Apr 25, 2018

Examining the Subtext of Another >Star Tribune< Article, This by Former School Board Members Pam Costain, Jill Davis, Richard Mammen, Mohamud Noor, Alberto Monserrate, Josh Reimnitz, Catherine Shreves, and T. Williams >>>>>> Correct Analysis in the Moment by Authors Deeply Implicated in the Abysmal Education Imparted by the Minneapolis Public Schools

Before continuing on to my analysis, first read the following article (“Minneapolis Public Schools:  School board can and must do better on budget issues:  We’ve been in the role before and know its difficulties.  It isn’t clear, however, that the current board has a thorough or reasonable understanding.”), which appeared in the Star Tribune today as I tap out this article on 25 April 2018.

 

The article was signed by eight former members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education:   Pam Costain, Jill Davis, Richard Mammen, Mohamud Noor, Alberto Monserrate, Josh Reimnitz, Catherine Shreves, and T. Williams.

 

The article appeared as follows:

 

>>>>> 

 

Pam Costain, Jill Davis, Richard Mammen, Mohamud Noor, Alberto Monserrate, Josh Reimnitz, Catherine Shreves, and T. Williams , “Minneapolis Public Schools:  School board can and must do better on budget issues:  We’ve been in the role before and know its difficulties.  It isn’t clear, however, that the current board has a thorough or reasonable understanding,” Star Tribune, Opinion Pages, 25 April 2018.

 

Good governance requires the courage to make difficult and sometimes highly unpopular decisions.  Those of us writing this commentary are all former members of the Minneapolis school board who, despite out different priorities and politics, share the experience of having had to make wrenching decisions because they are in the best interest of children and the district as a whole.  We closed schools, changed attendance boundaries, moved or ended programs and instituted changes in the teachers’ contract.  We took unpopular votes because it is the job of a school board director to ensure the fiscal health of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), to enact policies that are fair and equitable and to take care not to favor one area of the city over another.

 

On April 10, the current board voted 5-4 to reject the budget presented to it by Superintendent Ed Graff and his senior administration.  Facing a $33 million deficit, the professionals who lead the district worked for months to find solutions to some serious structural problems.  Their process was transparent and inclusive.  A brief look at the MPS website provides voluminous information on the district budget, the sources and outlays of revenue, proposals for cuts, and their ramifications.

 

There is no question about it, some of the proposals for cost-saving were heart-breaking and included significant reductions to school budgets, especially in some high schools.  In the face of such a situation, directors have the obligation to thoroughly understand the proposals before them, to read all of the material presented to them by the superintendent’s team, to bring their concerns and questions to the administration early (certainly before public discussion) and not to fly by the seat of their pants when suggesting alternatives.  School board members also have an obligation to treat the superintendent and his senior leadership with respect.

 

None of this was in evidence at the April 10 board meeting.  Faced with vocal and organized opposition to the budget cuts from parents, students, and staff, who were legitimately concerned about the impact on their schools, some board members went off the rails.  In their questions and comments, it became clear that that they did not understand the budget in general or the specific implications of the cuts being proposed and that they had no credible alternative to reduce the deficit.  Furthermore, they treated Graff and his finance and human resources team with contempt and condescension.

 

Ultimately, the board voted 5-4 to restore $6.4 million of the $33 million in proposed cuts, benefiting 16 of the 70 schools.  It did wisely prohibit using the fund balance to cover that portion of the deficit.  But since all schools have already been through the budget process for their building, this means chaos as individual schools adjust and the central administration looks for cost savings elsewhere.  No decision this large is without pain, but now other parts of the district will bear the brunt of these cuts.

 

As former school board members who have had to wrestle with budget shortfalls ourselves, we understand the complex and, at times, painful decisions that must be made in service of Minneapolis students.  It is with this knowledge and experience that we voice out strong opposition today, to both the decision and the way it was made.

 

We can and must do better than this.

 

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 Understanding the Subtext of the Above Opinion Piece

 

The authors of the above opinion piece are absolutely correct as to their chief contention that members of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) were irresponsible in voting 5-4 to tinker with months of laborious work on the part of Superintendent Ed Graff and staff to produce a structurally balanced budget.

 

Remember that I took the same position as I examined the subtext of that 10 April 2018 meeting.

 

In that article, as in this one, though, I go beyond the apparent issue of the moment to analyze the deeper reality behind appearances.

 

Understand first of all the important actors, mentioned and not mentioned by name, in the scenario of school board meeting and critical opinion regarding that meeting.

 

The most important actor in the group that produced the structurally balanced budget was Finance Chief Ibrahima Diop, a brilliant education finance specialist with a master’s degree in the field;  Diop was highly sought-after when hired in 2015, quite a coup for the Minneapolis Public Schools.  He became immediately concerned with the declining fund balance, began asking tough questions of department heads to justify expenses, and especially as Graff began his tenure in July 2016 impressed upon the new superintendent the need to work toward a structurally balanced budget.

 

Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Michael Thomas is second only to Graff in the MPS formal structure among academic program decisions makers;  Chief of Research, Innovation, and Accountability Eric Moore is also an adviser of major importance.  Chief of Human Resources Maggie Sullivan and Chief of Operations Karen Devet by the nature of their jobs also were important in discussions pertinent to the budget.

 

The individuals in this group represent the most talented staff members at the Minneapolis Public Schools.  The type of training that they have received is in intellectual depth far above that evidenced in the Department of Teaching and Learning led by Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Cecilia Saddler. 

 

There are no scholars among academic decision makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools:  To a person, they have received their degrees from departments, colleges, and schools of education and have nothing like the professional weight and ballast of Ibrahima Diop, Eric Moore, and Karen Devet.

 

Among the authors of the opinion piece, former school board members Pam Costain, Jill Davis, Catherine Shreves, and T. Williams preceded in tenure the period of my intense scrutiny of the Minneapolis Public Schools beginning in summer 2014.  I do know of T. (Theatrice) Williams as the head of the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center during the 1960s;  and as the current interim head of the bare approximation of the Wheatley of old that limps on today.

 

Richard Mammen, Mohamud Noor, Alberto Monserrate, and Josh Reimnitz were all on the MPS board of Education when I began my observations and research in summer 2018. 

 

Mammen was chair;  he ran fairly efficient meetings, although he was given too often to long personal comments, including extended references to his history of involvement with alternative schools, charter schools, and other activities from his past.

 

Mohamud Moor and Alberto Monserrate were ineffective board members who harbored political ambitions beyond membership on the school board, ambitions that have so far been thwarted.  At least Moor was generally taciturn.  Monserrate could be garrulous in the manner of Mammen.

 

Josh Reminitz was by far the most promising of this group.  A former participant in Teach for America with reformist inclinations, he served one term (2013-2016) before losing in November 2016 a narrow vote for the District 6 seat to current occupant Ira Jourdain.  He was just gaining the seasoning and confidence to be an ever more effective voice for change at the time of his defeat.

 

Of those members of the current board who were among the five who voted with the 5-4 majority to restore $6.4 million in expenditures, KerryJo Felder represents District 2 (North Minneapolis);  Siad Ali replaced Noor (who did not run for reelection in November 2014) as the representative of District 3; Bob Walser won that narrow victory over Reimnitz in November 2016 for the District 4 seat;  Rebecca Gagnon has occupied an at-large seat since 2012;  and Ira Jourdain was endorsed by Gagnon in his narrow November 2016 victory over Tracine Asberry for the District 6 seat.

 

The vote of these five members to alter the budget upon which Diop, Graff, and others had long labored was irresponsible in the extreme.

 

Walser, Gagnon, and Jourdain are particularly objectionable occupants of their current seats:

 

Gagnon ironically was finance chair of the board as the reserve fund declined precipitously and structurally unbalance budgets dominated;  she is a DFL party insider, heavily tied also to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), and maintains keen political ambitions as a legislative hopeful.

 

Walser has those same organizational ties and is the board’s clearest, most irresponsible opponent of objective assessment of student performance.  

 

Jourdain is joined at the hip to Gagnon, his mentor and backer in that last election;  he also has heavy DFL and MFT ties.

 

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The opinion piece authors and current members of the MPS Board of Education share common responsibility for the abysmal academic performance of students at the Minneapolis Public Schools.  Mammen, Monserrate, Noor, and Gagnon were all on the board that approved the officially abiding but effectively moribund Acceleration 2020 Strategic Plan.  The actors in this drama have sustained or are sustaining the knowledge-poor, skill deplete academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools Not a one gives evidence of an educational philosophy or any interest in discovering the causes of poor academic performance.  Similar guilt falls heavily upon former board members Costain, Davis, Shreves, and Williams.

 

On 10 April 2018, five members who have little interest in the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools, and no manifested understanding as to the incompetence of staff in the Department of Teaching and Learning, voted against a fiscally responsible, meticulously crafted budget that represented the work of the most talented staff members of the Minneapolis Public Schools:

 

Thus, these board members have overlooked grave incompetence and disrespected exquisite talent.

 

Future members of the Minneapolis Public Schools leadership, board, and staff must come to understand the deficiencies in the Department of Teaching and Learning. 

 

They must know how to design and implement a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete academic program. 

 

They must recognize and make atonement for past ineffectiveness of all recent iterations of the MPS administration and Board of Education.

 

This will be achieved as members of the public, such as you my readers, gain deeper understanding of the sub-textual issues that always undergird meetings at the Minneapolis Public Schools and articles that appear in the Star Tribune  -----  and become activists for a precisely defined and energetically pursued program of educational excellence.

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