new leadership structure, these most prominent decision-makers given as follows:

 

Superintendent Ed Graff

 

Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Michael Thomas

                                               

Chief of Accountability, Innovation, and Research, Eric Moore

 

Chief Financial Officer, Ibrahima Diop

 

Chief Human Resources Officer, Maggie Sullivan

 

Chief Information Officer, Fadi Fahill

 

Chief Operations Officer, Karen Devet

 

Chief of Staff, Suzanne Kelly

(Communications and Engagement)

 

In any organization, the chief administrators or managers responsible for finance, human resources, information technology, and operations are important to the viability of the organization.  All staff (Diop, Sullivan, Fahill, Devet), in those positions at the Minneapolis Public Schools are good enough in their roles, and my interaction with Diop suggests that he is particularly talented.  Anyone whose job is to serve as a link among other leaders or to make meetings flow more smoothly is also important;  Kelly seems well-suited to such a role.

 

But without question the key decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools are now Michael Thomas and Eric Moore.  Michael Thomas now combines the duties formerly undertaken by Chief Academic Officer Susanne Griffin and those that he himself had as Chief of Schools;  this is to convey that Thomas now has responsibility for designing and implementing the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools and also for overseeing the work of the associate superintendents, who in turn oversee the work of building principals.

 

Moore is responsible for collecting and conveying data on student performance;  he is the person who has delivered the bad news on student grasp of mathematics, reading, and science as measured on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA);  he also analyzes data concerning performance on the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), the ACT, and other instruments.  In addition to data on student performance, Moore’s office oversees the collection and analysis of many other forms of data such as those pertinent to family and community opinion on the performance of the school district and on referenda issues.

 

But my information suggests that Moore now also exerts significant influence on academic policy and thus along with Thomas will be responsible for the educational programming of the Minneapolis Public Schools.  The third person who is now instrumental in developing academic programming for the school district is Cecilia Saddler, a former associate superintendent who now bears the title, Associate Chief of Schools.  She has a bevy of staff members reporting to her (as given in the next article as you scroll on down this blog) and heads up the Department of Teaching and Learning, effectively replacing former Executive Director Macarre Traynham, who along with Susanne Griffin was ousted in spring 2017.

 

Michael Thomas, Eric Moore, and Cecilia Saddler are genuine talents who understand that student performance on reading and mathematics assessments has been unacceptable and that the district’s inability to educate students from families of poverty and dysfunction has been morally abysmal.

 

But here is the problem:   All that Superintendent Ed Graff offers in the way of new programming for addressing the academic deficiencies of MPS students is an emphasis on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and a new reading curriculum.  There will also be an effort to track student performance in mathematics and reading much more closely so as to catch and address problems before they become intractable dilemmas.  But the current teaching staff at the Minneapolis Public Schools is not fully up to demands posed by these latter academic issues;  SEL is an adjunct, not a main inroad to better academic performance;  and reading is just one part of an academic program that should be completely redesigned to impart highly specified knowledge and skill sets in grade by grade sequence across the liberal, technological, and vocational arts to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

As much as I admire the talents of Michael Thomas and Eric Moore, the best information available to me strongly suggests that they do not yet grasp the importance of a core knowledge approach to education, developed by E. D. Hirsch at his Core Knowledge Foundation for grades pre-K through 6 and by me for secondary students in editions of my Journal of the K-12 Revolution:  Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and in my nearly complete book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.

 

I am going to be doing my best to develop in these talented and dedicated MPS staff members a full understanding of a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete K-12 education.

 

I’ll keep you posted on my success in that mission and on the actions that I will take in the months to come, based on my ability to get my message across to Michael Thomas and Eric Moore.

 

Now please do scroll on down to read (perhaps again and certainly if you have not done so) the next two articles posted on this blog.

New Leadership Structure at the Minneapolis Public Schools

Note to my readers  >>>>>  The article that you are reading is the second that I have posted on my blog since my return from a six-week sojourn in Dallas attending to various matters in the aftermath of my 96 year-old mother's death.  Scroll on down to read the article that I posted yesterday (Monday, 13 November 2017), summarizing the program needed to attain excellence at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) and commenting on the lack of grasp that even interested people have on the nature of the change needed.  The  following information constitutes the significantly new leadership structure that MPS Superintendent Ed Graff now has in place.  In a looming article I will have a bevy of comments to make as to the likelihood of these designated leaders designing and implementing a program to achieve educational excellence in the Minneapolis Public Schools. 

New Leadership Structure at the Minneapolis Public Schools

                                                                       

Superintendent Ed Graff

 

Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Michael Thomas

                                               

>>>>>  Associate Superintendent Laura Cavender  (K-8)

>>>>>  Associate Superintendent Lucilla Davis  (K-8)

>>>>>  Associate Superintendent Ronald Wagner  (K-8)

 

>>>>>  Associate Superintendent Carla Steinbach-Hunter

 

>>>  Director, Contract Alternatives, Leslie Lewandowski

>>>  Director, Retention and Recovery, Colleen Kaibel

>>>  Director, College and Career Readiness, Terry Henry

>>>  Director, STEM/ CTE, Sara Etzel

 

>>>>>  Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership and Learning, Cecilia Saddler

 

>>>  Director of Indian Education, Anna Ross

>>>  Director of Extended Learning, Daren Johnson

>>>  Director of Elementary Education, Carey Dzierzak

>>>  Executive Director, Community Education, Jack Tramble

>>>  Executive Director, Language and Global Education

>>>  Director, Secondary Education, Naomi Taylor

>>>  Director of Black Male Achievement, Michael Walker

>>>  Executive Director, Student Support Services, Keith Brocks

>  Executive Director, Early Childhood Education, Maureen Stewart

---  Director, Early Childhood Education, Cynthia Hilyer

---  Director, Early Childhood Education, Elizabeth Fields

---  Director, Teen Parent Services, Laura Knutson

>  Executive Director, Special Education & Health, Rochelle Cox

---  Director, Special Education Programs, Virginia Nyhus

---  Director, Special Education Programs, Sara Stack

---  Director, Special Education Programs, Martha Amundson

---  Director, Special Education Programs, Amy Johnson

---  Director, Nursing Services, Amber Spaniel

 

 

Chief of Accountability, Innovation, and Research, Eric Moore

 

>>>>>  Director, Accountability and Evaluation, Janelle A. Zumbusch

>>>>>  Director, Research and Assessment, Kelly A. Stewart

 

Chief Financial Officer, Ibrahima Diop

 

>>>>>  Director, Budget and Planning Analysis, Tammy K. Frederickson

>>>>>  Executive Director, Finance, Tariro Chapindinka

>>>>>  Director, Total Compensation, Peter P. Ronza

 

Chief Human Resources Officer, Maggie Sullivan

 

>>>>>  Director, Employee Relations, Maria F. Mason

>>>>>  Director, HRIS and Analytics, Scott Weber

>>>>>  Driector, Talent Acquisition, Jaimee H. Bonning

>>>>>  Director, Talent Management, Keenan L. Shelton

 

Chief Information Officer, Fadi Fahill

 

>>>>>  Director of Information & Technology (IT) Services, Justin J. Hennes

 

Chief Operations Officer, Karen Devet

 

>>>>>  Director, Transportation, Scott G. James

>>>>>  Director, Operations and Security Services, Jason E. Matlock

>>>>>  Driector, Nutritiion Services, Bertrand A. Weber

>>>>>  Manager, CPPD, David Richards

>>>>>  Manager, Construction and Design Services , Clyde Kane

>>>>>  Manager, Plant Maintenance, Grant Lindberg

>>>>>  Manager, Plant Operations, Doug Hill

 

Chief of Staff, Suzanne Kelly

(Communications and Engagement)

 

>>>>>  Executive Director, Engagement and External Relations, [To-Be-Announced]

>>>>>  Executive Director, Marketing and Communications, Julie Schultz-Brown

>>>>>  Executive Director, Enrollment Management, Brian Fleming