Leslie Lewandowski, Record as Director of Contract Alternative Schools

As miserable as is the education at the mainline schools of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), education at the alternative schools with which MPS contracts is much worse.  The unfortunate students who end up at these schools are those for whom MPS has articulated no viable program to deal with their multiple problems of behavior, academic failure, and familial challenges. 



Staff at alternative schools does typically connect with students on an emotional level, so that in that regard alternative schools are in a position to save a young person from sinking into a life of absolute hopelessness.  But as academic institutions, the alternative schools are mere degree mills, from which graduation means nothing, offering no preparation for work or higher education.

At the Minneapolis Public Schools, the Davis Center staff member with oversight responsibility for the contract alternative schools is Leslie Lewandowski (salary, $100,465).  Here are the academic results for these schools, nominally covering academic years ending in 2014, 2015,  2016, and 2017;  but note the many gaps, occurring for many reasons, presumably chief among them the inability to muster attendance to present a statistically viable number of students:  

MPS Contract Alternative Schools (Leslie Lewandowski, Director), Percentages of Students Meeting Grade Level Standards on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) for Academic Years Ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017

 

American Indian OIC

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                      4%        1%           2%      -----

Reading               14%        3%         4%      13%

Science                   1%       2%       11%        5%

 

 

Center School

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                    -----       -----        -----      -----

Reading               -----       -----         8%        8%

Science                12%     29%       17%        8%

 

 

Loring Nicollet

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                      9%      17%       -----      -----

Reading               15%      -----        -----      -----

Science              -----         -----        30%        7%

 

Menlo Park

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                      6%      -----       -----       -----

Reading               18%      -----       -----       15%

Science             -----          -----       -----       -----

 

Merc

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                  -----      -----       -----        -----

Reading             10%     -----       -----       -----

Science               -----     -----       -----       -----

 

PYC Arts and Technology High Schools

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                    2%      -----         3%       -----

Reading               8%        8%        3%       -----

Science              -----         2%        4%       -----

 

Tatanka Academy

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                 17%       -----        -----       -----   

Reading            17%       -----        -----       -----   

Science              -----       -----        -----       -----

 

Urban League Academy

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                  -----       -----        -----       -----   

Reading             -----        5%         -----       -----   

Science              -----       -----       -----       -----

 

VOA High School

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   5%         3%      -----       -----   

Reading             -----       -----       11%     14%   

Science              -----       -----       20%       9%   

Let’s Be Clear as to the Political Actors Most Instrumental in School Change

Joe Nathan’s article (“Schools keep improving, so let’s get our candidates on board”) in the January 29 issue of the Star Tribune is errant as to the nature of change needed in PK-12 education and with regard to the political actors most important in education policy formation;  he also is misguided in asserting that there has been significant improvement in the schools of Minnesota.

 

In the course of the last four decades, those of us interested in school change have witnessed programs for fomenting change come and go, often with radical philosophical shift from one reformist phase to another.   In the 1980s came the federally commissioned A Nation at Risk report and the call for more effective curriculum and teaching, particularly in math and science;  this gave rise to such approaches as Outcome Based Education (OBE).

 

In the early 1990s, Minnesota became the national leader in the charter school movement.  A bit later in the decade, the education establishment (education professors, public school administrators, teachers unions, Minnesota Department of Education [MDE]) instituted Profile in Learning (a portfolio and demonstration approach) that did not pass muster as a measurement of student achievement with outside reviewers.  Meanwhile, a bevy of students aspiring to graduate from high school proved unable to demonstrate even middle school competency on the Minnesota Basic Skills Test (MBST).  

 

In the early years of the new century and millennium, the standards movement brought grade-level academic standards and the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs).  These standards and assessments were generated to meet requirements of No Child Left Behind,(NCLB)a promising program that was brought down by political winds blowing from both left and right when results proved embarrassing to the education establishment.

 

Now we have the Minnesota response to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, (ESSA) which offers assistance to struggling schools, rather than punitive measures.  But the education establishment in Minnesota will prove just as incapable of raising student achievement under the ESSA program as it was under NCLB.  Any meaningful change will have to result from initiatives authored by a few courageous decision-makers at the level of the locally centralized school district.

 

There has in fact been no significant improvement in the quality of education in Minnesota.  Only 59 percent of students met MCA math standards in 2016-17;  only 60 percent met MCA reading standards;  these were the same levels of achievement as those recorded in 2015-16.  For the same academic years in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), the percentage of students meeting math standards declined from 43.8 percent to 43.4 percent, while the percentages for reading achievement went up slightly, from 42.9 percent to 43.4 percent.  In MPS schools, fewer than twenty-five percent of African American, American Indian, Hmong, Somali, and Hispanic students meet state standards for math and reading.

 

We should take little solace in those measures of improvement cited by Nathan.  Four-year graduation rates have improved ever so slightly as “multiple pathways” have been forged for students to graduate at still very humble rates, in an environment of reduced academic rigor.   Over 20 percent of students across Minnesota still need remedial instruction when matriculating on college campuses;  for students graduating from the Minneapolis Public Schools, the figure is 33 percent.  Early childhood programs are worthy endeavors but will only prove successful in an atmosphere of change at the K-12 level.

 

Even students who trod across the stage to claim a diploma most often know nothing of traditional or contemporary Iraq or Afghanistan.  They most often cannot locate the Mediterranean Sea on a map. They typically have little sense of Newton’s terrestrial or Einstein’s cosmological physics. They most often have no sense of GDP or deficit or debt;  or the psychoanalytical, behaviorist, humanist, cognitive, or neural schools of psychology.   

 

To remedy this abysmal situation, we must implement knowledge-intensive, skill- replete curriculum with accompanying teacher retraining at the level of the locally centralized school district.  Elections at the state level will bring little change:  Candidates of the DFL are bound to their teacher union (Education Minnesota;  Minneapolis Federation of Teachers) supporters;  Republicans profess deference to local control.  So meaningful elections are for school board candidates;  next November, MPS Board of Education districts one, three, and five;  and two at-large seats are at stake.

 

Most charter schools are worse than the mainline public schools.  Joe Nathan and all of those professing an interest in education should give full attention to improving education at the level of the locally centralized school district.  And they should realize that local school board members, rather than state office holders, must make the needed changes for the impartation of excellent education, for which our precious young people have been waiting for at least four decades.

Carla Steinbach (-Huther), Associate Superintendent >>>>> Academic Results for Schools Supervised

Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Associate Superintendent Carla Steinbach (-Huther) is one of four staff members at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) who occupy the associate superintendent position, which in each case is remunerated at a level of $144,330.  At places on the website, her surname is given simply as Steinbach, at others as Steinbach-Huther.

 

The Associate Superintendents report directly to Michael Thomas (Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning with salary of $163,761).  Inasmuch as Thomas’s Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning is Cecilia Saddler (salary, $151,980);  and Chief of Research, Innovation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore (salary, $147,900) is by definition accountable for academic results for students in the Minneapolis Public Schools;  these two, along with Thomas, must be held responsible for the academic results produced at schools for which Steinbach (-Huther)  and the other associate superintendents have direct oversite.     

 

In this and the previous three articles as you scroll down this blog, I give data for the assessment of the performances of the individual associate superintendents, on the basis of academic performance for students at schools under their supervision.  All of these data and accompanying analysis is derived from material that I am entering into chapters of my substantially complete book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect.

 

As you peruse the following data presentation, be attentive to the fact that the high schools of Edison, Henry, and North have very substantial percentages of students on free or reduced price lunch, indicative of high concentrations of poverty;  the schools of Roosevelt and South have demographic affinities with these schools.  Among the middles school, Franklin and Northeast have high concentrations of poverty.  Among the high schools, Washburn and Southwest (especially) draw from the most affluent populations;  among middles schools, this is true of Anthony, Field, and (to a lesser extent) Justice Page among the middle schools.

 

Consider now the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) data for 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 as pertinent to the school’s under Carla Steinbach (-Huther’s) oversite:

 

Percentages of Students Demonstrating Grade Level Achievement on the MCAs

>>>>>    Schools for Which Associate Superintendent  Carla Steinbach (-Huther) Has Responsibility            

 

Edison

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   21%     22%       27%      16%

Reading              33%     22%       25%      18%

Science               12%     29%       17%        8%

 

Henry

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                  46%     52%       59%      14%

Reading              50%     33%       32%      31%

Science               20%     31%       29%      29%

 

North

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                     2%     16%         2%       -----

Reading              23%       9%         3%      11%

Science               -----      10%         5%       -----

 

Roosevelt

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                  18%       14%       12%          8%    

Reading             27%       21%      14%     14%

Science                8%         8%         11%     10%

 

South

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   20%     23%       -----       -----

Reading              45%     29%       14%      36%

Science               17%     35%       -----       -----

 

Southwest

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   34%     47%       42%     -----

Reading              64%     46%       65%      53%

Science               39%     47%       83%       58%

 

Washburn

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                  34%     44%       27%      42%

Reading             54%     50%       49%      62%

Science              -----     50%       37%       28%

 

Anthony

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   61%     61%       60%      60%

Reading              63%     61%       64%      61%

Science               60%     56%       54%       49%

 

Field

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   77%     79%       77%      76%

Reading              77%     77%       73%      75%

Science               75%     78%       62%      69%

 

Franklin

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                 -----       -----           8%        9%

Reading            -----       -----        16%      19%

Science             -----       -----            3%      -----

 

Heritage

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   18%     18%       12%        3%

Reading              18%     21%       21%      19%

Science                  5%     14%         7%        4%

 

Justice Page

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   63%     67%       57%      48%

Reading              63%     65%       55%      62%

Science               -----      58%       47%      62%

 

Northeast

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                  28%     27%       23%      21%

Reading             29%     30%       30%      25%

Science              13%     25%       23%      18%

 

Wellstone

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                 -----       -----       -----        10%

Reading            -----       -----       -----        ----- 

Science             -----       -----          3%       -----

 

Lucilla Davila, Associate Superintendent >>>>> Academic Results for Schools Supervised

Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Associate Superintendent Lucilla Davila is one of four staff members at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) who occupy the associate superintendent position, which in each case is remunerated at a level of $144,330.

 

The Associate Superintendents report directly to Michael Thomas (Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning with salary of $163,761).  Inasmuch as Thomas’s Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning is Cecilia Saddler (salary, $151,980);  and Chief of Research, Innovation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore (salary, $147,900) is by definition accountable for academic results for students in the Minneapolis Public Schools;  these two, along with Thomas, must be held responsible for the academic results produced at schools for which Davila and the other associate superintendents have direct oversite.     

 

On this, the previous two, and the succeeding article as you scroll down this blog, I give data for the assessment of the performances of the individual associate superintendents, on the basis of academic performance for students at schools under their supervision.  All of these data and accompanying analysis is derived from material that I am entering into chapters of my substantially complete book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect.

 

As you peruse the following data presentation, be attentive to the fact that Anderson, Cityview, and Hmong International have very substantial percentages of students on free or reduced price lunch, indicative of high concentrations of poverty;  the schools Bancroft, Folwell, Marcy, and Sheridan have demographic affinities with these schools.  Those of Armatage, Barton, Dowling, Emerson, Seward, Whittier, and Windom by contrast include many affluent families in the communities from which they draw students.

 

Consider now the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) data for 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 as pertinent to the schools under Lucilla Davila’s oversite:

 

 

Percentages of Students Demonstrating Grade Level Achievement on the MCAs

>>>>>    Schools for Which Associate Superintendent Lucilla Davila Has Responsibility        

 

Anderson

 

      2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                         21%      17%       20%     20%

Reading                    18%      16%       17%     19%

Science                     11%        9%       10%     11%

 

Armatage

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   64%     70%       66%      72%

Reading              68%     78%       71%      76%

Science               64%     70%       66%      72%

 

Bancroft

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   35%     34%       34%      36%

Reading              21%     20%       27%      29%

Science               24%     19%       21%      19%

 

 

Barton

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   66%     61%       62%      56%

Reading              74%     68%       63%      64%

Science               54%     42%       46%      41%

 

 

Cityview

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                 -----        17%         8%         9%    

Reading            -----          4%         9%      13%

Science             -----        -----          4%         6%

 

Dowling

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   72%     65%       67%      69%

Reading              67%     64%       65%      59%

Science               72%     65%       67%      66%

 

Emerson

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   51%     46%       35%      34%

Reading              31%     30%       29%      31%

Science               34%     23%       33%       30%

 

Folwell

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                    32%     29%       29%      23%

Reading               25%     25%       26%      25%

Science                18%     21%       32%       20%

 

 

Hmong International

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   23%     23%       23%      18%

Reading              16%     15%       18%      18%

Science               12%       9%       20%       18%

 

Marcy

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   57%     50%       51%      47%

Reading              47%     49%       51%      51%

Science               44%     46%       48%      40%

 

Seward

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   49%     48%       44%      37%

Reading              54%     51%       48%      41%

Science               53%     42%       43%      40%

 

Sheridan

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   31%     35%       24%      21%

Reading              17%     18%       19%      16%

Science                 4%     19%       16%      13%

 

 

Whittier

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                   51%     43%       38%      31%

Reading              43%     40%       38%      33%

Science               26%     40%       37%      19%

Windom

 

2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                  58%     61%       67%      57%

Reading             45%     53%       59%      53%

Science              54%     43%       65%      47%