Discerning and diligent readers know that
the they have already read most of my book, Understanding
the Minneapolis Public School: Current Condition, Future Prospect, the
essential contents of which have already been entered voluminously on this
blog. Many of the articles that are
being assembled in completed book format should serve as a warning to those
individuals who will be hit hard by the damning evidence and incisive analysis
that I present.
The identity of some of the individuals who
should be running for cover or mounting their responses may come as something
of a surprise to those thinking that my focus is entirely on the people and
processes of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Since the intellectual and moral context in which the sordid tale of the
condition of the Minneapolis Public Schools is vital for understanding the
degree and quality of that degradation, those people who establish the
parameters within which such a sad state of affairs flourishes must be prepared
to face their culpability for the system that denies our precious young people
a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education.
Hence, discerning readers will examine
articles that I have written for the content that will expose the roles played
by such individuals as R. T. Rybak, Mark Dayton, Brenda Cassellius, and certain
flunkies of the latter at the Minnesota Department Education. Legislators who along with Dayton and
Cassellius dance to the predetermined political rhythms of Education Minnesota
and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers will be held culpable, along with
the heads of those teachers unions, Denise Specht and Michelle Wiese.
Also exposed will be education professors
in those programs that train our teachers so abysmally at the University of
Minnesota, Augsburg University, University of St. Thomas, and Hamline
University. At those universities, held
culpable will be administrative figures who look the other way while teacher
training cash cows pour funds into university coffers from prospective and
current teachers who are essentially purchasing formal qualifications and bumps
in pay.
Journalistic parties and figures with a
certain public presence will be held responsible for their own intellectual
failings, moral corruption, or misguided promulgations with regard to K-12
public education. These figures include
Scott Gillespie, Doug Tice, David Banks, Steve Young, Mitch Pearlstein,
Katherine Kersten, and Ted Kolderie.
All of these figures should be prepared for a scathing analysis of their
roles in producing wretched systems at the level of the locally centralized
school district such as the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Within the Davis Center (MPS central
offices, 1250 West Broadway), certain figures will come in for particular
praise; these include Finance Chief
Ibrahima Diop and Information Technology Chief Fadi Fadhil. Human Resources Chief Maggie Sullivan will
also be identified for her skill and perceptivity, with an exhortation to find
a way to retrain the teaching contingent that she inherits from those wretched teacher
training programs. Special Education Executive Director Rochelle Cox will be similarly encouraged to become an active participant for change, maximally utilizing her considerable skill and perceptivity for the good of those students whom she clearly loves. Karen Devet will be
given her due as an able Chief of Operations.
This will most certainly be the case with one of the most talented MPS staff
members, Eric Moore, in his role as Chief of Research, Evaluation, and Accountability;
but Moore’s prospects for success in his
new additional role as head of the academic division still await
determination. Moore and Deputy Chief of
Academics Cecilia Saddler must embrace knowledge-intensive, skill-replete,
logically sequenced curriculum and work with Sullivan to address the teacher
quality issue ; to achieve their aims
they must dismiss current occupants of positions in the Department of Teaching
and Learning and thoroughly overhaul that department; and they must realize the shortcomings of Associate
Superintendents Ron Wagner, Carla Steinbach, and Brian Zambreno in their
current positions and evaluate whether these (longtime in the case of Wagner
and Steinbach) MPS staff members have skills worth tapping for the benefit of
students, the only reason anyone at the district has a job or a professional
reason for being.
My current assessment of Superintendent Ed
Graff is that he is skilled as an evaluator of the bureaucracy and has magnificently trimmed central
office staff while making key astute judgments as to the chiefs who form his
cabinet, but that he does not have the wherewithal to lead the academic program. Chief of Staff Suzanne Kelly is a sincere
person who wants to make those changes needed to bring excellence of education
to young people living at the urban core;
but the MPS Comprehensive District Design on which she has worked so diligently
has certain fatal flaws, so that her ability to recognize those and internalize
wise counsel for remedying those will be instrumental in my ultimate determination
of her efficacy in her vital role at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
And in terms of people who must look deep
into their souls and admit their deficiencies, the voting public must take
notice. The current MPS Board of
Education consisting of KerryJo Felder, Don Samuels, Siad Ali, Jenny Arneson, Nelson
Inz, Kim Ellison, Bob Walser, Rebecca Gagnon, and Ira Jourdain is among the
worst assemblages in the nation or the state, an observation all the more
telling in that very few school boards feature members of high quality. This current iteration at MPS ranges from the
best, the hardworking but philosophically uninformed and politically vitiated Jenny
Arneson; to the silliest and most
trivial school board member I have ever seen, Bob Walser. That a citizenry could not look within to
find candidates to run against the Arneson, Ali, and (especially) the political
hack of a current chair, Nelson Inz, does not speak well for members of the
public, who also ignorantly signed off on a referendum to pour more money into this
wretched school district without any insistence on change and in the absence of
any solid knowledge of the nature of change needed.
Candidate Sharon El-Amin’s inspiring message
did penetrate the public consciousness, we could do worse than Kim Caprini, and
the ouster of Gagnon was a favorable development in the recent 6 November
election; but in the aggregate the voting
public presents abundant evidence of
gullibility and ignorance.
…………………………………………………………………………….
I present Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect structurally
in three parts: Part I, Facts; Part II, Analysis; and Part III, Philosophy.
In the Part I , staff members at the
Minneapolis Public Schools and those participants within the ether that
envelops and sustains this wretched system hang themselves on the basis of
objective facts.
In the Part II, I interpret those facts and
explain why they are so damning.
In the Part III, I detail a program for the
necessary overhaul, drawing upon my nonpareil knowledge of the history and philosophy
of United States and international education.
Discerning readers will be scouring this
blog for abundant evidenced of the contents of Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect.
The many culpable individuals should be forewarned,
taking cover or mounting their defenses.
