Article #1 in a Series >>>>> The Attempt on the Part of the Minnesota Department of Education to Mask Failure with the Pretensions of the North Star Accountability System and other Public Deceptions

Even as I provide information on the looming November 2018 Minneapolis Public Schools referendum issue, I am moving ahead with my investigation of the inner workings of the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), which for decades has failed to create or inspire programming in the locally centralized school districts of Minnesota that would provide an excellent, knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education to the state’s K-12 students.

 

The abhorrent incompetence of MDE chief Brenda Cassellius and her staff were on full display at a meeting of Monday, 24 September 2018, convened to explain the department’s new North Star Accountability System, quite a task, given that this formalistic sham has no chance at all to work.  Cassellius aide Michael Diedrich and three other presenters gave dissembling presentations and could not handle my tough questions as to what fantasy world or deceptive public stance undergirds one more attempt to foist a program that cannot provide increases in mathematics and reading achievement, much less an excellent education.  Cassellius, knowing that I was going to be at the meeting and asking incisive questions, did not even have the courage to attend this main gathering to explain and defend the indefensible.  If she should object to this characterization, Cassellius should meet me in a public debate under formal rules of disputation.

 

The chief initiative on which the success of the North Star Accountability depends is a cooperative arrangement with six Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE), located in Rochester, Marshall, Sartell, Thief River Falls, Mountain Iron, and Fergus Falls;  additionally, the Minneapolis Public Schools and St. Paul Public Schools act as their own RCEs, purportedly in consultation with and with the support of MDE staff.  In all, the sites have only 45 staff members, meaning only seven or eight staff members per RCE.

 

This is all a massive gambit that I am going to reveal in all of its intellectual corruption and public dishonesty on this blog and in my book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect.

 

Be attentive to articles to come, starting first with an introduction to the RCEs in the words of staff at MDE, from the department’s website:

 

Minnesota’s Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE) deliver a wealth of support and services straight to schools -- and it’s working. Centers are staffed by specialists with a full range of expertise, including math, reading, special education, English language development, equity, graduation support, implementation, data analysis, school leadership and district support.

For districts or charters with schools identified under the accountability system, the RCEs provide on-the-ground assistance to create the capacity and conditions that support change and continuous improvement. The Centers partner with leadership teams to facilitate school improvement efforts focused on equity for underserved student groups.
 

Once designated, comprehensive support and improvement (CSI) and targeted support and improvement (TSI) schools must conduct a  needs assessment, build and strengthen leadership teams, and develop school improvement plans, but they don’t have to go it alone. The schools can get help from Minnesota’s Regional Centers of Excellence. In addition to content expertise, center specialists offer an outside perspective on schools’ efforts to increase student outcomes.

In 2015, the Regional Centers of Excellence were named one of Harvard Ash Center’s Top 25 Innovations in Government.