Article #1
Introduction:
The Fateful Vote of 12 March 2019: Let the Mass Movement Begin
On 12 March 2019 the Minneapolis Public Schools
Board of Education voted on extending a new contract to Superintendent Ed
Graff. At the time I expected th vote to go at least 8-1 in favor of a
new contract. District #2 Member KerryJo Felder has a contentious
relationship with Graff and possibly might have voted 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 at the time, 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 stood ready to vote to extend a new contract to Ed Graff.
I viewed this moment in the as 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 from the February edition of Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis Public
Schools 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 were poised
in the run-up to their 12 March 2019 meeting to vote to give MPS Superintendent
Ed Graff a new contract. I vowed at the time that in the event that
the vote did go for Graff, a 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 that in the meantime, the sweeping away and cleaning out must
include the many incompetent academic decision-makers in the current
administration.
As detailed in the next article the vote did
go favorably for Graff.
So forward the K-12 Revolution.
Let the mass movement begin.
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