Most of these programs have been in place for
many years, with meager results.
Other than these programs, the Superintendent
Ed Graff administration is placing its hopes on the training of staff and
students in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), the use of Culturally Relevant
Materials (CRM), and the implementation of a new reading curriculum for grades
PK-5.
For reasons that I have detailed in
past articles posted on this blog, none of the programs articulated by the
Graff administration and approved by the MPS Board of Education is adequate to
the task of raising student achievement levels or imparting a
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education.
That will only come with complete
curricular overhaul, comprehensive teacher retraining, highly intentional
tutoring, resource provision and referral for struggling families, and bureaucratic
trimming so as to direct resources to the students themselves.
These observations will be discussed
at length in my substantially complete book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect, for
which I will continue to post snippets in the run-up to publication this coming
May 2018.
The program under review here is Project
Success, a program connected to a 501(c)3 that serves approximately twenty
schools and as many as 13,000 middle school and high school students of the
Minneapolis Public Schools. The
program’s aim is to engage students in activities that help them form a realistic
and optimistic vision of their post-K12 futures in college, in the meantime
lifting academic performance and encouraging positive behaviors. The organization sends facilitators into every
English and arts classroom at grades 6-12 to run goal-setting workshops and on
other occasions takes students to stage theater performances, college tours,
art museums, and camping expeditions.
The purposes of this program in
meeting World’s Best Workforce (WBWF)
regulations established by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) (among the
six possible items for WBWF are to Close Racial and Economic
Achievement Gaps, ensure that students are Ready for Career and College, and maximize chances for Graduation from High School.
But diffuse goals
of Project Success do not result in a sustained academic focus, limiting the
program’s effectiveness in raising
achievement levels in mathematics, reading, and science. Thus, the program becomes another among many
that have worthy objectives that nevertheless do not go to the core of student
need for knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education.
The Project
Success program does nothing to avert the impression that builds with the
review of each program purported to raise overall achievement levels that MPS
decision-makers dwell in a fantasy world, are cynical in advancing programs
that they know cannot work, or are joltingly incompetent.
Consider now the
data pertinent to Project Success:
>>>>>
Program for
World’s
Best Work Force (WBWF)
Alignment,
2017-2018
Major (WBWF)
Academic Program #11
Project Success
Projected WBWF
Goals Addressed >>>>>
Racial and Economic Achievement Gaps Closed
Ready for Career and College
Graduation from High School
2017 2018 2019
Budgetary Budgetary Budgetary
Allocation Allocation Allocation
$275,000 $110,000 $110,000
Students Served (Grades 6-12)
Academic Year Ending in 2017
K-8 Middle High Academic Year
School School
2016-2017
625 3,354
8,703
Academic Year Ending in 2018
K-8
Middle High Academic Year
School
School 2017-2018
1,448 3,413 10,362
Students
Served by Race
This program by definition is exclusively for
African American males:
(Academic Year Ending in 2017)
African American >>>>>
4,832
American Indian/
Native American
445
Asian
933
Hispanic
2,179
White
3,743
Total >>>>>
12,142
(Academic Year Ending in 2018)
African American >>>>>
6,439
American Indian/
Native American
618
Asian
992
Hispanic
3,054
White
4,120
Total >>>>>
15,223
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