Sep 24, 2018

Brenda Cassellius’s Lackey Michael Diedrich Went for the Security Guard When I Raised Tough Questions and the Carefully Contrived 24 September 2018 Meeting at the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) on the North Star Accountability System Veered Out of MDE Staff Control


At 6:00 PM on Monday, 24 September, in Conference Center B at the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), Brenda Cassellius’s aide Michael Diedrich went for the nearest security guard after I raised tough questions and the meeting veered out of control of MDE staff attempting to defend the indefensible.

 

I waited through two prior question and answer sessions as the presenters went through three phases in an effort to explain the new North Star Accountability System (described in full as you scroll down through previous recent entries on this blog).  This is the system of purported accountability now being foisted on the public in the latest failed proclamation hailing a program that nevertheless has no chance of raising academic performance of Minnesota students.

 

Of the approximately 2,000 schools in Minnesota, 485 of them have failed to demonstrate acceptable performance according to at least one of several indicators:  graduation rates, attendance, academic progress for English learners, general academic progress, and proficiency as demonstrated on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs).  Note that the latter indicator, which is the only measure that reveals the actual proficiency levels of students in a given academic year, now is a mere inclusion in an array of indicators.  Much mention was made of schools now having multiple ways of demonstrating that they are making progress;  the matter of academic performance is not clearly in focus, as was the case during 2002-2016 before Congressional jettisoning of No Child Left Behind and the passage of the new Every Student Succeeds Act.  The Every Student Succeeds Act and the North Star Accountability System designed by staff at the Minnesota Department of Education allow for considerable more wiggle room for failing schools to claim some level of success:

 

Perpend, on the latter matter:    One MDE presenter gave his approval to a case in which a school has done a particularly good job of cleaning up around and plugging bullet holes;  this was offered illustratively as a case of what MDE staff is touting as “Quick Wins,” complete with categorical capitals.  I (Gary Marvin Davison) kid you not.  And some members in the audience comprised heavily of people from MDE staff and Minnesota public school systems gave verbal expressions of approval.  I kid you not on that, as well.

 

After the meeting had transpired through three presentations and the clock indicated that we had rolled past the one-hour point in the meeting, with less than thirty minutes to go (even though the meeting was announced as providing two hours for presentations and discussion), I raised the following question, with introductory comments as follows:

 

“There are to be six Regional Centers of Excellence, staffed with a total of 45 members, so that each center will have seven or eight people providing assistance.”

 

“That’s about right,” the presenter responded.

 

I continued:  “Back in the late 1990s and very early 2000s in the time of the Minnesota Basic Skills Test, the school systems of Minnesota demonstrated that they could not even educate an acceptable percentage of students at a grade 8 level.  Then we had No Child Left Behind and more embarrassing academic results, at that time with the MCAS;   No Child Left Behind was attacked by the left (Education Minnesota, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, DFL) and right (when the right figured out, ‘Oh, yeah, these are central government mandates’), so that we then had the murky Multiple Measurement Rating System, the Every Student Succeeds Act and with it the even murkier current North Star Accountability System.

 

“My question to you, then, is:  Do you at the Minnesota Department of Education live in a fantasy world, or are you knowingly perpetrating this hoax on the students of Minnesota?”

 

The presenter stammered that answering that question would take a lot of unpacking.

 

I said, “Sure would.  Go ahead and unpack it.”

 

“Not now,” he said.

 

And I then responded, “Well then, would you meet me in a public debate?"

 

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said.

 

“Of course, you wouldn’t,” I asserted, “because you don’t have the ability.”

 

Members of the audience, all of those retorting representing either Minnesota school districts or the MDE, then began to issue rejoinders to me.  That was great.  I wanted to rouse this audience of automatons and dissemblers to life.  Voices got loud, including my own.  I challenged two more MDE members and one school district representative to a refereed public debate, with of course no takers from people of this ilk, caught in the act of attempting to defend the indefensible.

 

As voices rose, one of the previous presenters came to the fore and threatened to call a security guard.

 

“And on what basis would you do that?” I asked.

 

“Disturbing our meeting,” came the reply.

 

As Michael Diedrich hastened out of the room to summon the nearest security guard, I just laughed.

 

As the last presenter made one more lame presentation, Diedrich returned with the security guard as both remained at the back of the room (I was sitting right up front, contently silent).  The presenter concluded, called for questions, there were no takers, and the meeting was over.

 

I rose slowly but was the first to stride up the aisle.  I expected a few people to meet me in the eye, casting mostly mean eyes given the dominant composition of the crowd representing the state department and the school districts culpable for the academic results that have no more than sixty percent (60%) of our students reading and performing mathematical tasks with grade level proficiency. 

 

But not a single person met my eyes.

 

Cowards all.

 

I continued my trip up the aisle, staring a hole in Michael Diedrich’s prevaricating back-of-the-room countenance.

 

But I turned amiably to the security guard and said, “Hey, good to see you, man.”

 

“Yup,” he mumbled as he shook my proffered hand.

 

I strode out the door smiling at the stupidity that I had witnessed on the part MDE staff and audience members at this charade of a meeting.

 

But I had three attending thoughts as I strode to my Toyota Matrix and drove home.

 

With regard to public and official attitudes about K-12 education, people variously

 

>>>>>      are dimwitted on the issues;

 

>>>>>      are dissembling officials or their sycophants;  or

 

>>>>>      just don’t care.

 

Closing message to Brenda Cassellius, Michael Diedrich, and anyone else willing to expose your lack of knowledge on the history and current circumstance of public education in Minnesota and the United States:

 

Meet me in that formal refereed debate under formal rules of disputation.

 

Or admit you fall short on matters pertinent to the most important endeavor imaginable and cheat our precious young people every day your feet hit the ground.

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