Defeating Rebecca Gagnon is Paramount in Election for an At-Large Seat on the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education >>>>> The Process for Expediting Gagnon’s Exit Begins Tomorrow at the Occasion of the 14 August 2018 Primary

Rebecca Gagnon’s candidacy for another term as At-Large member of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education is an opportunity to forward the overhaul of processes at MPS so as to induce the transformation of that school district as model for central school districts throughout the United States.

Ironies abide in Gagnon’s candidacy.  Rebecca Gagnon has long been a sycophant of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)/ Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party cohort that exerts such political influence in the Minnesota State Legislature and thrusts money and organizational effort into school board electoral contests.

In the last few months, though, Gagnon has made many political miscalculations:

Gagnon had determined not to run for reelection to her At-Large MPS Board of Education seat, deciding instead to seek a seat in the state legislature.  But when she did not get the DFL endorsement for that legislative run, she retreated to another candidacy on the school board.  Gagnon did one of her finger-in-the-wind acts when parents in her Southwest Minneapolis base sought to restore lost funding, particularly at Washburn High School.  Superintendent Ed Graff and staff, particularly the brilliant MPS Finance Chief Ibrahima Diop, had spent months crafting a budget to eliminate the $33 million deficit of the district, but in a 5-4 vote in which Gagnon’s advocacy was prominent, the MPS Board of Education sent Graff, Diop, and staff back to the drawing board with a dictate to restore $6.4 million in funding to Washburn and other high schools.      

But Gagnon apparently failed to calculate the MFT interest in the originally proposed budget, and she has generally offended her longtime backers in the MFT/ DFL establishment with her bald self-seeking political maneuvers.  Having lost her bid for DFL endorsement for a legislative seat, she also lost the endorsement of that cohort in the school board race.

There are five candidates in the run-off for two At-Large seats on the MPS Board of Education, four of whom will go on to the general election in November.  Kim Caprini and Josh Pauley are the MFT/ DFL endorsees;  the other two candidates besides Gagnon are Sharon El-Amin and Doug Mann.  I know Kim Caprini and like her personally, but the MFT/ DFL endorsement is problematic.  Mann is a perennial candidate of the sort whose political pursuits can become stale over time;  he seeks to address teacher turnover issues and to support academically lagging students and schools that struggle with declining enrollment.  El-Amin is an MPS parent and businesswoman who may be the best and freshest presence on the school board election scene.

In the run-up to the general election in November, I will be making precise recommendations in the races that will feature two candidates for each of the two contested At-Large seats for the MPS Board of Education.

For now, defeat of Gagnon is paramount.  Despite her political miscalculations and lack of MFT/ DFL  endorsement in the school board race, Gagnon is a canny political operator.  If she emerges as one of four candidates for the two seats in the November general election, then I will be making the rounds at various venues to advocate for her defeat.

Please abet my efforts by weakening Gagnon’s candidacy and, ideally, ending it with your vote for two of the other candidates in tomorrow’s Tuesday, 14 August, primary election.