How Many Students in the Minneapolis Public Schools Have the Necessary Knowledge Sets to Evaluate the Current Drama in the United States Senate Regarding the Brett Kavanaugh Hearing?

As a national drama unfolds in the United States Senate with the dueling testimonies of Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, how many students in the Minneapolis Public Schools have the knowledge sets required to understand what is at stake?  Putting aside, for the purposes of the key question herein, the salacious details of Kavanaugh’s high school and college misdeeds, which may rise to the level of criminality in a state having no statute of limitations, how many students even have much of an idea as to the importance of a United States Supreme Court Justice nomination?

 

In addition to my book on the inner workings of the Minnesota Public Schools (Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect), I am also continuing to move toward completion of another work, for which I have finished writing eleven of fourteen chapters and that I am already reading with my students as a conveyor of knowledge and skill sets that they do not receive in the Minneapolis Public Schools.  This book is titled Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, focused on the key subject areas of mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, world history, American history, African American history, economics, psychology, political science, world religions, world literature, English usage, and fine arts.

 

An excerpt from the political science chapter reads as follows:      

 

There are nine members of the United States Supreme Court.  They may serve until they opt to retire.  Current members of the U. S. Supreme Court include Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel  A. Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen G. Breyer.  Scalia, Alito, and Thomas are the staunch conservatives (strict constructionists) among the current members of the Supreme Court.  Ginsburg, Kagan,Sotomayor,  and Breyer are the liberals (emphasizing the contemporary context for application of constitutional principles).  Chief Justice Roberts leans toward the conservative side but has flexibility that occasionally might put him on the side of liberals, as in a key case involving the Affordable Health Care Act.  Justice Kennedy ironically sided with the conservatives in that case but in general is the key moderate often considered to be the “swing vote” in cases that go before the Supreme Court.

 

The major responsibility and power of the Supreme Court is known as judicial review, which entails deciding if statutory laws (laws passed by Congress) and actions taken by members of the executive branch (including the president) are constitutional.  This power accrued to the Supreme Court as a result of the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Marshall in the 1803 case, Marbury v. Madison.

 

An update to that chapter will now review Anthony Kennedy’s retirement and the Brett Kavanaugh nomination.  My students are evaluating that nomination not only as to Kavanaugh’s fitness for the Court as a human being (possible sexual predator) but also on the governmentally germane matter of qualifications for occupation of a seat on the highest court in the land---  and for what his appointment would mean for decisions of cases pertinent to civil rights, abortion, labor organization, natural environment, and immigration.

 

My students all come to me from the Minneapolis Public Schools.  I try to keep them enrolled in that school district while I agitate for the overhaul of MPS curriculum and teacher quality, in the meantime giving them their real education in their two hours per week with me.

 

My students at every level (grades K-5, 6-8, and 9-12) rarely have any knowledge of all manner of subjects, of which Supreme Court appointments, composition, and function are salient examples.  Often MPS teachers do not even cover the material.  In other cases, coverage is offered only through inefficient group projects and loosely guided investigations in which the most important knowledge sets are not mastered.  The bottom line for the salient example given herein is that none of my students, coming as they do from the Minneapolis Public Schools, have the requisite knowledge sets to evaluate the current national drama, particularly as relevant to the ultimately vital matter of the nominee’s fitness for the United States Supreme Court.

 

Many students of the Minneapolis Public Schools are mired in economic poverty.

 

All are mired in knowledge poverty.

 

This will change with the adoption and implementation of a Core Knowledge curriculum.