Nov 15, 2018

Evidence for Both a Community Aroused for Action and an MPS Board of Education Mired in Political Corruption, Philosophical Confusion, and Programmatic Disarray at the 13 November 2018 Meeting


Fascinating were the dual messages delivered at the Tuesday, 13 November 2018, meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education, at the outset consisting of indications of a mass movement for change;  and at the end featuring the inept members of the MPS Board of Education at their aimless bickering worst.

 

The Public Comments phase that began the meeting featured a continuation of what very possibly is a mass movement for change that began on 30 October 2018 at the Parent-Led School Board Candidate Forum, held at the University of Minnesota Urban Research and Outreach Engagement Center in North Minneapolis (2100 Plymouth Avenue, across from the Minneapolis Urban League).  Members of many of the groups that organized or sponsored that event were out in force during the Public Comment phase of this school board meeting.  The groups organizing or sponsoring the 30 October event included KWST Behavioral Development Group, Little Earth of United Tribes, STANDUP, Centro Tyrone Guzman, Latino Youth Development Collaborative, UPLIFT-MN, the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), and Voices for Effective Change.

 

At Tuesday’s (13 November) MPS Board of Education meeting, representatives of the Latino Youth Development Collaborative and STANDUP seemed especially present and outspoken;  and a number of members of the Somali community also were out in force.

 

I led off Public Comments, as I have for four years now.

 

My message this evening was that change can come quickly if a program for overhaul of existing processes is implemented with clear thinking, proper accumulation of information, logical programmatic formulation, and decisive implementation.  I contrasted the inadequate responses (self-strengthening, constitutional reform) of change leaders in China during the waning days of the Qing Dynasty that brought a messy revolution in 1911 but no real change until 1949;  with the astonishing success of Yamagato Aritomo and Ito Hirobumi in leading a Meiji era program for change, incorporating the best approaches utilizded in Great Britain, Germany, France, and the United States to send Japan on a course toward industrial modernization within five years of the 1868 Meiji Restoration. 

 

“Rapid change is possible,” I said, “if the leaders are talented and intent on bringing swift transformation.”

 

At this point I got the clicking of fingers indicative of support for my message from members of those groups mentioned above.  I then transitioned to my other main message:  that Superintendent Ed Graff, an academic lightweight lacking philosophical clarity, cannot be the leader of an overhauled academic program.   I ended with reference to my 16 hour a day commitment to change, for which the time is now, not later.

 

As I was making these latter remarks  the fingers again clicked vigorously and my comments, which often are met with dead silence in a crowd more often dominated by either Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) staff or members of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), drew an enthusiastic round of applause.

 

Then, as if we were speaking upon a common theme, members of the mentioned groups advocating for change took the microphone and expressed deep dissatisfaction with the academic program, inhospitable school staff attitudes, and specific experiences endured in striving for a better education for students in the African American, Latino, Somali, and Native communities.  I clapped vigorously for the speakers and their leaders sought me out for enthusiastic hugs. 

 

Clearly there is a potential movement for educational change now building, in evidence on both 30 October and 13 November.  Were this movement to continue and expand, it could be the catalyst for dramatic change long resisted by the education establishment types produced in wretched programs of teacher and administrator training who dominate at the Davis Center, the MFT, and the school sites.

 

……………………………………………………………………….

 

Having told the board, “Now when I walk out of here, you tell yourselves that there goes the guy that we will never fool, because when I head over to New Salem I will be administering to the children that you academically abuse during the daytime”---  I took my leave to go run the new Salem Tuesday Tutoring program.

 

When I returned at 8:35 PM, MPS lobbyist Josh Downham was giving a presentation on the MPS legislative agenda, which predictably focused on funding rather than any legislation that would contribute to the needed structural changes in K-12 education.  Downham, clearly unaware of the irony of emphasizing universal administration of the ACT college readiness exam to students who cannot even indicate grade level proficiency on the MCAs, noted that emphasis on taking the ACT was the trend;  such policy is what I call the Great Leap Forward approach, riffing on the Maoist 1958-1961 program in China that endeavored to exceed Great Britain in industrial production within 15 years and ended after sending tens of thousands of people to their deaths instead.

 

But matters got much worse during the last phase of this meeting:

 

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For many months, this wretched assemblage of board members has been avoiding discussing their joint values while declaring that they really should agree on some commonly held values regarding the program of the Minneapolis Public Schools.  Three or so weeks ago, Board Chair Nelson Inz and Vice-Chair Siad Ali put together a list of joint values that they thought they had discerned from comments made at certain junctures by board members, but his method of presentation drew the particular ire of KerryJo Felder (District 2 member), who views such an act as domineering on the part of Inz.

 

Inz opened the final phase of this meeting with calls for a determination of values discussion, which grew so acrimonious and scattered that Superintendent Ed Graff soon gave the signal to attending Davis Center staff that they could leave.

 

Topics emerged erratically and included a suggestion from Felder that social promotion be ended;  a request from Bob Felder that financial reporting provide more nuanced detail on all funding that goes to school sites, so that funding that seems to go to Davis Center staff or services but contributes to school programs be included (an issue also of concern to outgoing At-Large member Rebecca Gagnon);  and eventually another descent into bickering between Felder and Inz as to the proper time and forum for the discussion, inasmuch as the time was drifting toward 10:00 PM.

 

The meeting at this point took on the aura of a bad dream:

 

No actual values were being discussed, nothing that would define a philosophy of education or specify efforts to improve student academic performance.  The board has had opportunities to have such a discussion, saliently at board retreats.  But they have never seized such an opportunity, despite attempts by Walser to induce such discussion, so that he can promote his terrible ideas in opposition to common curriculum and testing for student progress:  Other board members, at a loss as to what they would reply in the absence of any coherent educational philosophy on their own parts, never embrace Walser’s plea for discussion, echoed rather erratically in the moment by Felder.

 

Inz is reluctant to designate time and space for a meeting on values, most likely for those reasons for retiscence indicated above.  Felder and Gagnon resent Inz’s stance;  Walser most likely does, too, but since Inz endorsed his candidacy in the 2016 election that brought him to the board with a narrow win over Josh Reimnitz, he demures in direct criticism of Inz.

 

And so the stage in a theater of the absurd spins wildly in a school district wherein fewer than 50% of students are proficient in reading and mathematics, and from which even those who manage to graduate are so lacking in fundamental knowledge and skill sets that one-third need remediation once matriculating on college and university campuses.

 

The eerie atmosphere of this stage of the meeting was intensified by the fact that the only remaining people in the room were the general counsel, the school board administrator, the security guard, and myself.  I usually stay until the wretched end of these assemblages, but as the discussion spun wildly out of control, I rose and said with vocal force:

 

“if you want to know why students are leaving this district, look at yourselves on the video of this meeting---  and look for my review on my blog.  You fools!”

 

I caught the eye of the security guard and we exchanged restrained, knowing looks.

 

………………………………………………

 

Thus it was that a community aroused signaled the possible advent of a mass movement for change.

 

And the membership of the MPS Board of Education demonstrated that level of ineptitude at which the movement will aim, eventually enveloping and sweeping away such human detritus on a wave of transformation for the provision of an education of excellence to young people who have been waiting for a very long time.

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