Readers Please Review My Important Article from Autumn 2016, Relevant to the Minneapolis Public Schools Department of Teaching and Learning, as Context for Looming Comments on the Current Status of That Department Two Years Later

Two years ago, in autumn 2016, I wrote an important article concerning staffing in the Minneapolis (MPS) Department of Teaching and Learning, stressing the bloat in this ineffective department.   In articles to come, I will be commenting on improvements that have been made in that department under the leadership of Superintendent Ed Graff, who at the time of the 2016 article had just begun his tenure. 

 

Please now read this article as context for articles soon to come that stress improvements in the MPS Department of Teaching and Learning and the current challenges faced by the key department vitally affecting academic programming of the Minneapolis Public Schools:

 

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The Bureaucratic Bloat in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the Minneapolis Public Schools Saliently Demands a Vote of "No" on the 8 November Referendum

Gary Marvin Davison, 7 November 2016


The overstaffed Department of Teaching and Learning at the Minneapolis Public Schools is responsible for curriculum adoption and development, professional development of teachers, online learning, and special programming such as the college preparatory AVID program and initiatives such as Focused Instruction.

This is the largest single department in the central offices (Davis Center, 1250 West Broadway) of the Minneapolis Public Schools: The Department of Teaching and Learning has 52 current staff members, or 9.5% of the total 550 employees at the Davis Center.

The positions given for this department are as follows:


Teaching and Learning Staff Directory 2016-2017

Administrative


1. Macarre Traynham, Director

Office Support

2. Amanda Andrews ITT and Online, Office specialist
3. Jeanne Lacy, Executive Assistant
4. Yana Manalov, Business Services Financial Specialist

AVID

5. Maria Roberts, Program Manager, AVID
6. Christen Lish, AVID Elementary Coordinator
7. Paula Killian, AVID Middle School Coordinator
8. Tommie Casey, AVID High School Coordinator

 

Elementary Team      

9. Casey Seeley, Director, Elementary Education
10. Janna Toche, Elementary DPF
11. Julie Tangeman, Elementary DPF
12. Sara Naegli, Elementary DPF
13. Sarah Hunter, Elementary DPF

Focused Instruction

14. Tina Platt, Project Manager
15. Jake Hirschman, Curriculum Assets Assistant
16. Nancy Mai, Curriculum Assets Assistant

Instructional Technology Team

17. James Stock, Learning Assistant Administrator DPF
18. Jeff Brazee, Applications Trainer
19. Kevin Keller, Technology Integrationist DPF Material Management Position
20. Terry Dinovo, Materials Coordinator
21. Judy Stack-Nelson, Materials Handler

Online Learning

22. Edith McDonald, Online Art
23. James Carr, Online Physical Education
24. Karen Maverick, Online Special Education
25. Katy Hemmah, Online Program Counselor
26. Kelsey Zogby (Passa), Online Math Telescope
27. Lynn Lurvey, Online English
28. Seth Levitt, Online Math, Elementary
29. Tom VanErp, Online Health
30. Tony Patterson, Online Associate Educator
31. William Holm, Online Math, High School

Science Center    

32. Timothy Lilla, Science Senior Materials Handler
33. Donell Shinder, Science Materials Handler
34. Mark Berg, Science Materials Handler
35. Tara Newhouse, Science Materials Handler of Living Organisms

Secondary Team

36. Naomi Taylor, Director, Secondary Education
37. Chris Wemimont, Secondary Math DPF
38. Colleen Atakpu, Secondary Math DPF
39. Hibaq Mohamed, Secondary ELA/ Reading
40. Jennifer Rose, Secondary Science DPF
41. Katy Stephens, Secondary ELA/ Reading DPF
42. Kleber Ortiz-Sinchi, Secondary Social Studies DPF
43. Samantha Weiman, Associate Educator

Specialists

44. Ashley Crohn, K-12 Library and Information Media DPF
45. Kathy Dunbar, Arts Exploration and Extension Coordinator
46. Nora Schull, K-12 Arts DPF
47. Sara Loch, K-12 Health/ Physical Education

STEM

48. Charley Ellingson, STEM Integrationist
49. Elizabeth Stretch, STEM Integrationist

Talent Development and Advanced Academics

50. Alyssa Pollack, Elementary Talent Development and Advanced Academics DPF
51. Kelly McQuillan, High School Talent Development and Advanced Academics DPF
52. Theresa Campbell, Middle School Talent Development and Advanced Academics DPF

Thus, there are three (3) staff members in office support roles, four (4) connected to the AVID program, six (6) for elementary education (including the staff member designated for “talent development and advanced academics”), ten (10) for secondary education (including the middle school and high school staff members designated for “talent development and advanced academics”), three (3) for Focused Instruction, three (3) for material management, ten (10) for online learning, four (4) designated at the Science Center, four (4) assigned as art, media, and physical education specialists, and two (2) for the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) program.

Too often public bureaucracies take on a corporate world ethos and spawn all sorts of assistants whose functions are extraneous. The office and executive assistant positons in the Department of Teaching and Learning are not necessary; and there are staff members in the MPS Department of Finance who could absorb the functions of the business specialist.

Most positions in the Department of Teaching and Learning should not be necessary if teachers were properly trained in departments, colleges, and schools of education. If K-12 teachers came to their school districts with the kind of knowledge base possessed by college professors, their curriculum would be embedded in their brains and the eighteen (18) elementary and secondary curriculum and instruction staff members would be imminently dispensable--- as indeed they should be now, since they are so ineffective.

Decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools would be much the wiser for putting teachers through a rigorous, knowledge-heavy teacher training program such as I advanced in the September 2014 edition of my Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota--- before staff members officially occupy teacher positions in the classrooms of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

With such well-trained and knowledgeable teachers in all classrooms of the Minneapolis Public Schools, the Department of Teaching and Learning could then be disassembled and revamped as a small group of perhaps ten staff members.

For, indeed, most positions in the Department of Teaching and Learning would also be expendable if teachers were well-trained from the beginning of their employment experience at the Minneapolis Public Schools:

If art, media, physical education, math, science, and technology teachers arrived as genuinely skilled practitioners and scholars, at least six (6) of the above given positions would fade away.

Focused Instruction is a worthy program intended to implement curriculum coherently and consistently by grade level throughout the schools of the district. But Tina Platt does not have the subject area knowledge to direct such a program, and the program has not been effective in the half-decade of its existence. All three (3) staff members assigned to Focused Instruction would be dismissed, to be replaced by professionals of general scholarship and familiar with knowledge-intensive curriculum such as that of E. D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Foundation.

Ten instructors for online learning should be examined for efficacy and necessity.

Department of Teaching and Learning Director Macarre Traynham was hired by Chief Academic Officer Susanne Griffin to bring expertise in “culturally responsive curriculum.” A Core Knowledge approach provides extraordinary cultural responsiveness in a meaningful context of knowledge-intensive curriculum across the key subject areas of mathematics, natural science, history, literature, and the fine arts. Traynham has little knowledge of such curriculum, and her own training has been primarily in iterations of those notoriously weak programs overseen by education professors, rather than in the legitimate subject area disciplines. Traynham should be dismissed and her position examined for its necessity and level of remuneration.

Macarre Traynham reports to Chief Academic Officer Susanne Griffin. Ms. Griffin is a compassionate and dedicated educator but, as discussed in other articles on this blog, she has no training in any of the main academic programs that should define a knowledge-intensive curriculum. This absence of scholarly credentials and the wretched academic performance of the Minneapolis Public Schools argue powerfully for the termination of Ms. Griffin as Chief Academic Officer.

The Department of Teaching and Learning saliently represents the bloat and superfluity endemic to the central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

This condition of bulimic bureaucracy with no correlation to the academic progress of our precious young people is a prime reason to vote “No” for the 8 November referendum.