Discussion on the general financial condition
of the Minneapolis Public Schools was satisfactory. As usual, the solid professionalism and
candor of Finance Chief Diop was manifest.
This comment should also engender a note that MPS Board of Education
Administrative Assistant Jennifer Lindquist and her colleague Jesse Winkler
(Administrator to the MPS Board of Education, who was not in attendance at this
meeting) are also very able.
The problem lies with the academic program
decision-makers in the Davis Center and the members of the MPS Board of
Education. The two main foci of the
meeting became Goals of Achievement and
Integration Funding; and a community
survey conducted by Eric Moore and his staff.
Goals of
Achievement and Integration Funding
must align to World’s Best Workforce goals
of the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), which are five in number: 1) school readiness, 2)third grade student readiness
to read, 3) closing of achievement gaps, 4) college and career readiness, and
5) increased high school graduation rates.
To meet these goals, Graff, his staff, and the school board are offering
six Achievement and Integration
Strategies: 1) innovative and
integrated learning environment, 2) family engagement, 3) professional
development, 4) career and college readiness, 5) recruitment and retention of
diverse teachers and administration, and 6) equitable access to effective and
diverse teachers.
With purported aspiration to meet these goals
and implement these strategies, MPS staff and board are emphasizing the
following programs, with budgetary allocations for 2017-2018 given also as
follows:
Program for 2018
MPS Budgetary Allocation
World’s
Best Work Force
Alignment,
2017-2018
AVID $3,042,040
(Advancement Via
Individual
Determination)
Check and Connect $350,000
Ethnic Studies and $236,903
Social Justice Fellows
Fast Track Scholars $13,000
Grow Your Own
---------------
Teacher Residency
Jobs for America’s Graduates (JAG) $200,000
LearningWorks $25,000
MTSS/ Culturally $1,520,000
Relevant Materials
Office of Black Male Achievement $320,000
Project Success $110,000
RIS
(Racialy Integrated Schools) $1,800,000
Direct Support
Spring and Winter Academy $60,000
Urban Debate Academy $119,000
In articles to come, I will be analyzing the
above programs individually, and I will be including this analysis in my
substantially complete book, Understanding
the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current
Condition, Future Prospect.
For now, understand this essential truth:
Most of the above programs have been in
existence for many years and have proven ineffective in raising achievement
rates at the Minneapolis Public. Schools.
After these budgetary allocations for
achievement and integration were presented, discussion turned to Eric Moore’s
presentation of the results of a survey to community members. Some questions focused on matters pertinent
to student behavior, mental health, diversity of cultures and languages,
marketing to increase student enrollment, free transportation to
out-of-residential-area and magnet schools, monitoring of federal and state law
compliance, cleaning of schools, keeping low-enrollment schools open, athletic
programming, college preparatory programs, and school calendar (elimination of
last two days of academic year 2017-201 and post-Labor Day start for academic
year 2018-2019).
In future articles, I will give detailed
results as to responses to questions focused on these matters. My essential statement on the responses given
to these matters is that there tended to be low community consensus on the
pertinent issues, there were notable differences between responses to an online
survey (for which respondents were mostly white and higher income) and a phone
survey (for which respondents were mostly people of color and lower
income). My interpretation of the responses
given is that
>>>>> community
interest in these issues is limited;
>>>>> what
community members really await is a viable academic program, delivered by
consistently high-quality teachers.
More important, and more disturbing, are those
interview items which focused on the six goals of the
MPS
Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020,
which are as follows:
Goal Number One, Improved Student
Outcomes
Goal Number Two, Equity
Goal Number Three, Family and Community
Partnership
Goal Number Four, Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff
Goal Number Five, Stewardship
Goal Number Six, Resources for Students
and Schools
Results of the survey indicated that
community members prioritize these goals as follows:
- Improved Student Outcomes
- Equity
- Effective Staff
- Resources for Students and Schools
- Engagement
- Stewardship
…………………………………………………………
My Essential Statement Regarding
the Two Main Topics for Discussion
at this Meeting of the Finance Committee
The first three goals prioritized by the community,
which quite interestingly are those most pertinent to academic achievement among
those set in the MPS Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020, have no chance of
being met under the current program of the Ed Graff administration:
The district is unclear as to what specific
goals in math and reading are to be achieved and is even more vague as to the
means for achieving these goals. Staff
in the administration and most members of the current MPS Board of Education
know that their strategic plan is a mere exercise in goal-setting, with no
means of raising student achievement, even if there were an abiding definition
of how that achievement will be manifested, and on exactly which objective
assessment achievement will be measured.
Avowedly, the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) are the key
devices for measurement, but MPS teachers are not preparing students for the
MCAs, and the MCAs have been vitiated by Minneapolis Federation of Teachers opposition
and the irresponsible opt-out movement, especially at South and Southwest high
schools.
MPS staff and board should take a long
break from doing community surveys:
Try to grasp the absurdity of the survey
summarized above by imagining physicians and attorneys asking the public what
medical and legal treatments and strategies should be used to serve patients
and clients. Members of the latter two
professions would only be inclined to administer such a survey after detailing
with clarity the specific treatments and strategies available.
As Graff faces his waning hopes of enduring
as MPS superintendent, the program that he must offer must focus on the 1) overhaul
of curriculum; 2) retraining of teachers; 3)
provision of tutoring to academically struggling students; 4) outreach and resource provision to
struggling families; and 5) great paring of the central bureaucracy.
MPS Superintendent Ed Graff should then
go to community members with his program and ask for their likely avid approval.
Or he himself should go,
along with key Davis Center
decision-makers,
and the present membership of the MPS Board
of Education.
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