Ascendance of Eric Moore to Head the Academics Division of the Minneapolis Public Schools is an Event of Great Significance in the Annals of K-12 Public Education

In another adroit administrative move, Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Ed Graff early last week exercised his astute judgment on personnel issues by tapping Eric Moore to be the head of the MPS Academic Division.  Moore brings a much needed breadth and depth of personal educational experiences to the most important position at the district, inasmuch as academic achievement and the acquisition of knowledge are the prime foci for any locally centralized school district.

 

Moore grew up in Langston, Oklahoma, one of that state’s interesting, history-induced all-black towns.  His mother and father were staff members of the town’s HBCU (Historically Black College/ University), Langston University.  Grandfather Ivory Moore, whose earthly sojourn ended just four years ago (autumn 2014), was among the most important African American educators and public servants on both sides of the southern Oklahoma/ northern Texas border area.  He coached and taught as the first African American educator at a newly integrated Wichita Falls (Texas) High School and held diversity and dean of student positions at Langston and another university;  and this remarkable man became the first black mayor of Commerce, Texas, located very close to the town of Greenville (TX), at the entrance to which there was deep into the 1960s a sign that read, “Welcome to Greenville, Texas:  Home of the Blackest Dirt and the Whitest People.”

 

Thus does Moore have superlative bloodlines.  He also is a highly educated man, an English literature major at Langston University who went on to study at the University of Texas (Austin) and then came northward to earn graduate degrees in public policy with abundant coursework in statistical research, at which with application to K-12 academic achievement he has become one the leading specialists in the United States.  With his grasp of both English literature and mathematical concepts, Moore has the kind of breadth and depth of knowledge necessary to lead a K-12 academic program.

 

Here is the new presentation of Moore’s dual role on the MPS leadership website:   

Chief of Academics and Accountability, Research, and Equity– Eric Moore

The Chief of Academics and Accountability, Research and Equity oversees two departments responsible for ensuring that both academic and student supports are aligned to school needs, that equity is embedded in all academic divisional processes, and that identified district priorities (including equity, literacy, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support and Social and Emotional Learning) are clearly articulated and monitored. The Chief provides MPS executives with decision-support through data analysis and interpretation and assures programs are in compliance with federal, state, and local laws.

 

 

Eric Moore is now positioned to become one of two most important educators in the United States.

 

He should quickly set about establishing a curriculum that takes for reference the E. D. Hirsch Core Knowledge K-6 sequence and my own extension of that curriculum to the late middle school and high school levels.  He should work with Michelle Wiese (President of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers [MFT]) and Maggie Sullivan (MPS Chief of Human Resources) to establish a thorough teacher retraining program---  that goes far beyond conventional Professional Development---  to transform the MPS teaching corps into true bearers of knowledge, with the ability to impart that knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

Moore should also work with Superintendent Graff and capable Homeless/ Highly Mobile and Community Engagement staff to engender growth in the one area for which additional personnel should be sought, hired, and trained to connect with struggling families of impoverished students facing multiple life challenges, engaging with them right where they live as friends, counselors, and as providers of and guides to needed services.

 

And Moore should oversee the development of a very aggressive and intentional program of remedial instruction for students languishing academically below great level, working with the highly talented MPS Chief of Finance Ibrahima Diop to make sure that all expenditures in the district are directed as much as possible to the academic program generally and for targeted purposes such as remedial instruction particularly.

Superintendent Ed Graff and new Chief of Academics and Accountability, Research, and Equity Eric Moore have a chance to be the two most important figures in K-12 education in the United States, overhauling the locally centralized school district of the Minneapolis Public Schools to become a national model.

Graff and Moore should seize the moment.

There are lives of long-suffering children in the balance.