April 2019 Update
and Retrospective
New
Salem Educational Initiative
and
the
K-12 Revolution
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational
Initiative
This note goes forth to the many of you who have taken an avid
interest in the varied pursuits of the New Salem Educational Initiative,
fundamentally a college preparatory program for young people living at the
urban core, especially North Minneapolis;
but by extension a full-scale effort to revolutionize education in the
United States by transforming one locally centralized school district into a
national model.
Retrospective
I began this sojourn in spring 1971 when, as a sophomore at Southern
Methodist University (SMU; Dallas,
Texas) I decided to become a teacher of inner city youth. From that time until graduation in 1973, I
coordinated tutoring programs for SMU Volunteer Services that served young
people at all grade levels of the Dallas Independent School District; facilities for neglected children; and schools for youth with special needs.
Upon graduation, I taught at L. G. Pinkston High School in West
Dallas, a school and community with which I had already made an intimate connection
during the SMU years. Thus continued a 48-year
career to date, spent mostly teaching inner city young people but along the way
also teaching in a prison for a year, English as a Second Language for a total
of two years in Taiwan, as a lecturer for the Fulbright Foundation for another
year in Taiwan, and a total of four and a half years as a college instructor in
route to a masters (University of Iowa) and Ph. D. (University of Minnesota) in
Chinese and Taiwanese history, and by invitation of St. Olaf College
(Northfield, Minnesota).
My dedication to young people in North Minneapolis began in 1991,
when in a metaphorical representation of my career I defended my Ph. D. dissertation
(Agricultural Development and the Fate of
Farmers in Taiwan, 1945-1990) while teaching at an alternative high school
for young people reclaimed from the streets and gang life.
In 1993 I launched the Tuesday evening tutoring program at New
Salem Missionary Baptist Church (Reverend Jerry McAfee, pastor) that continues at
that same 6:00 PM (6:30 PM for evenings on which the Minneapolis Public Schools
[MPS] Board of Education meets [I am always first up for 5:30 PM Public
Comments]). In 2003 I added a
seven-day-a-week small-group program that elevates students to grade level and
then puts them on a college preparatory course of study. I have 125 a students in my network, never
letting them go once they enter my universe and continuing to provide academic
instruction and mentorship when they go on to post-secondary study and to lives
of success.
Activism and Revolutionary
Program
In August 2014 I
considered the fact that while I intend to live long I might not live forever.
I decided to engage in
all manner of activities designed to expose the deficiencies of the Minneapolis
Public Schools and to induce transformation of that school district into a model
for the delivery of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education imparted throughout
the preK-12 years.
I began investigating
the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools and creating venues for
entering my views on K-12 education into the public sphere. In addition to conducting exhaustive research
and interviews that have informationally poured forth into my book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public
Schools: Current Condition, Future
Prospect, I initiated a monthly academic journal (Journal of the K-12 Revolution:
Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota), began recording
for my television show (The K-12 Revolution
with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison, Wednesdays, 6:00 PM, Minneapolis
Telecommunications Network [MTN] Channel 17), began to speak first during
Public Comments at all monthly meetings of the MPS Board of Education, and held
forth at all manner of community events and forums.
I have now added a door
to door community organizing effort to my program for change, designed to build
a vast movement for electing a new type of school board member who will look
beyond political ambitions and unsavory associations to embrace my program for
educational excellence: knowledge-intensive,
skill-replete curriculum imparted in grade by grade sequence to student of all
demographic descriptors throughout the preK-12 years; training of teachers capable of imparting such
a curriculum; highly intentional skill
remediation for students languishing below grade level, and enrichment activities
once those students join others functioning at grade level; a major street-level and into-the-homes effort
to connect with struggling families and meet their needs, so as to send
students of all demographic descriptors to school ready to engage academically; and honing of the central office bureaucracy so
as to direct resources toward students and families for the academic program
and to ensure that all students are positioned as recipients of that program.
…………………………………………………………………………………
There is no effort elsewhere
comparable to this all-encompassing endeavor to transform one locally centralized
school district into a national model.
This is the way that the overhaul of K-12 education in the United
States, whose citizens lean heavily toward local control, must happen.
I work 16 to 18 hours
every day my feet hit the ground to provide direct academic instruction and
mentoring to my students; and to carry
forth the revolutionary program. Think
Mao, Gandhi, Steinhem, Martin & Malcom, Alinsky.
My dedication is total.
Your support has been
and is crucial.
Thank you so very much.
No comments:
Post a Comment