No More Glib Pretenses to MPS Strong >>>>> Superintendent Ed Graff Makes Frank Admission of Past Failures and Current Shortcomings in Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design, 2019-2022

Superintendent Ed Graff has shown some signs of professional growth since his assumption of his position with the Minneapolis Public Schools on 1 July 2016. 

 

Early in his tenure, I hit Graff with questions for which he was unprepared and could not handle at a series of community meetings.

 

Graff made a paltry and ill-rehearsed botch of Prince’s “Dearly Beloved….” piece at his first State of MPS speech, the latter of which was full of nothing but bromides.

 

I called Graff out numerous times for his shallow attempt to sloganeer MPS into public better graces with his silly “MPS Strong” mantra, from which he has now desisted.

 

Then Graff seemed to face reality and get to work on calling upon his meager training and undistinguished history as an educator to do what he could for the young people for whom he is sacredly charged to serve.

 

Graff has proven himself to be a very able judge of talent and an artful practitioner of bureaucratic paring.   Now he must try to build upon very slim focal points (Social and Emotional Learning, Literacy, Equity, and Multi-Tiered System of Support) to try to fulfill the best ambitions of the new MPS Comprehensive Assessment and Design.

 

In that design Graff, to his credit, makes several frank admissions:

 

Across Elements 1-5, for academic year 2018-2019, the admissions are

that there will be the following:

 

>>>>>          uneven experiences and access to programming

 

>>>>>          inconsistent access to enriched curriculum, specialized programming, and enriching educational experiences

 

>>>>>          student supports that vary from school to school

 

>>>>>          an often confusing choice system that does not result in equitable outcomes for students and creates pathways and program articulation that families find hard to navigate.

 

>>>>>          uneven enrollment patterns:

 

• Based on perceived quality of schools and safety issues

 

• Current MPS market share ranges from approximately 40% to 75%

 

This is the kind of candor that I was calling upon Graff to demonstrate in answering my incisive questions honestly and cease with all of the “MPS Strong” nonsense.

 

To his great credit, Graff has now faced the brutal reality of academic failure at the Minneapolis Public Schools and is making his attempt to redesign the district so as to improve academic proficiency.  There are features of the new, evolving Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design that are very promising.   But any attempt at the needed changes must without question include the complete redesign of curriculum for logically sequenced, grade by grade knowledge intensity and the training of a teacher force capable of imparting such a curriculum;  and there must also be a highly intentional and aggressive program of skill remediation for students functioning years below grade level, with resource provision and referral to families struggling with dilemmas of poverty and functionality.

 

Graff needs to bring genuine scholars and academicians onto his staff, to address the fact that he himself is not a scholar and that he has no staff members at the vital Department of Teaching and Learning or among his associate superintendents who are scholars.  The needed academic program must be designed by academicians.

 

Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Ed Graff has admirably faced the disarray and the ineffectiveness that has defined the academic program at this iteration of the locally centralized school district.

 

Now he must do those things necessary to create a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete program of K-12 education at the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

Many indicators tell me that Graff cannot succeed.

 

I fervently hope that he proves me wrong.