Article #2
Opt-out Offenders
Ray Aponte (MPS South High School),
Yusuf Abdullah (MPS Henry High School),
and
Michael Favor (MPS Southwest High School)
Must Be Disciplined
Governor Mark Dayton and his Education
Commissioner Brenda Cassellius created a climate during 2011-2018 whereby the
opt-out phenomenon became a problem in Minnesota, especially at the high school
level. The Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) in math, reading,
and science are the key assessments emanating from the Minnesota Department of
Education (MDE) for measuring student academic progress. The math and reading
MCAs are administered in April each year to students in grades 3-8. The
science MCA is administered one year in high school and in grades 5 and
7. The high school reading and math MCAs are administered in grades 10
and 11 respectively.
Until the Dayton-Cassellius years,
demonstrated proficiency on a grade 9 writing assessment and the grade 10
reading MCA were necessary for graduation. During those years, Cassellius
did the governor’s bidding as he bowed to pressure from the state teachers
union, Education Minnesota (a key backer of DFLers), moving to nix the grade 9
writing test altogether and, while retaining the grade 10 reading assessment,
ending the necessity of student demonstration of proficiency on that assessment
in order to graduate.
The signal went out to the school districts
that pressure to ensure student reading and math proficiency was easing.
In the Minneapolis Public Schools, K-8 teachers in general have not in recent
years prepared students for taking the MCAs, either in terms of assuring skill
mastery or preparation for the format. This was true at the high school
level, too, and in some high schools students opted out in very significant
numbers, often at the behest of their parents. This irresponsibly skews
the results in the absence of assurance of participation by students at a
variety of skill levels.
To their credit, MPS principals Michael
Bradley (Roosevelt) and, especially, Eryn Warne (Edison) and Emily Favor
(Washburn) seem to have resisted the opt-out phenomenon; the record of
North High School Principal Shawn Harris-Berry is less definite.
The particularly culpable principals for
encouraging or tolerating the opt-out phenomenon are Ray Aponte (South), Yusuf
Abdullah (Henry), and Michael Favor (Southwest).
Faculty at Henry High School most
irresponsibly tell their students that they do not have to take the grade 10
reading and grade 11 math MCAs. This is in grave contravention of the
spirit in which these assessments were developed as state-wide indicators of
student academic proficiency.
Inspect the following figures carefully as to
the precipitous decline in number of students (given in parentheses) taking the
MCAs at Henry, South, and Southwest High Schools by academic years 2017 and
2018 of the 2014-2018 period:
Henry High School
Principal >>>>> Yusuf Abdullah
Math
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018
46% 52%
59% 14%
-----
(214) (181)
(17)
(7) (-----)
Reading
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018
50% 33%
32%
31% 75%
(241) (218)
(28) (13)
(8)
Science 2014
2015
2016 2017 2018
20% 31%
29%
29% 57%
(174) (42)
(14)
(7) (7)
South High School
Edison High School
Principal >>>>> Ray Aponte
Math
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018
20% 23%
----- 29%
34%
(143) (48)
(-----) (28) (65)
Reading
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018
45% 29%
14% 36%
18%
(252) (73)
(86)
(47) (132)
Science 2014
2015
2016 2017 2018
17% 35%
----- 28%
4%
(88) (17)
(-----) (61) (96)
Southwest High School
Principal >>>>> Michael Favor
Math
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018
34% 47%
42% -----
-----
(303) (60)
(12) (-----) (-----)
Reading
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018
64% 46%
65% 53%
65%
(386) (134)
(60) (58)
(141)
Science 2014
2015
2016 2017 2018
39% 47%
83% 58%
61%
(321) (75)
(6)
(38) (111)
These irresponsible actions on the part of Ray Aponte (MPS South High School), Yusuf
Abdullah (MPS Henry High School), and Michael Favor (MPS Southwest High School)
undermine the excellent work of Chief Eric Moore and his Department of
Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability, which endeavors to
measure academic proficiency rates of students in the Minneapolis Public
Schools, disaggregating the data to determine proficiency for various
demographic groups. Vitiating the pool
of students being measured by encouraging or tolerating opt-out makes more
difficult the highly important attainment of accurate results.
Any superintendent who intends to be head of
the Minneapolis Public Schools in the next months or years must get hold of the
problem posed by the unconscionable actions of Aponte, Abdullah, and
Favor; failing to do that,
Superintendent Ed Graff should resign, so that a superintendent of firmer
mettle can ride a wave of the community support that I intend to generate for
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education.
And that wave will wash over any administrator
guilty of encouraging students to opt out of assessments vital to academic
progress of students across the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
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