Associate Superintendents >>>>> Reduction from Eight to Six to Four to Three during the Last Half-Decade >>>>> Favorable Impact of Budgetary Decision Announced at 26 April MPS Board of Education Finance Committee Meeting

One year ago, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) bore the burden of six associate superintendents, down from eight in previous years.  Last spring 2017, the associate superintendents were Cecilia Saddler (responsibility for high schools), Jackie Hanson (middle schools), Paul Marietta (K-8 schools, west), Ron Wagner (K-8 schools, east), Laura Cavender (High Priority Schools), and Lucilla Davila (magnet schools).  Their salary was $141,500 each, for a total of $849,000.

 

For this academic year of 2017-2018, the Ed Graff administration cut the number of associate superintendents to four, each earning $144,330 for a total of $577,320.  The associate superintendents for this academic year have been Laura Cavender (responsibility for K-8 schools), Ron Wagner (K-8), Lucilla Davila (K-8), and Carla Steinbach (high schools and middle schools).

 

The stated function of an associate superintendent is responsibility “for creating and modeling a culture of high expectations and providing ongoing support for building leaders, “ working with “school communities to create the necessary conditions that result in dramatic and accelerated school achievement, closing the achievement gap and improving overall school performance.”

 

By the standards set by that job description, the associate superintendents have been dismal failures, as indicated by the results given for each below.

 

At the Thursday, 26 April, meeting of the MPS Board of Education Finance Committee, Superintendent Graff carefully detailed the $6.4 million in budget cuts that he, Finance Chief Ibrahima Diop, and administration leaders have made as necessary to meet the directive of a resolution passed by members of the board at their 10 April meeting.  Among those many cuts was an associate superintendent position.

 

That cut will bring the number of associate superintendents to three, down from eight in the course of the last half-decade, from six since last spring, and from four at present.  Although these cuts have been made due to budgetary exigencies, they have been long overdue as a matter of bureaucratic rationalization.  Student academic proficiency has not declined as previous cuts have taken effect, and for reasons that I have detailed in many places on this blog, student performance will remain as statically dismal as usual when we get data for academic year 2017-2018 late next August.

 

When Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius competed with Graff for the superintendent position at the second-stage of the superintendent selection process in spring 2016, she indicated that she would jettison these positions altogether and mandate that building principals report directly to her, thus relieving a major bureaucratic burden.   The associate superintendent position exists because building principals are so ill-prepared by departments, schools, and colleges of education;  the only answer is to retrain them as an initiative of our iteration of the locally centralized school district, the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

Were the salary of the associate superintendents to be frozen at the current $144,330 apiece, the remaining three superintendents would receive a total of $432,990.  The next move should be to eliminate the position altogether and save that amount (or the more likely $435,000, assuming an academic year 2018-2019 annual pay hike to $145,000).  Then the district should move forward with thorough retraining of building principals, so that they are competent to earn their salaries by overseeing effective knowledge-intensive, skill-replete academic programs at the building level, consistent with uniform standards set by central district decision-makers.    

 

Now please review the wretched academic performance of students at schools cuyrrently supervised by the current given associate superintendents:

Academic Performance of Schools under the

Supervision of the Given Associate Superintendents

 

Laura Cavender                     2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                           31%       33%      34%      34%

Reading                     29%       31%      33%      35%

Science                                      20%       23%      23%      25%

 

 

Ron Wagner           2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                           56%       57%      58%      56%

Reading                     51%       51%      54%      54%

Science                                      44%       44%      48%      48%

               

Lucilla Davila          2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                           41%       41%      41%      37%

Reading                     41%       39%      39%      38%

Science                                      35%       33%      35%      32%

               

Carla Steinbach (-Huther)           

 

    2014     2015     2016     2017

 

Math                          45%       49%      43%      43%

Reading                    51%       48%      46%      47%

Science                                     36%       46%      34%      34%

               

               

Schools for Which the Given Associate Superintendents are Responsbie

 

Laura Cavender                                               

 

Anishinabe

Anwatin Middle School

Bethune

Green Central

Hall

Howe

Jenny Lind

Loring

Lucy Laney

Olson

Pillsbury

Sandford

Waite Park

 

Ron Wagner                      

 

Bryn Mawr

Burroughs

Hale

Jefferson

Kenny

Kenwood

Lake Harriet Lower

Lake Harriet Upper

Lake Nokomis

Lyndale

Nellie Stone Johnson

Northrop

Pratt

Sullivan

Webster

 

Lucilla Davila

 

Anderson

Armatage
Bancroft

Barton

Cityview

Dowling

Emerson

Folwell

Hmong Academy

Marcy

Seward

Sullivan

Whittier

Windom

 

Carla Steinbach (-Huther)

 

Edison High School

Henry High School

North High School

Roosevelt High School

South High School

Washburn High School

 

Wellsone International High School

 

Fair

Field

Franklin

Justice Page

Longfellow

Wellstone SWS