Lost Opportunity in Following Through on the Bernadeia Johnson Initiatives >>>>> The Recondite Subtext of the 26 April 2018 Finance Committee Meeting

Superintendent Ed Graff is establishing a case for himself as the best administrator that the Minneapolis Public Schools has had for many decades. Even before the full extent of the financial crisis became clear, Graff set about rationalizing and slimming the bloated bureaucracy at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway).

 

Graff’s presentation at the 26 April 2018 MPS Board of Education Finance Committee meeting, explaining how he, Finance Chief Ibrahima Diop, and other staff members found the necessary $6.4 million in budget cuts---  in the aftermath of the woeful 5-4 vote at the 10 April 2018 school board meeting undermining the administration’s original budget---  was masterful. 

 

The question then becomes, to what academic purpose Graff’s skill as an administrator is being put.

 

And do remember, my readers, even if what should be a given becomes obscured in all manner of academically tangential concerns, that if the locally centralized school district does not impart an excellent education to all of our precious children, that system has no reason for being.

 

And as to the academic prospects of the district, the years 2015-2018 have been unkind.

 

Evidence is rapidly accumulating that Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson (tenure, 2010-2014), a person of courage and greater academic acumen than most in her position, was a lousy administrator.  She ultimately was not adroit at implementing the programs that were inspired by her academic insights.  But she did advance those ideas, and she did put those programs in place for others more physically vigorous and of greater administrative talent to implement. 

 

This did not happen, though, during the tortured tenure (2015-2016) of Interim Superintendent Michael Goar, marred by his lack of vision in either programming or administration, and by the bungled two-phase search for superintendent that yielded the leadership of Ed Graff.

 

Despite his administrative talent, Graff has no viable vision for advancing the academic program of the Minneapolis Schools, at which the performance of students is abysmal:  Over half of all students are not achieving grade level performance;  less than twenty-five percent (25%) of African American, Hispanic, Hmong, and Somali kids are attaining grade level proficiency;  and beyond those areas (reading, mathematics, science) that are measured on objective assessments, of the approximately 65% of students who actually graduate, knowledge of international classic or ethnic history, literature, and the visual and musical arts is minimal.

 

Bernadeia Johnson was on the right track with regard to the academic program and budgetary priorities.  Her three signature programs were Focused Instruction, High Priority Schools, and Shift:

 

Focused Instruction had the capacity to become a carefully sequenced presentation of knowledge and skill sets across the liberal arts throughout the K-12 years.  Through my filter, this was an opportunity to implement the approach to curriculum associated with the Core Knowledge Foundation of E. D. Hirsch, similar to that which I advocate and have designed in my nearly complete book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.

 

High Priority Schools were those, overwhelmingly located on my stomping grounds of North Minneapolis, which for years had failed to present programs that addressed the needs of children from families that struggle with finances and functionality.  Under the Bernadeia Johnson administration, these schools were to have appropriate programming and teaching staff.  

 

Shift was to be an approach to budgeting that prioritized funding that affected students and teachers in the classroom setting most directly.

    

Under the leadership of Graff, though, Focused Instruction has been jettisoned and there has been no effective follow-through on those initiatives meant to assist High Priority Schools (the latter term for which has been dropped).

 

Graff has made considerable progress in moving toward the goals of Shift, but in making that observation we must return to the question,

 

To what academic purpose is Graff’s skill as an administrator being put?

 

Graff displays little grasp of educational philosophy.  What little he possesses originates in the anti-knowledge creed of education professors who have presided over most of his collegiate education.     

All Graff has offered is staff and student training in social and emotional learning, a new Benchmark reading curriculum, multi-tiered system of support for struggling students, and the fourteen programs designated to meet World’s Best Workforce (WBWF) regulations of the Minnesota Department of Education.  The WBWF programs cover few students and are lamentably ineffective in raising student achievement levels.  Social and emotional learning is not a serious academic program.  The multi-tiered system of support faces a multitude of bureaucratic obstacles and in its attenuated form has had no impact in addressing the needs of struggling students.  Only the new Benchmark curriculum has gained a measure of suitable implementation, but in the absence of a knowledge-intensive education students will never attain acceptable vocabulary development and comprehension levels as they move through the K-12 years.

 

We are left to reflect on Bernadeia Johnson’s promising academic program, which she did not have the administrative ability or the staying power implement;  and Ed Graff’s superior administrative talent, in the absence of any viable academic vision.

 

Thus the importance of the presentation of my book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect at the advent of summer 2018 and the K-12 revolution that will follow.