>Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect<: Exposing the Intellectual and Moral Deficiency of >Star Tribune< Staff, Along with Those Same Qualities in So Many Others in the Murky World of K-12 Education

Over the last half-decade, a dozen or more of my articles have appeared in the Opinion Pages of the Star Tribune.  Although Opinion Pages editor Doug Tice and his staff a few months ago did publish one of my counterpoints to an article by that articulator of vacuous positions on education, Ted Kolderie, the last article of mine that Tice and colleagues published with any enthusiasm was A Tale of Two Girards, a masterfully written piece that addressed the economic disparities in Minneapolis and the role that the abominable quality of education in the Minneapolis Public Schools plays in maintaining those disparities.

 

That article was brilliantly written and elegantly insightful and recognized by Tice and staff as such;  but the article was one of those that focus on the dilemmas, not the solutions.  Since that time, about a year ago, when I penned that opinion piece, I have sent many articles to Tice and staff that analyze the failures of people and processes at the Minneapolis Public Schools and those at colleges, universities, journalistic institutions, political and governmental organizations, and the general public that serve to maintain our terrible public urban schools in the United States as they are.

 

This hits home in taking those at the Star Tribune to task for the role that they play in maintaining the corrupt status quo by assigning unseasoned and mediocre journalists such as Faiza Mahamud to the Minneapolis education beat and by giving appearance of coziness with the education establishment that imposes the catastrophic system of K-12 education on our precious children.

 

This is the sort of intellectual and moral corruption that I am exposing in many quarters with the presentation of my book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect, with prospective presentation to the general public (much of the work is already entered on my blog) on 1 May (May Day) 2019.         

 

In the context rendered above, please proceed to this letter via email that I just sent to Opinion Pages editor Doug Tice, editorial chief Scott Gillespie, and Opinion Pages staff at the Star Tribune.

 

March 28, 2019

 

Doug and Star Tribune Opinion Pages staff---

 

The attached article has gotten record-setting hits on my blog from a rapidly ascending network of followers who know that I possess nonpareil knowledge of K-12 education in the United States generally and in Minneapolis particularly.  Were Diane Ravitch to debate me under formal rules of disputation, she would walk away with knees knocking and legs buckling.

 

I have no lingering faith in the powers of you at Star Tribune Opinion Pages to recognize high quality articles on education when staring right into them and, as is the case with so many in the murky world of K-12 education that I am investigating for my book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect, I have narrowed my questions concerning your manifest discernment as follows:

 

1)  Are they really that ignorant?

 

2) Are they in deep denial?

 

3)  Or are they as intellectually and morally corrupt as they appear?

 

Do see the attachment and publish this most recent submission if you can rise above your own deficiencies, insecurities, and resentments to give your readers the benefit that my bevy of blog readers receive with every article that I enter on this one of many platforms and venues.    

 

With considerable lack of regard---

 

Gary

 

Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.

Director, New Salem Educational Initiative

Selection of a True Scholar as Chief Academic Officer is Vital to the Development of Knowledge-Intensive Education at the Minneapolis Public Schools

When former Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Michael Thomas departed to become superintendent in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the end of academic year 2017-2018, MPS Superintendent Ed Graff opted not to fill that position immediately.  Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Cecilia Saddler continued as head of the Department of Teaching and Learning (which has responsibility for MPS academic programming) and was listed as one of the major leaders at the district on the MPS website, but she retained the title of Deputy that she had held under Thomas.

 

In October 2018, Graff tapped MPS Chief of Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability (REAA) Eric Moore to take on the role of Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning while keeping his Chief of REAA position.  But within a month, intra-Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) pressures induced Graff to move toward designation of Moore as merely interim chief of academics, so that there is now as we approach April and May 2019 a search for a permanent head of academics.   

 

Eric Moore is one of the most able leaders at the Davis Center, heading a staff that meticulously records all manner of data for the school district, including disaggregated data of student academic proficiency.  Moore also understands many of the impediments facing the district in articulating and implementing an academic program to bring knowledge-intensive, carefully sequenced instruction to long-waiting MPS students.  But inasmuch as those intra-central office pressures undermined his ability to stay in the position, the selection of a new chief academic officer becomes the paramount initiative in an organization whose whole reason for being is to impart high-quality education to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

Incoherent, knowledge-deficient curriculum and low teacher quality are the key problems vexing the Minneapolis Public Schools.  The Department of Teaching and Learning is comprised of 30 current staff members whose master’s degrees have all been granted by departments, schools, and colleges of education, rather than by college or university departments in major academic fields (e. g., mathematics, physics, English literature, history, political science, economics, psychology, fine arts).  Superintendent Graff himself has a degree in elementary education (having the least rigorous course of study on any college or university campus) and an online education administration degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, obtained while he was an administrator in the school district of Anchorage, Alaska.  Thus it is that none of the current key decision-makers for the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools are academicians imbued with knowledge of that quality that any school district has the responsibility to impart to students.

 

The district of the Minneapolis Public Schools is a subset of urban school districts across the nation that share the same challenges.  Administrators and teachers across the United States all receive inadequate and even harmful training that produces putative educators who have none of the respect for knowledge that typifies college and university professors and other field specialists.  Graff, who has done excellent work in slimming the central bureaucracy and in assembling a very fine staff in finance, information, technology, operations, human resources, and research/evaluation, must now rise above his own deficiencies as an academician to select a chief academic officer who is a genuine scholar with depth of and respect for knowledge.

 

Before assessing the applications that have come in at this point, Graff should contact Linda Bevilacqua at the Core Knowledge Foundation in Charlottesville, Virginia, whose executive director, E. D. Hirsch, is the nation’s foremost leader in the development of knowledge-intensive curriculum and schools capable of imparting rigorous academic instruction to students of all demographic descriptors.  The search must be on at the Minneapolis Public Schools for an academic leader who is a scholar in a major academic discipline and who understands how to overhaul curriculum, raise teacher quality, reorganize the MPS Department of Teaching and Learning, and utilize associate superintendents so as to raise proficiency levels of MPS students in mathematics, reading, and in all major subject areas.

 

Consulting Ms. Bevilacqua and E.D. Hirsch himself is the first step that Graff and staff leading the search for a new chief academic officer should take.  The new chief of academics will need to be a scholar who understands the education establishment as it is but brings a very different view of curriculum and teaching.  With the needed chief of academics, the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools could be a model for locally centralized school districts across a nation whose citizens have a penchant for local control.  

 

A scholarly chief of academics possessing those skills necessary to overhaul curriculum and teacher quality and to implement knowledge-intensive education to students of all demographic descriptors would make our own public school system in Minneapolis a model for others and bring this nation closer to the democracy that we perceive ourselves to be.

Vison for Academic Excellence at the Minneapolis Public Schools--- Understanding that MPS Superintendent Ed Graff and the Current MPS Board of Education are Irrelevant to the Development and Impartation of the Necessary Program

When members of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education voted 8-0 (KerryJo Felder was not in attendance) on Tuesday, 12 March, to extend a new contract to Superintendent Ed Graff and expressed their reasons for trusting his academic leadership, the chances that Graff or the current board could have in role to play in the development and impartation of the necessary program for achieving academic excellence became nil:

 

There are no prospects for achieving academic excellence under the academic leadership of this superintendent and even less with this composition of the MPS Board of Education. 

 

The program that will be developed and implemented within the next twelve months at the Minneapolis Public Schools is the following:

 

1       >>>>>           Curriculum will be overhauled, along the lines that I have presented in many articles on this blog.  At the K-5 level, knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum will be developed with reference to the Core Knowledge program of E.  D. Hirsch, my own innovations upon that curriculum, Common Core, and the Minnesota state standards for mathematics, reading, and all major subject areas.  At grades 6-8, students will be presented with knowledge-intensive curriculum, across the major subject areas, that in rigor exceeds current course offerings in MPS high schools.  At grades 9-12, all but a few students who face unusual learning challenges will take a full slate of required Advanced Placement (AP) courses;  specialized elective courses across the liberal, technological, and vocational arts;  and courses that match driving student interest and plans for the future in post-secondary institutions and careers.

 

2       >>>>>           Teachers will be retrained to be possessors of knowledge-intensive information sets across the liberal, technological, and vocational arts.  Teachers at the K-5 level will emerge with rigorous Masters of Fine Arts degrees;  those at grades 6-8 and 9-12 will be given financial support to pursue pertinent master’s degrees in legitimate academic disciplines.  No degrees received from departments, schools, or colleges of education will be recognized.

 

3       >>>>>           Academic remediation and enrichment will be provided with great intentionality to meet student needs in developing grade level competency and preparing to meet the challenges of a curriculum of enhanced knowledge-intensive rigor.

 

4       >>>>>           Firm connections to struggling families will be provided by creating a large MPS Department of Resource Provision and Referral comprised of people comfortable on the streets and in the homes of students and families living at the urban core.

 

5       >>>>>           Reduction and rationalization of the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) bureaucracy will continue, so as to maximize emphasis on serving students and training teachers.

 

Current MPS Superintendent Ed Graff and the abiding iteration of the MPS Board of Education are respectively tangential and irrelevant to the delivery of the above program.  Graff does not have the academic training and wherewithal to design and implement the program, so that any chance that he has of continuing as superintendent will result from his hiring of a Chief Academic Officer with understanding of and ability to implement Core Knowledge, Common Core, and knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum.  Graff will have to hire such an academic officer and the current board will have to accede to the hiring;  or both Graff and the board must be jettisoned.

 

Such jettisoning will be achieved via the K-12 Revolution that will sweep through the halls of the Davis Center and throughout MPS schools.  I will present my Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect  by 15 April 2019.  I will then embark on a media campaign that will bring wide awareness of the debased condition of the Minneapolis Public Schools.  MPS personnel will be shaken to the core and many Davis Center staff members will depart their current positions.  Enormous pressure will be brought to bear on Graff and current board members Jenny Arneson (District 1, Northeast Minneapolis), KerryJo Felder (District 2, North Minneapolis), Siad Ali (District 3, Cedar-Riverside and an environs), Bob Felser (District 4, Bryn Mawr, Lowry Hill, southern Linden Hills), Nelson Inz (District 5, South Minneapolis east of I-35), Ira Jourdain (District 6, South Minneapolis west of I-35), Kim Ellison (At-Large), Kim Caprini (At-Large), and Josh Pauly (At-Large).  They will either embrace the five-point program or be induced to depart.

 

In addition to the presentation of my book and my personal efforts in numerous venues, a community-wide movement rooted in North Minneapolis and including areas throughout the city will exert much of the needed pressure.  Already, at the 12 March meeting of the MPS Board of Education, Radical Consulting Solutions Director Adriana Cerrillo and I mounted an offensive that brought a new contingent of community activists to the fore.  The day is looming at which first 15, then 25, then 50 and more activists will attend the second-Tuesday meetings of the MPS Board of Education.

 

There are two chief ways to wage revolution in moving from a United Front to a more radical stage:  The palace is pierced and current occupants of the monarch’s court are persuaded to join the revolution;  or the palace is swept clean and entirely new occupants replace the Old Guard with highly qualified members of the revolutionary force.

 

Current Davis staff members and occupants of seats on the MPS Board of Education should take note, make the rational decision, or prepare to fall as looming events unfold.

Clarity as to the Impossibility of Achieving Academic Excellence with Current MPS Board of Education Members and the Program of Superintendent Ed Graff

When members of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education voted 8-0 (KerryJo Felder was not in attendance) on Tuesday, 12 March, to extend a new contract to Superintendent Ed Graff and expressed their reasons for trusting his academic leadership, the current condition of the school district reached clarity:

 

There are no prospects for achieving academic excellence under this superintendent and even less with this composition of the MPS Board of Education. 

 

There is not enough substance to the four-point program focused on social and emotional learning, multi-tiered system of support, literacy, and equity;  or the MPS Comprehensive Design;  to promote hopes that a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education can be imparted to students under this superintendent or this board.

 

The board is even worse than the superintendent as to matters of academic import.  There is no agreed upon driving philosophy expressed by the board, and what can be gleaned from member comments is dauntingly negative.  There is an anti-assessment slant to the views of the board;  Bob Walser has been silent of late but for many weeks was the chief opponent of assessments, among which at the Minneapolis Public Schools are the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) and the National Assessment of Academic Progress;  now Ira Jourdain has suddenly surged to the fore with anti-assessment comments.  But no one on the board seems interested in academic assessments or the close questions of highly adept research and evaluation chief Eric Moore, as was Tracine Asberry during her tenure on the MPS Board of Education.  Nor does this board seem very interested when I cite the many examples of wretched teaching and classroom situations:  an English teacher at North High School who assigned the Autobiography of Malcom X but seemed to know nothing about the life of the great leader herself;  a geometry class at the same school that was so out of control that students were learning nothing about the subject;  a free day for watching movies given to all students on Friday, 8 March, at Franklin Middle School, wherein a social studies teacher had in a major erroneous comment placed Mayan civilization near the Amazon River.

 

If there is any hope at all that the Minneapolis Public Schools can achieve academic excellence during the tenure of superintendent Ed Graff, this would come with the hiring of a permanent chief of academics.  Graff himself is an academic lightweight, devoid of training in a major academic field and lacking any clearly expressed educational philosophy.  The forte of Eric Moore is research and evaluation, not leadership of the academic program.  Graff is now stating that Moore’s status as academic chief is temporary, but this is dissembling:  Back in August 2018, Moore’s salary was $149,900 as research and evaluation chief;  when he was elevated to what was then stated as chief of academics (without any reference to the position being for an interim), his salary went to $162,690, a $12,790 increase.

 

In the anti-assessment atmosphere that currently pervades the MPS Board of Education, Moore is likely to seek a positon in another district in the course of the next weeks or months.  The slim hope of retaining Moore would be for Graff to hire a permanent academic chief who can convey to members of the MPS Board of Education the importance of assessing student academic achievement, especially in reading and mathematics, and then prevail upon Jourdain and others the need to support student assessment.  There would then be the matter of that $12,790 increase, but in fact Moore is worth that salary if the splendid work that he and his staff in the Department of Research, Evaluation, and Assessment (REA) is beneficially utilized by the district.

 

Beyond assessment for basic skills, though, a new chief of academics would need to promote knowledge-intensive education, such as that promoted by the Core Knowledge Foundation for students at K-8, and that I extend to high school and college students via my Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.  This would require another major successful philosophical conveyance to the MPS Board of Education.

 

……………………………………………………………………….

 

Ed Graff is not likely to seek or hire an academic chief who promotes knowledge-intensive education.

 

The members of this MPS Board of Education is not likely to be receptive to the substantive education promoted by E. D. Hirsch at the Core Knowledge Foundation, and that I provide to my students via Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.

 

In these cases we need a new superintendent and a new school board.

 

And if these be the cases, I’ll be building the mass movement necessary to oust Graff and elect new school board members in November 2020, moving from that vantage point to the complete overhaul of the board and academic decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

A New Phase of the K-12 Revolution Began with Community Responses to the Intellectual and Moral Corruption Exhibited by Members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education Last Evening (Tuesday, 12 March)

As expected, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education voted last evening (Tuesday, 12 March) to extend a new contract to Superintendent Ed Graff.  This incompetent group of board members voted 8-0 in favor of a new contract.  District #2 Member KerryJo Felder, who has had a contentious relationship with Graff and possibly might have voted not to offer him a new contract, was not in attendance:  She was dealing with the after-effects of a fire in her home.  

 

But new At-large Members Josh Pauly and Kim Caprini conveyed during electoral campaign November 2018 that they would vote to retain Graff.  At the meeting, Caprini made her case for Graff, saying (while seeming tacitly to admit that MPS faces many unmet challenges) that the Graff administration has the district in the best position for moving forward that she has seen during her years as a parent and site committee member.  Pauly, in the taciturn fashion that has described his comments thus far, essentially reiterated what Caprini and others speaking in this vein had said by the time he spoke.

 

District #1 Member Jenny Arneson said that Graff had identified his four goals (social and emotional learning, multi-tiered system of support, literacy, and equity) and worked suitably toward meeting them.

 

District #3 Member Siad Ali noted that he had cast one of the votes for Graff’s opponent (Brenda Cassellius) at the end of the second-phase superintendent search but had been happy with his work.

 

District # 5 Member Nelson Inz conveyed that in his view the district is in much better shape, financially and in general, than was the case upon Graff’s arrival.

 

District #6 Member Ira Jourdain maintained that Graff’s focus on social and emotional learning rather than standardized tests is the most favorable feature of this superintendent moving him to vote for a new contract (see my comment on this Jourdain utterance at the end of this article).

 

Neither District #4 Member Bob Walser nor At-Large Member Kim Ellison commented.

 

………………………………………………………………………………

 

Be reminded that these irresponsible votes constitute tawdry Act II following Act !, which brought Graff to the Minneapolis Public Schools.  The superintendent search that ran from spring 2015 to spring 2016 was an abysmally botched process.  During the first phase, the board failed to recognize the best candidate, Houston Independent School District turn-around specialist Charles Faust;  then acted in ways that shut down that phase altogether.  During the second phase, the board only considered two finalists and opted for Graff.

 

Remember also that during Graff’s two years and seven months at the Minneapolis Public Schools, student academic achievement levels have been mostly flat but in certain areas for particular demographic groups have actually fallen.  The number of African American students proficient in mathematics has fallen from 19% to 17%;  the American Indian student mathematics proficiency rate also has fallen from 19% to 17%, the mathematics proficiency rate for students on free or reduced price lunch has dropped from 25% to 22%, and overall mathematics proficiency has declined from 44% of to 42% during the Graff years.

 

Reading proficiency has risen from an overall rate of 43% to 45% during the Graff years, a slight improvement similarly witnessed for most demographic groups.  But for African American students, reading proficiency was flat at 21% and is still under 30% for American Indian and Hispanic students, and for students on free or reduced price lunch.

 

Proficiency in science also remains abysmal, just 34% overall with declines from 13% to 10%, 21% to 17%, 42% to 34%, and 17% to 15% respectively for African American students, Hispanic students, Asian students, and recipients of free or reduced priced lunch.

 

And remember that Graff was a failure in Anchorage, Alaska, where as the end of his three-year tenure in that district approached the school board opted not to renew his contract.  Very tellingly, Graff received an award from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) during the years encompassing that tenure of wretched student academic attainment.

 

Remember, too, that the Graff program lauded by the members of the MPS Board of Education in voting to offer Graff a new contract has no hope of improving academic results in the Minneapolis Public Schools:

 

The Graff program has focused on four goals cited by Arneson and either explicitly or tacitly mentioned by others:  social and emotional learning;  multi-tiered system (MTSS) of support;  literacy;  and equity. 

 

Social and emotional learning focuses on respect for oneself and others as necessary preparation for receiving academic instruction;  this should be a given but in itself cannot be the basis for a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete academic program. 

 

Multi-tiered system of support putatively gives individual students the array of services, including counseling and targeted academic intervention, that they need to be successful;  were MTSS to work the way that the approach should, great benefit would accrue, but there have been major problems in implementation. 

 

Literacy should be a given;  but subject area focus should drive improvement in reading, so that students acquire a broad vocabulary and depth of reading comprehension across a range of academic disciplines. 

 

And equity is a goal that will only be reached by the provision of a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education to students of all demographic descriptors;  this is not happening.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………………

 

I and three others spoke against giving Graff a new contract during Public Comments at last evening’s meeting.  At least ten people were in attendance to support those speaking against extending that contract to Graff.  The rhythm of the meeting was favorably disrupted;  without these opponents, the meeting most likely would have turned into an exercise in false adoration and celebration.

 

MPS Board of Education Chair Nelson Inz and Vice-Chair Kim Caprini interrupted the comments of those arguing against contract extension, asserting that matters pertaining to MPS employees were off-limits for Public Comment.  The interruptions were absurd, typically since I and other commenters were citing facts that are in the public record.  The notion that factual reasons in the Graff record for denying him a contract were pronounced off-limits demonstrates the deep moral corruption of a controlling board that seeks to maintain a woeful status quo, to the political benefit of members who to a person are bought and paid for by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party.

 

I and most of the others went forward with our comments anyway, to the clear chagrin of Inz and Caprini.

 

………………………………………………………………………….

 

The meeting of 12 March signaled a new phase of the K-12 Revolution, for two main reasons: 

 

First, opponents of the Graff contract who gathered on that evening did so intentionally and will do so again, with much heftier numbers, as community organizing becomes a much larger component of the K-12 Revolution.

 

One of many facets of community organization will be mobilization for the November 2020 elections when the seats of KerryJo Felder, Bob Walser, Ira Jourdain, and Kim Ellison will be up for voter decisions.  I intend to organize vigorously for the defeat of all of these current members. 

 

Jourdain has emerged as a particularly objectionable board member for his opposition to standardized testing, which goes so far as to urge parents and students to be aware of the opt-out possibility with regard to the looming (spring 2019) Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) that grade 3-8 students take to determine mathematics and reading proficiency;  grade 10 students take to determine reading proficiency;  and grade 11 students take to determine mathematics proficiency.  Promotion of opting out of these important assessments is irresponsibility of high magnitude.   

 

Second, I am already entering on my blog large portions of Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect and will very soon this spring move the book to publication.  Concurrently, I continue to work toward completion of Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, which in fifteen chapters provides the knowledge-intensive education that is lacking in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

I will be using these enormous, fact-filled tomes to exert maximum pressure on MPS Superintendent Ed Graff and the school board that voted with such intellectual and moral corruption to renew the contract of an administrator who has now failed miserably in two school districts.

Superintendent Ed Graff Should Not Be the Recipient of a New Contract at This Evening’s (12 March 2019) Meeting of the MPS Board of Education; Voters Should Remember the Outcome When They Go to the Polls in November 2020

The Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education will vote this evening on extending a new contract to Superintendent Ed Graff.  This incompetent group of board members will most likely vote 9-0 or 8-1 in favor of a new contract.  District #2 Member KerryJo Felder has a contentious relationship with Graff and possibly might not vote to offer him a new contract.   But new At-large Members Josh Pauly and Kim Caprini conveyed in the electoral campaign of November 2018 that they would vote to retain Graff;  and according to my best assessment, District #1 Member Jenny Arneson, District #3 Member Siad Ali, District #4 Member Bob Walser, District # 5 Member Nelson Inz, District #6 Member Ira Jourdain, and At-Large Member Kim Ellison will vote to extend a new contract to Ed Graff.

 

This is irresponsible, the tawdry Act II following Act !, which brought Graff to the Minneapolis Public Schools.  The superintendent search that ran from spring 2015 to spring 2016 was an abysmally botched process.  During the first phase, the board failed to recognize the best candidate, Houston Independent School District turn-around specialist Charles Faust;  then acted in ways that shut down that phase altogether.  During the second phase, the board only considered two finalists and opted for Graff.

 

Graff was a failure as superintendent in Anchorage, Alaska.

 

Remember that his record in that school district was abysmal, represented saliently by academic year 2014-2015 as follows:

 

Brief Summary of Achievement Levels during Ed Graff’s

Tenure as Superintendent in Anchorage, Alaska

 

Results for Academic Year 2014-2015

 

All Grade Levels

 

Language Arts

 

Does Not          Partially Meets         Meets              Exceeds

Meet                 Meets                            Standard         Standard

Standard          Standard

 

Student

Categories

 

African                 35.1%                    42.1%                          20.5%                  2.3%

American

 

White/                 13.3%                    33.7%                          44.3%                  8.5%

Caucasian

 

Hispanic              28.3%                    42.3%                          26.9%                  2.5%

 

 

Alaska                   42.4%                    37.5%                           18.1%                 1.9%

Native

American/

American

Indian

 

All Grade Levels

 

Mathematics

 

Does Not          Partially Meets         Meets              Exceeds

Meet                 Meets                            Standard         Standard

Standard          Standard

 

Student

Categories

 

African                 29.5%                   51.3.%                        16.9%                  2.3%

American

 

White/                 12.9%                    39.7%                          36.5%                  10.9%

Caucasian

 

Hispanic              23.4%                    50.9%                          21.8%                  3.9%

 

 

Alaska                   29.0%                    50.3%                           18.2%                 2.5%

Native

American/

American

Indian

 

Graff has performed similarly wretchedly as prime leader of the academic program as MPS superintendent:

 

Minneapolis Public School proficiency rates for the years that include two (those ending in 2017 and 2018) of the Graff tenure are as follows:

 

MPS Academic Proficiency Rates for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, & 2018

 

Math                     2014       2015       2016      2017      2018

 

African                  23%       19%         19%      16%       17%

American

 

American             23%        19%           19%       16%        17%

Indian

 

Hispanic              31%         32%          31%       29%        26%

 

Asian                     48%         50%          50%       44%        46%

 

White                   77%         78%          78%       77%        77%

 

Free/                     26%         26%          25%       24%        22%

Reduced

 

All                          44%         44%           44%     42%        42%

 

Reading               2014       2015       2016      2017      2018

 

African                  22%       21%         21%      21%       21%

American

 

American             21%        20%           21%       22%        23%

Indian

 

Hispanic              23%         25%          26%       26%        27%

 

Asian                     41%         40%          45%       38%        44%

 

White                   78%         77%          77%       78%        80%

 

Free/                     23%         23%          23%       25%        25%

Reduced

 

All                          42%         42%           43%     43%        45%

 

Science                2014       2015       2016      2017      2018

 

African                 11%       15%         13%      11%       10%

American

 

American             14%        16%           13%       16%        13%

Indian

 

Hispanic              17%         18%          21%       19%        17%

 

Asian                     31%         35%          42%       31%        34%

 

White                   71%         75%          71%       70%        71%

 

Free/                     14%         15%          17%       16%        15%

Reduced

 

All                          33%         36%           35%     34%        34%

 

Graff has now served as MPS superintendent for two years and seven months.  He Inherited a Strategic Plan Acceleration 2020 that was a mere exercise in goal-setting with no chance of succeeding and was based on ill-conceived philosophical principles:  Most especially, the plan identified the school as the unit of change;  to the contrary, the unit of change must be the district as a whole, with consistent overhaul transpiring in the central office at the Davis Center (1250 West Broadway) and then throughout the schools of the district.

 

Graff and staff are working on a new strategic plan. 

 

In the meantime, the Graff program has focused on four goals:  social and emotional learning;  multi-tiered system (MTSS) of support;  literacy;  and equity.  Social and emotional learning focuses on respect for oneself and others as necessary preparation for receiving academic instruction;  this should be a given but in itself cannot be the basis for a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete academic program.  Multi-tiered system of support putatively gives individual students the array of services, including counseling and targeted academic intervention, that they need to be successful;  were MTSS to work the way that the approach should, great benefit would accrue, but there have been major problems in implementation.  Literacy should be a given;  but subject area focus should drive improvement in reading, so that students acquire a broad vocabulary and depth of reading comprehension across a range of academic disciplines.  And equity is a goal that will only be reached by the provision of a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education to students of all demographic descriptors;  this is not happening.

 

During the Graff administration, student academic achievement levels have been mostly flat but in certain areas for particular demographic groups have actually fallen.  The number of African American students proficient in mathematics has fallen from 19% to 17%;  the American Indian student mathematics proficiency rate also has fallen from 19% to 17%, the mathematics proficiency rate for students on free or reduced price lunch has dropped from 25% to 22%, and overall mathematics proficiency has declined from 44% of to 42% during the Graff years.

 

Reading proficiency has risen from an overall rate of 43% to 45% during the Graff years, a slight improvement similarly witnessed for most demographic groups.  But for African American students, reading proficiency was flat at 21% and is still under 30% for American Indian and Hispanic students, and for students on free or reduced price lunch.

 

Proficiency in science also remains abysmal, just 34% overall with declines from 13% to 10%, 21% to 17%, 42% to 34%, and 17% to 15% respectively for African American students, Hispanic students, Asian students, and recipients of free or reduced priced lunch.

 

These figures are very similar to those describing student performance when Ed Graff was superintendent of schools in Anchorage, Alaska;  very tellingly, Graff received an award from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) during the years encompassing that tenure of wretched student academic attainment.

 

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My investigation into the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools reveals superior performance in the Department of Finance, headed by Chief Ibrahima Diop;  and in the Department of Information Technology led by Fadi Fadhil.  The Operations Division is also ably run by Karen Devet;  and Maggie Sullivan is a bright young woman who is struggling mightily to bring higher teacher quality to the schools of the district.

 

But the academic program that should be the core concern of any localized school district is languishing unacceptably.  A few months back, brilliant research division leader Eric Moore was given lead responsibility for the academic program, with Cecilia Saddler as second in authority for the academic program as Deputy for Academics, Leadership, and Learning.  Working under the constraints of the inadequate Graff program, neither of these able people has articulated a vision or overseen initiatives capable of improving the academic program.  Chief of Staff Suzanne Kelly took the lead in developing the Comprehensive District Design;  that program is too tentative and does not place proper emphasis on knowledge intensity and skill development.  Associate Superintendents Ron Wagner, Carla Steinbach-Huther, and Brian Zambreno erroneously and irresponsibly act so as to protect building principals and teachers from scrutiny, rather than endeavoring to improve academic performance;  my analysis indicates that these three do not have the philosophical grasp or the professional training to implement a viable academic program, even if they embraced the responsibility.

 

Michael Walker is in his fifth year as head of the Office of Black Male Achievement;  with 7,000 African males in the district, the office serves fewer than 500 students in what is still a pilot program.  Walker’s salary has risen from $114,000 to $128,000 during his tenure.

 

Anna Ross is a woefully inadequate leader for the Department of Indian Education;  she reveals little understanding of the data that show wretched academic performance for American Indian students and little vision as to how to improve acquisition of key knowledge and skill sets by American Indian students.

 

Thus, the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools is the Counter-Gestalt:  rather than being more than the sum of their parts, those collectively involved in the academic program are individually less than they could be.  Even those with talent and promise are less effective than they could be:   A system of knowledge-poor curriculum, inadequate teachers, and misguided approach drags everyone to a lower level.

 

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The prime duty of superintendent in a locally centralized school district is to oversee the creation of an academic program that provides students with a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education.  There is no hope that the four-point program of Ed Graff or the MPS Comprehensive Design can even raise mathematics and reading skills to grade level.  An abiding embarrassment for those involved in the development of the MPS academic program is that we cannot move beyond discussion of the development of basic skills to the provision of the full array of knowledge sets in mathematics, natural science, history, economics, government, literature, and English composition because the  administration of Ed Graff is so incompetent even in addressing basic skills.   

 

Graff and the academic decision-makers and program implementers that he has assembled have failed to promote the academic progress of the young people whose education is their sacred responsibility.

 

Members of the MPS Board of Education are poised to vote to give MPS Superintendent Ed Graff a new contract.

 

If that be the case, the mass movement to overhaul processes at the Minneapolis Public Schools must build, gather force, and sweep away those board members up for reelection in November 2020.

 

And in the meantime, the sweeping away and cleaning out must include the many incompetent academic decision-makers in the current administration.