Apr 30, 2019

Critical Analysis of Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Ed Graff’s Credentials: The Importance of Understanding the Source of the Academic Incompetence Manifested among Decision-Makers in Locally Centralized School Districts Such as the Minneapolis Public Schools


We must transform locally centralized school districts such as the Minneapolis Public Schools so as to impart to our young people a knowledge-intensive curriculum, delivered by teachers who are themselves bearers of knowledge.


 

To do that, citizens, including those who claim an interest in the public schools, must become much more discerning in their understanding of the system that fails so many of our precious young people.

 

Yesterday (Monday, 29 April) I offered to my readers an exercise in critical analysis, providing as I did the credentials of Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Ed Graff as found on his DHR International resume submitted when he was under consideration for the position in spring 2016. 

 

The information that I provided was, as has been the case in many other such exercises, strictly objective, in this case given exactly as appearing on the DHR International resume that Graff presented when he was a candidate for the superintendent position during spring 2016..  I then promised to be back with my own analysis of these credentials for determining the likelihood that Graff can be a successful superintendent during a second term that will begin on 1 July 2019.  His assumption of another three-year term (should he defy the odds and actually stay the full three-year [academic years 2019-2020, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022] term of his contract, totaling six years for a tenure that began with his first contract on 1 July 2016) comes at the behest of the members of the MPS Board of Education, who voted 8-0 (KerryJo Felder was absent) on 14 March 2019 to offer the second contract.

 

Here are the points of my focus for understanding why Graff is a salient example of the academically mediocre superintendent inflicted on our young people by departments, schools, and colleges of education;  and an example of the mediocrity witnessed generally among academic decision-makers and teachers in our locally centralized school systems.

 

Notice first that Graff’s university-based degrees are as follows:

 

Education

 

University of Southern Mississippi

Master of Education, 1997

 

University of Alaska (Anchorage)

Bachelor of Education in Elementary Education, 1990

 

My Analysis

Graff’s undergraduate degree was earned after completion of the weakest course of study on any college or university campus:  elementary education.  His master’s degree was an online degree in educational administration, obtained with minimal physical presence on the campus of a low-tier institution, the University of Southern Mississippi.  Notice that Graff opted for this lightweight degree, from an institution of meager quality, while serving as an administrator in the Anchorage School District.  Readers should have discerned that this would not be the move of an academically astute person seeking a degree of genuine merit;  they should have noticed that this instead was an option exercised by the typical occupant of a position in our locally centralized school district, who seeks not knowledge but rather enhanced professional remuneration in ascending the bureaucratic ladder.

 

………………………………………………………………………

 

As readers examine Graff’s resume, they will notice that he spent ten years as a teacher in the Anchorage School District (ASD) and then sixteen years as an administrator.  As an administrator, these positions included the following:

 

Professional Background

 

Anchorage School District, 2000-2016

 

Superintendent, 2013-2016

Chief Academic Officer, 2009-2013

Executive Director, Elementary Education, 2008-2009   

 

My Analysis

 

Readers should notice that Graff spent five years in positions that very directly gave him the opportunity to implement an effective academic program;  and another three years (for a total of eight) as superintendent, whose driving goal should be to design an organization that delivers knowledge-intensive curriculum, imparted by knowledgeable teachers.

 

But now recall that after all of those years, by the academic year ending in 2015, the achievement of students in the Anchorage School District may be observed as follows:

 

Results for Academic Year 2014-2015 for Students in the Anchorage, Alaska, Schools

 

All Grade Levels

 

Language Arts

 

Does Not      Partially       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         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

 

All High School Mathematics Students

 

Does Not      Partially       Meets         Exceeds

Meet             Meets           Standard    Standard

Standard      Standard

 

Student

Categories

 

African                                  48.6%             36.7%             13.5%          1.2%

American

 

White/                 26.5%             35.4%             31.3%          6.8%

Caucasian

 

Hispanic               47.8%             35.4%           15.2%            1.6%

 

 

Alaska                   46.0%             35.4%           17.5%            1.0%

Native

American/

American

Indian

 

Grade 10 Mathematics Students

 

Does Not      Partially       Meets         Exceeds

Meet             Meets           Standard    Standard

Standard      Standard

Student

Categories

 

African                                  69.5%             24.7%            ---------                       ---------

American

 

 

White/                 36.9%             30.6%            25.6%         6.9%

Caucasian

 

Hispanic               61.3%             23.2%              14.4%         1.1%

 

 

Alaska                   69.4%             24.5%           ---------                     ---------

Native

American/

American

Indian

 

All                          48.7%            27.9%         19.4%          3.9%

Students

 

Grade 10 Engllish/ Language Arts

 

Does Not      Partially       Meets         Exceeds

Meet             Meets           Standard    Standard

Standard      Standard

 

 

Student

Categories

 

African                                  35.9%              53.3%          ---------                        ---------

American

 

 

White/                 12.5%             44.7%            39.7%           3.1%

Caucasian

 

Hispanic               28.6%             50.5%          ---------                        ---------

 

 

Alaska                   47.3%              40.5%          ---------         ---------

Native

American/

American

Indian

 

All                          23.9%             46.6%           27.7%            1.8%

Students

 

Composite Achievement Gaps (All Grade Levels)

 

 

English/          Mathematics

Language

Arts       

 

Student

Categories

 

African                                    30.0%              28.2%

American                                                                                                 

vs.

White/ Caucasian                           

 

Alaska                      32.8%              26.7%

Native

American/

vs.

White/ Caucasian

 

Asian                        22.4%             12.5%

vs.

White/ Caucasian

 

Native                    40.2%              32.5%

Hawaiian/

Other Pacific Island

vs.

White/ Caucasian

 

Hispanic                 23.4%              21.7%

American

vs.

White/ Caucasian

 

Two or More        15.9%              13.7%

Ethnicities

vs.

White/ Caucasian

 

Now recall that this is the record of student proficiency at the Minneapolis Public Schools during the last five academic years, which include the two years ending in 2017 and 2018, for which Graff is responsible:

 

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%

 

Thus, Graff has delivered results very similar to the abominable student proficiency levels that reflect his record in Anchorage, at the end of which the school board in that district did not renew his contract.

 

………………………………………………………….

 

Now readers should observe these items provided as achievements and programmatic features by Graff for his tenure as an administrator in Anchorage:

 

*   Expansion and integration of Social and Emotional Learning

*   Expansion of Multi-Tiered System of Support/Response to Instruction

with differentiated student support

*   Implementation of elementary school reading intervention curriculum (language) with

notable results

*   Coalition for Educational Equity, Executive Board Member

 

We have here, then, experience in developing a program based on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), Literacy, and Equity that Graff emphasized in Anchorage.  But the claim to have produced “notable results” is vague and in fact false, given the wretched levels of student academic proficiency pertinent to the Graff tenure in Anchorage.

 

And thus we have gotten the abominable academic results that we should have expected in the Minneapolis Public Schools under the leadership of Ed Graff.

 

…………………………………………………………………………

 

Concluding Comments Concerning the Likelihood That Ed Graff Can Be an Academcially Successful Superintnendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools

 

Elsewhere on Graff’s resume one finds evidence of success in bureaucratic streamlining and fiscal management.  Those are the areas in which Graff has acted most adroitly as MPS superintendent.  He has reduced staff by 44%, from approximately 650 to 450, at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway);  and he has given brilliant Chief Financial Officer Ibrahima Diop the scope he needed to produce a structurally balanced budget.

 

But all of this will go for naught if student academic proficiency levels continue to languish.

Graff has become an effective manager of the school district bureaucracy as to finances, including the elimination of the most unnecessary staff positions.  He has, though, been a failure as leader of the academic program, which is that all that ultimately matters, that which all other administrative maneuvers must serve.

 

On the basis of his record as academic leader, Ed Graff should never have been hired;  once hired and given his first three-year contract, he should not have been given another contract.  But the members of the MPS Board of Education did hire Graff and then offered him another contract.

 

The current situation strongly suggests two matters of great importance for citizen attention and activity:

 

1)  In selecting a permanent  Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning (best slimmed to the appellation, “Chief Academic Officer”), Graff and staff must opt for someone with scholarly credentials who can envision and implement curricular overhaul for knowledge intensity and training of teachers able to impart a knowledge-intensive curriculum.

 

2)  We must organize an alternative political power to counter the clout of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)-Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) cohort to elect members of the Minneapolis Board of Education who can understand academic excellence and vote accordingly.

 

Look for much more on these important matters in my book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools, a great bevy of information concerning which you can already find on this blog, with more forthcoming in the days ahead.

 

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