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.