Mar 12, 2019

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.
 
…………………………………………………………..
 
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.
 
……………………………………………………………………………..
 
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.

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