If there is any hope at all that the
Minneapolis Public Schools can achieve academic excellence during the tenure of
Superintendent Ed Graff, this would come with the hiring of a permanent chief
of academics. Graff himself is an academic lightweight, devoid of
training in a major academic field and lacking any clearly expressed
educational philosophy. The forte of Eric Moore is research and
evaluation, not leadership of the academic program. Graff is now stating
that Moore’s status as academic chief is temporary, but this is
dissembling: Back in August 2018, Moore’s salary was $149,900 as research
and evaluation chief; when he was elevated to what was then stated as
chief of academics (without any reference to the position being for an
interim), his salary went to $162,690, a $12,790 increase.
In the anti-assessment atmosphere that currently
pervades the MPS Board of Education, Moore is likely to seek a positon in
another district in the course of the next weeks or months. The slim hope
of retaining Moore would be for Graff to hire a permanent academic chief who
can convey to members of the MPS Board of Education the importance of assessing
student academic achievement, especially in reading and mathematics, and then
prevail upon Jourdain and others the need to support student assessment.
There would then be the matter of that $12,790 increase, but in fact Moore is
worth that salary if the splendid work that he and his staff in the Department
of Research, Evaluation, and Assessment (REA) is beneficially utilized by the
district.
Beyond assessment for basic skills, though, a
new chief of academics would need to promote knowledge-intensive education,
such as that promoted by the Core Knowledge Foundation for students at K-8, and
that I extend to high school and college students via my Fundamentals of an
Excellent Liberal Arts Education. This would require another major
successful philosophical conveyance to the MPS Board of Education.
Ed Graff is not likely to seek or hire an
academic chief who promotes knowledge-intensive education.
The members of this MPS Board of Education is
not likely to be receptive to the substantive education promoted by E. D.
Hirsch at the Core Knowledge Foundation, and that I provide to my students via Fundamentals
of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.
In these cases we need a new superintendent
and a new school board.
And if these be the cases, I’ll be building
the mass movement necessary to oust Graff and elect new school board members in
November 2020, moving from that vantage point to the complete overhaul of the
board and academic decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
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