Reasons for the Abominable Quality of Education at the Minneapolis Public Schools, with an Indication As to What Must Be Done to Create Bright Future Prospects

My investigation into the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), detailed in my substantially complete book (Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect) on course for presentation of final draft in May 2018, reveals clear reasons for the abominable quality of education delivered by this salient representative of the locally centralized school district.

 

The most important reasons are as follows:

 

1)  Those making key decisions regarding curriculum are not dedicated to a knowledge-intensive, skill replete education.  Ed Graff, Michael Thomas, Cecilia Saddler, Naomi Taylor, and Carey Seeley Dzierzak have all trained under education professors who devalue knowledge as the key pursuit of K-12 education.

 

2)  The resulting curriculum is extraordinarily weak:  Students at K-5 learn very little regarding the key subject areas of biology, chemistry, physics, history, geography, economics, and the fine arts,  and they read very little challenging, high-quality literature;  students at grades 6-8 fare little better; and high school curriculum is bolstered only by the presence of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses, for which too few knowledgeable teachers are available.

 

3)  Teachers come to their positions ill-prepared;  those at K-5 have endured the weakest program on any college or university campus;  those at grades 6-8 and 9-12 may be certified even with lackluster performance in their subject area undergraduate programs, and they rarely pursue advanced degrees in any programs other than education.

 

4)  There is no district-wide, coherent tutoring program to assist struggling students.

 

5)  Efforts to reach out to families struggling with poverty and dysfunction are few and ineffective.

 

6)  Central bureaucracy staffing is bloated and staff is overpaid, with 68 staff members (of a total 444) receiving salaries in excess of $100,000.

 

7)  The guiding Strategic Plan Acceleration 2020 is a mere exercise in setting goals for student achievement, none of which have been reached;  the plan offers no viable means for boosting student performance and errantly identifies the school as the unit of change, rather than correctly designating the district as a whole for transformation.

 

8)  The district’s Educational Equity Framework is a jargon-infested document that typifies the tendency of district decision-makers and members of the MPS Board of Education to profess concern for student outcomes and equity in the abstract while offering no plan for moving verbal proclamation to action.

 

9)  The fourteen programs identified for meeting Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) World’s Best Workforce (WBWF) regulations for closing racial achievement gaps or boosting academic performance for impoverished students have no prospects for success;  they serve too few students and have too little academic focus.

 

10)  Members of the MPS Board of Education, individually and collectively, have no guiding educational philosophy;  they ask few discerning questions regarding academic programming and have no committee dedicated to advancing the academic program of the district.

 

11)  The teacher’s union, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), resists objective measurement of student performance and the establishment of knowledge-intensive curriculum;  eight of the nine MPS Board of Education members have strong ties to this politically powerful union.

 

12)  Disciplinary policies in MPS schools are weak:  Many teachers have so little control over their  classes that very little learning occurs;  cases at Folwell K-8, Justice Page (formerly Ramsay) K-8, and North High School have come to my attention as particularly egregious.

 

13)  Building principals are so weak as to engender an extra layer of bureaucracy occupied by associate superintendents (four in number);  with weak academic training themselves, Ron Wagner, Laura Cavender, Lucilla Davila, and Carla Steinbach are paid $144,333 per annum to try to improve site level leadership.

 

14)  Students are not prepared well for either the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) or the ACT college readiness exam;  teachers resist the former, which has been vitiated by opt-out tactics, and few teachers are academically competent enough to prepare students for the latter.

 

15)  Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Michael Thomas has potential for articulating a better academic program;  Chief of Research, innovation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore is a talented statistician;  and Finance Chief Ibrahima Diop is a person of enormous integrity and considerable talent;  but on the whole performance of staff members at the Davis Center ranges from wretched to merely acceptable, and high salaries promote the comfort of sinecure rather than courageous calls for change.

 

This is a school district long mired in trouble.

 

This is a school district that must be dismantled and reconstructed with dedication to knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education for students of all demographic descriptors.        

As You Scroll on Down to the Important Next Articles on This Blog, Remember >>>>> The Best Television Show in the United States on K-12 Education Appears Tonight and Every Wednesday at 6:00 PM, MTN Channel 17 in Minneapolis

My readers know that this is the best blog in the United States on K-12 education.

 

I have now posted over 600 articles, each one of which is carefully written and exhaustively researched.  I present my own ideas on the revolution needed in K-12 education in the context of the history of education in the United States, past and current government policy (national, state, local), and those ideas of both the education establishment and other advocates of change that stand in marked contrast to my own. 

 

I have compiled and presented on this blog a bevy of information pertinent to student performance in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS);  the MPS leadership structure and department by staff composition;  salary information for all employees at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway);  the academic credentials of those making key decisions on the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools;  composition by district of the MPS Board of Education, with analyses of the positions and affiliations of members;  an examination of the role and effectiveness of the associate superintendents and other highly paid personnel;  summaries of important meetings at the Davis Center and throughout the district;  detailed consideration of the academic program at the Minneapolis Public Schools;  information on the Minneapolis Federations of Teachers (MFT), including platform for current salary negotiations;  and a multiplicity of other information pertinent to MPS and K-12 education past and present.

 

All of this information and all manner of factual material has been poured into my substantially complete book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect, on course to take final form by this coming May 2018.

 

At no other blog site do you find this quality of research and commentary.

 

You will find this same quality in evidence on my television show, The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison, which appears every Wednesday at 6:00 PM on public access Minneapolis Telecommunications Network (MTN) Channel 17.  The program may be seen live on Minneapolis cable or live streaming at the MTN website.

 

On my show, I have in the course of time presented information of the kind given above.  I have also conducted interviews with important personages and given viewers an opportunity to see me work with my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative.  During this academic year of 2017-2018, I have given particular emphasis to commentary, most recently presenting the content of books by Amanda Ripley (The Smartest Kids in the World---  and How They Got That Way) and E. D. Hirsch (The Schools We Need---  and Why We Don’t Have Them), amid references to works by James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi  Coates, Diane Ravitch, and many authors of classic and contemporary works of significance.

 

Just as this is the best blog in the United States pertinent to K-12 education, so is my television show the best in that medium for the examination of issues relevant to public education.

 

Please watch The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison tonight and every Wednesday at 6:00 PM on Channel 17 in Minneapolis or live streaming at the Minneapolis Telecommunications Network.

 

Now please scroll on down this blog for the important immediately succeeding articles--- and, as you have time, proceed to the more than 600 highly substantive articles posted over the course of the last seven years.    

Alternate Universe MPS Superintendent Gary Marvin Davison Engages in Straight Talk with >Star Tribune< Staff Writers Mila Koumpilova, Maryjo Webster, and Faiza Mahamud--- and Takes Them Under His Journalistic Wing

Disgusted by the article, “Graduation Rate at High Mark,” produced by Star Tribune staff writers Mila Koumpilova, Maryjo Webster, and Faiza Mahamud as a page one story in the Wednesday, 28 February 2018 edition of the Minneapolis-based newspaper, Alternate Universe Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Gary Marvin Davison called these reporters to a meeting at which he set them straight on several matters pertinent to education in the conventional universe inhabited by MPS superintendent Ed Graff.

 

Saliently, Davison conveyed to Koumpilova, Webster, and Faiza that they should have written the following article, rather than the undiscerning piece published by the Star Tribune:

 

Academic performance of students in Minnesota
continues to languish and is abysmal for students
of color and those of low income.

 

The four-year graduation rate for all students in
Minnesota in academic year 2011-2012 was 78%
and was still only at an 83% level in academic year
2016-2017.  Furthermore, a gap of nineteen
percentage points continues to exist between the
four-year graduation rate for white students and
the four-year graduation rate for students of color.

 

Astonishingly, only about half of American Indian
students in Minnesota graduate in four years; 
and only approximately two-thirds of African
American and Latino students across the state
graduate within that time frame.        

 

In the Minneapolis Public Schools, the overall
graduation rate actually declined by a percentage
point in academic year 2016-2017 by comparison
with the previous year.  The overall rate at MPS
was 66% during 2016-2017, compared with the 77%
rate recorded by the St. Paul Public Schools.  And
for MPS students of color, the graduation languishes
at forty-eight percent.

 

But the situation is even worse when one examines
actual academic achievement in the Minneapolis Public
Schools, the locally centralized school district
encompassing the city where this publication is based. 
Fewer than 45% of students in the Minneapolis Public
Schools meet state standards for mathematics, reading,
or science;  fewer that 25% African American, American
Indian, Latino, Hmong, and Somali students meet these
standards.  The district is currently in year number four
of its six-year Acceleration 2020 Strategic Plan, by which
time academic achievement was supposed to have risen
by five percentage points each year for all students and
an ambitious eight percentage points per year for
chronically under-performing students.


Catastrophically, actual performance has been flat.

 

The situation is made all the more grievous in view of the
fact that a plan for multiple pathways to graduation have
artificially inflated graduation rates, as has a curriculum in
which the number of required courses has been reduced. 
Programs such as “on-track to graduate” and “check and
connect” have helped to lift graduation rates slightly.  But
the reality is that with the multiple pathways approach in
the context of a generally weak curriculum, a diploma
presented upon graduation from a high school of the
Minneapolis Public Schools means very little in terms of
knowledge accumulated and skills acquired.

 

Of all graduates at the Minneapolis Public Schools, 33%
need remedial courses once matriculating on a college
or university campus;  for African American students,
that figure is 40%.  Remember that for African Americans,
these figures appear in a context of a four-year high school
graduation rate of less than 50%, even with a multiple
pathway scheme and curriculum of reduced academic rigor.

 

This situation is why Dr. Gary Marvin Davison has assumed
the role of MPS superintendent in the Alternate Universe. 
As recorded in many articles on his blog, he has shown
Ed Graff a route out the Davis Center door, made numerous
staffing changes at the Davis Center, and installed a five-point
program featuring 1) curricular overhaul for grade by grade
knowledge intensity;  2) rigorous new teacher training; 
3) a highly intentional, district-wide tutoring program; 
4) a new department for resource provision and referral,
replacing the old community engagement department;  and
5) great slimming of the Davis Center bureaucracy.

 

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

 

Koumpilova, Webster, and Faiza expressed contrition for their article of 28 February 2018 and promised to do the reading and research that will allow them to produce more discerning articles in the future.  They have in the meantime swung over to MPS central offices to examine the exits of staff members out the Davis Center door.

 

Thus it goes in the Alternate Universe, where answers are candid and impending reality in the conventional universe is envisioned.

Understanding the Importance of the Series Focused on the Strange Lexicon of the Education Professor for Evaluating the Academic Program of the Minneapolis Public Schools as Articulated by Ed Graff, Michael Thomas, Cecilia Saddler, Naomi Taylor, and Carey Seeley Dzierzak.

As you scroll on down to the next several articles on this blog, you will read five articles focused on the strange lexicon of the education professor.  This series has enormous implications for understanding the terrible academic program inflicted upon the students of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

The individuals most responsible for academic programming at the Minneapolis Public Schools are Superintendent Ed Graff;  Chief of Academics, Leadership and Learning Michael Thomas;  Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership and Learning Cecilia Saddler;  Director of Secondary Education Naomi Taylor;  and Director of Elementary Education Carey Seeley Dzierzak.

 

None of these key articulators of the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools is an academician or a scholar.

 

All have been trained by education professors.  Graff, Saddler, and Taylor majored in education throughout all of their university-based experiences.  Thomas trained in social work before seeking certifications and degrees in education.  Dzierzak majored in political science and sociology as an undergraduate but then did the entirety of her graduate work in education.  

 

All of these key decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools, then, have heavily imbibed the ideas and terminology utilized by education professors.

 

Remember that the education professor first made her and his appearance on university campuses in the early years of the twentieth century.  Previously, these trainers of teachers had operated out of institutions known as normal schools.  Few people living as the 19^th century turned into the 20^th century had sought education beyond the sixth grade;  a few went through the eighth grade;  a very small percentage went on to high school.  Teachers at grades one through eight stressed reading, fundamental math, and lessons in geography, history, civics, and literature found in books such as the McGuffey readers.  Teachers at the high school level were field specialists who trained student populations aspiring to college and university attendance.

 

Thus, well into the twentieth century, teachers saw themselves as imparters of knowledge in specific subject areas.  Many teachers, especially at the grades one through eight level, were not well-trained, but even they saw themselves as transmitting important knowledge and skill sets to students.

 

But university-based education professors had other ideas. 

 

Now finding themselves surrounded by professorial field specialists with much more knowledge than they, education professors began to stress pedagogy over subject area knowledge, process over content.  Terms such as “teaching the whole child,” “project method,”  and “child-centered education” conveyed in explanation and application the key idea that knowledge does not matter;  rather, education professors stressed the process of learning, with deference to the personality and capabilities of the individual child.  

 

Resonating with 19^th century literary and philosophical Romanticism touting the divine spark within the individual, the doctrines of education professors conveyed a naïve belief that children if left unfettered by their teachers would find their way to the education that they needed. Education professors faced challenges in convincing local parents and teachers to embrace their “progressive” approach to the education, but from the 1960s on their approach became deeply rooted in the locally centralized school districts of the United States.

 

Over time, subject-specific masters and doctoral degrees gave way to graduate degrees in education for those seeking advancement in the school district hierarchy.  At their core, staff at the Davis Center (central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools, 1250 West Broadway) do not believe in the importance of knowledge.  Students learn very little at grades K-5, and curriculum is weak at grades 6-8 and 9-12.  Only in Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses do students have a chance to get a substantive education, but by that time their academic foundation is weak;  and very few teachers have the knowledge to teach AP and IB courses.

 

Michael Thomas, among the group given above, shows promise as an educator who understands the knowledge deficiency and the intellectual damage that education professors have inflicted upon students who have suffered under systems replete with education professor acolytes.  But Graff, Saddler, Taylor, and Dzierzak would have to experience rapid  epiphanies followed by extraordinary academic effort on their own part in order to transform themselves into staff capable of making decisions pertinent to knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum.

 

Be aware of this situation at the Minneapolis Public Schools as you read the next five articles.

 

Understand how these terms represent the harmful approach of education professors that sends graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools into the world and onto college and university campuses with so little academic preparation, necessitating remedial education for one-third of those graduates.

 

Please now read on,

 

carefully,

 

angrily,

 

with a commitment to change.       

Article #6 in a Series >>>>> How to Avoid Speaking Like an Education Professor: Be Careful with These Terms >>>>> Teach the child, not the subject; Teach the whole child; Textbook Learning; Thematic Learning; Transmission Theory of Schooling; Whole-Class Instruction; Whole Language Instruction

Education professors have damaged generations of K-12 teachers and administrators at the Minneapolis Public Schools and in locally centralized school districts throughout the United States with notions rooted in the need for the education professor to survive at universities at which other professors know so much more. 

 

Consider these terms from the education professor’s lexicon, followed by my own comments:         

 

Teach the child, not the subject

 

This is one those notions that has been around since the 1920s, when William Heard Kilpatrick, Harold Rugg, and education professors at Teachers College of Columbia University started their campaign advocating an approach to education for which they appropriated the appellation, “progressive”;  teaching the child rather than the subject focuses on the social and emotional needs of students rather than content conventionally associated with academic curriculum.

 

Teach the whole child

 

This was the third major component of the “progressivist” movement of the early 20^th century, along with “child-centered schooling” and “teach the child, not the subject”;  teaching the whole child deemphasizes knowledge-based curriculum in favor of an approach that gives more weight to the social and emotional needs of the child, in the effort to produce a person of high self-esteem and confidence in the world.

 

Textbook Learning

 

Education professors deride learning via textbooks in particular, and books in general, favoring projects, demonstrations, and “hands-on” learning experiences.

 

Thematic Learning

 

This approach is counterpoised to focus on individual academic disciplines, favoring instead multi-disciplinary investigations of themes, topics, and subjects driven by student interest.

 

Transmission Theory of Schooling

 

This is a pejorative expression in opposition to the impartation of knowledge from teacher to student, counterpoised to active involvement of students in projects, demonstrations, and the compilation of portfolios.

Whole-Class Instruction

 

Conventional classroom presentations by a teacher to a whole class are anathema to education professors and their acolytes, who prefer cooperative learning, student investigations, and projects conducted while a classroom presence known as a “guide” or “facilitator” rather than a teacher assists students in their active learning experiences.

 

Whole-Language Instruction

 

This approach to the teaching of reading, emphasizing engaging reading experiences with literature in the absence of instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness, became a major mode of instruction in many schools of the 1950s and 1960s;  the assumption is that students will pick up principles of grammar and English usage naturally as the joy of reading whole words in engaging reading material animates and motivates the young reader.

 

 

My Comments  >>>>>   

 

Teach the child, not the subject

 

Teaching the child in a school setting is primarily about the impartation of knowledge from teacher to student;  the excellent teacher is a professional of broad and deep knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students, necessitating sensitivity to a child’s social and emotional needs.

 

 

Teach the whole child

 

The teacher’s prime professional responsibility is to ensure that a student learns important knowledge and skill sets pertinent to the subject matter of her or his class;  in doing this, the master teacher is keenly aware of the multiplicity of needs that a young person has as she or he develops and grows in the school setting and beyond.

 

Textbook Learning

 

Wide reading of material spanning the liberal, vocational, and technological arts is central to the school experience;  textbooks, other books, and direct instruction by the teacher provide the most efficient means of accumulating vast stores of knowledge and skill sets at the core of an excellent education.

 

Thematic Learning

 

Themes are meaningfully explored only on the basis of strong knowledge sets that provide the factual underpinning for contemplation, reflection, and discussion of the variety of topics considered in an education of excellence.

 

Transmission Theory of Schooling

 

Teachers should be professionals of broad and deep knowledge with the prime role of imparting that knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors;  transmission of knowledge and wisdom is as central to the teacher’s responsibility as to the role of elders across the world who pass on the cultural inheritance to young people under their guidance.

 

 

Whole-Class Instruction

 

Teachers of those nations (Finland, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) whose students record highest achievement on the Program of International Student Assessment operate primarily in the mode of whole-class instruction, the most efficient and effective pedagogical method;  all other classroom activities are secondary to the prime method of whole-class instruction.

 

Whole-Language Instruction

 

Students become excellent readers only when they grasp the fundamentals of phonics, phonemic awareness, and the many conventions of English and other languages;  going forth to wide reading in classic world and ethnic-specific literature should then be a given.

 

Article #5 in a Series >>>>> How to Avoid Speaking Like an Education Professor: Be Careful with These Terms >>>>> One Size Fits All; Project Method; Promise of Technology; Research has shown; Rote Learning; Self-Esteem; Teaching to the Test

Education professors have damaged generations of K-12 teachers and administrators at the Minneapolis Public Schools and in locally centralized school districts throughout the United States with notions rooted in the need for the education professor to survive at universities at which other professors know so much more.  

 

Consider these terms from the education professor’s lexicon, followed by my comments:         

 

One Size Fits All

 

This is a term of disparagement for set curriculum delivered to all students, in the absence of consideration for individual differences, interests, and learning styles.  

 

Project Method

 

William H. Kilpatrick first popularized this term among “progressive” educators in his 1918 book, The Project Method, in which he argued that students learn best when engaged in holistic, life-like projects in cooperation with others in groups.

 

Promise of Technology

 

One hears and reads in many places these days that computers will revolution education;  technology enthusiasts view computers and other instruments as having the capacity to provide individualized learning experiences based on the pace of learning and interests pertinent to each particular student, ensuring universal success.

 

Research has shown

 

This is a phrase used often by members of the education establishment (education professors and the administrators and teachers whom they train) to bolster claims made for favored approaches such as portfolios, cooperative learning, and differentiated instruction.

 

Rote Learning

 

This refers to learning facts through memorization and repetition, considered by education professors and their acolytes to be inferior to learning in holistic, life-like experiences, and through interaction with one’s fellows.

 

Self-Esteem

 

This became a key concern of education professors and those whom they trained from the 1970s forward, promoting favorable comments to students in an effort to build self-confidence and to make all young people feel good about themselves in the world.

 

Teaching to the Test

 

Education professors and other opponents of standardized testing frequently claim that the administration of standardized tests narrows the curriculum and diminishes teacher creativity as practice for looming standardized assessments limits the focus of teaching to the skills and material that will ensure good test scores.

 

My Comments

 

One Size Fits All

 

One size should indeed fit all, in the sense that all students should be taught the same abundance of  knowledge and skill sets in a well-defined, logically sequenced, grade by grade curriculum throughout the K-12 years;  and just as the quantity and content of what is learned should be the same, the quality of instruction provided to all students should also be uniform.

 

Project Method

 

This is an adjunct, secondary mode of learning, supplementary to more efficient methods such as reading challenging material across the liberal, vocational, and technological arts;  listening to teachers delivering lectures and to fellow students in class discussions;  and engaging in individual research on serious academic subjects.

 

Promise of Technology

 

Advances in computer and other digital technologies have given students rapid access to information on a wide variety of subjects;  but technology is not a substitute for engagement with teachers and classmates, must be used wisely in the quest for quality information, and more than ever makes an abundance of knowledge and skill sets vital for evaluation of sources and dependability of information.

 

Research has shown

 

Educational research varies widely as to quality, too often conducted with small sample sizes with accompanying extrapolations that are scientifically dubious;  educational research should be compared to findings in scientifically rigorous studies in fields such as psychology and sociology that are published in refereed journals scrutinized by academic experts.   

 

Rote Learning

 

Memorization of factual material to the point of automaticity makes learning more efficient, embedding great quantities of information in the long-term memory so that new information may be acquired more quickly and securely;  memorized and inculcated facts are important for critical analysis and encourage creative inferences and extrapolations.    

 

Self-Esteem

 

Teacher comments intended to raise a student’s self-esteem should be genuine expressions of admiration;  in the school setting, such comments should most often be rendered for the accomplishment of an academic feat.

 

Teaching to the Test

 

All teachers should impart the knowledge and skill sets that will be covered in well-constructed objective and standardized tests that measure what students should know at a given grade level;  this expands rather than narrows the curriculum.