>Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect< >>>>> Chapter Fifty-Eight (Part Two, Analysis) >>>>> World’s Best Workforce (WBWF)/ 2020 Advisory Committee Saliently Demonstrates Parent and Community Ineffectiveness

I have become fascinated by the World’s Best Workforce (WBWF) committee of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) and the motivations of constituent members.  The Davis Center connection for the World’s Best Workforce committee is the staff of Chief Eric Moore in the MPS Department of Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability.  This is an ironic association, given that Moore’s department is one of the few bright lights of this struggling school district:  The membership of the committee is not as impressive as Moore and his staff.

The WBWF committee is chaired by Victoria Balko, whose children attend schools in the Robbinsdale district:  In a conversation that I had with her back at a winter meeting of the committee, Balko indicated to me that her motivation for serving on this committee was to address the flaws at the Minneapolis Public Schools that induced her to send her own children elsewhere.

But Balko is a mediocrity, overseeing a committee membership of like quality. This committee has potential to be the academic committee that is a puzzling omission among those that abide at the Minneapolis Public Schools, given that academics constitutes the core mission of any locally centralized school district.  With the tentative exception of Co-Chair David Weingartner, though, I am not impressed with the committee.  But the potential for academic advocacy abides in the World’s Best Workforce Committee if a membership upgrade could replace the meager preparation and analytical ability of current World's Best Workforce participants.

 

During the 2017-2018 Academic Year, the composition of the WBWF/2020 Advisory Committee  

was as follows:

 

The 2017-2018 MPS WBWF Advisory Committee

 

Co-Chairs:

 

Victoria Balko

David Weingartner

 

Members:

 

Sheri Beck

Elizabeth Campbell

Kimberly Caprini

Peggy Calrk

Erin Clotfelter

Lynne Crockett

Kenneth Eban

Sara Etzell

Graham Hartley

Tara Kennedy

Greg King

Margaret Richardson

Collin Robinson

Julie Sabo

Elizabeth Short

Heather Walker

Deacon Walker

 

Liaisons:

 

Kim Ellison ---  Board Liaison

Jennie Zumbusch ---  Staff Liaison

 

In the appendix, I have included a complete copy of a letter that this group sent to Superintendent Ed Graff as an annual report that focused on the draft then available of the MPS Comprehensive District Design.  The letter and the report are rambling, philosophically inconsistent, and maladroit in making substantive recommendations for improving the academic program at the Minneapolis Pubic Schools.

At a meeting of this committee on 24 April 2019, teachers Stephanie Bales, Tara Ferguson, Hillary Klick, Paul Klym, Nahfeesah Muhammad, and Sharon Rush manifested deep compassion and refreshing candor, despite the minimal competence of chair Victoria Balko and other members.   The meeting was ill-run by Balko but was ultimately surprisingly good due to the participation of these teachers who are clearly dedicated and refreshingly candid concerning the deficiencies of academic leadership at the Minneapolis Public Schools that leaves classroom teachers of reading, literacy, and English needing to make things up as they go along.

Participants included the following:

Stephanie Bales (Kindergarten Developmental Dual Language Teacher, Andersen Elementary)  

Tara Ferguson (English 10 and International Baccalaureate Teacher, Edison High School)

Kathy Gretsch (Literacy Specialist, Andersen Elementary)

Hillary Klick (Reading Teacher, Northeast Middle School)

Paul Klym (Career Development Coordinator, Career and Technical Education)

Nahfeesah Muhammad (English Teacher, North High School)

Sharon Rush (English/Reading Teacher, South High School)

Gretsch gave appearance of Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) connections that have obscured her ability to bear witness to the deep academic failures of the Minneapolis Public Schools.  Her comments were murky and full of jargon.

But Bales, Ferguson, Klick, Klym, Muhammad, and Rush manifested deep compassion for their students and spoke with refreshing candor concerning the deficiencies of academic leadership at the Minneapolis Public Schools that leaves classroom teachers of reading, literacy, and English needing to make things up as they go along.

This dedicated group of teachers triumphed over Balko’s minimal competence:   They presented a vision of what the Minneapolis Public Schools could be if curriculum were to be overhauled for knowledge intensity and teachers were trained to deliver such a curriculum.  Increasing reading ability of students is a matter of giving students grounding in phonics and phonemic awareness at preK through first grade, then imparting a broad liberal arts curriculum emphasizing history, government, economics, psychology, mathematics, literature, English composition, and the fine arts throughout the preK-12 years (with abundant career and technical options introduced during middle school and high school).

Despite the questionable constituency of the MPS World’s Best Workforce/2020 Advisory Committee and the failures of academic leadership at the Davis Center, the elevated intellectual and moral quality of teachers Stephanie Bales, Tara Ferguson, Hillary Klick, Paul Klym, Nahfeesah Muhammad, and Sharon Rush provides evidence of a core of teachers ready and able to make the improvements needed to bring knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum to students at the Minneapolis Public Schools.

>Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect< >>>>> Chapter Fifty-Seven (Part Two, Analysis) >>>>> World’s Best Workforce (WBWF) Programs Are a Sham and Should Be Understood As Such

The Ed Graff administration submitted as its response to Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) World’s Best Workforce (WBWF) regulations the following programs for academic year 2017-2018, with number of students served given in parentheses:

 

WBWF Program

 

(to prepare children to enter school, third graders to read, students of all ethnicities and at all economic levels to meet grade level standards, all students for career and college, and all students to graduate from high school)

 

                                                                    Number of participating Students

 

AVID (Advancement Via Individual

Determination)                                                                1,921

Check and Connect                                                            616

Ethnic Studies & Social Justice Fellows                         544

Fast Track Scholars                                                            189

GEMS & GiSE                                                                   4,221

(Girls in Engineering, Mathematics,

and Science;

Guys in Science and Engineering)

Grow Your Own Teacher Residency                        3,394

Jobs for America’s Graduates                                       167

MTSS/ Multicultural Materials                                  6,984

LearningWorks at Blake                                                    91

Office of Black Male Achievement                               348

Project SUCCESS                                                         15,229

RIS (Racially Identifiable Schools)                          10,537

Direct Support                              

Spring and Winter Academy                                      5,220

Urban Debate League                                                     394

 

                                                ……………………………………………….

 

Total Number of Students in the Minneapolis Public Schools:   36,961

 

……………………………………………….

 

These programs come with significant outlays in the MPS budget but are also heavily subsidized by the provider organizations, making the programs appealing.  But despite the appealing appellations, most of these programs serve only a scant fraction of students enrolled in the Minneapolis Public Schools and not one of them is capable of raising achievement levels across the K-12 years.  Most of these programs have been around for many years;  fewer than 25% of African American, American Indian (Native American), Hispanic, Hmong, and Somali students are meeting grade level standards in reading and math.

 

Thus, these seductively labeled and heavily subsidized programs offer an attractive screen for presentation to the MDE for working to promote academic achievement, but there is nothing behind that screen that offers hope for raising achievement rates.

 

Beyond these programs, the Ed Graff administration offers Social and Emotional Learning and a new PK-5 reading curriculum, the former of which can never be more than an adjunct to explicitly academic initiatives, the latter of which is limited to reading.  That new Benchmark Literacy Program

is sound in approach but prospects for success will be constricted by the mediocrity of K-5 teachers and the weakness of literature and English language usage programming in grades 6-12.

 

Programs funded by external sources and bearing appealing names are conveniently offered to meet MDE requirements, but for officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools to advance a program of academic excellence, highly intentional curriculum overhaul, teacher retraining, resource provision and referral, and time set aside for skill mastery and extension must occur for the impartation of excellent education to the students of the Minneapolis Public Schools. 

 

World Best Workforce Programs are a sham and should be understood as such.

>Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect< >>>>> Chapter Fifty-Six (Part Two, Analysis) >>>>> The Educational Equity Framework as one of Many Documents Existing Only to Fulfill Legal Mandates: Remembering the Abysmal Presentation on Educational Equity by Kimberly Matier and Lanise Block at the Tuesday, 11 August 2015, Meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education

Equity is one of four programmatic emphases of Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Ed Graff, along with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), and literacy. 

 

Each year MPS officials must file an Equity and Diversity Impact Assessment (EDIA) to demonstrate how district policies will affect and promote equitable education for MPS students.  Since 2015, there has been officially in force an Educational Equity Framework for achieving equity.

 

The main features of the framework were first presented to the MPS Board of Education by Kimberly Matier and Lanise Block on 11 August 2015.

 

To understand just how wretched was the presentation of the document, Acceleration 2020/  Educational Equity:  Developing a Framework for Student Achievement for All by Kim Matier and Lanise Block at the Tuesday, 11 August 2015, meeting of the Minneapolis Board of Education, remember these requisite features of educational equity:

 

 

Educational equity results from three sources: 

 

1)  excellent education;

 

2)  excellent teachers;

 

3)  warm relationships with students and their families.

 

Hence, with this understanding, we have again the definitions for excellent education and excellent teachers, with a comment also on building relationships with students and their families

 

1)

 

An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a rich liberal arts curriculum in math, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts in grade-by-grade sequence to all students throughout the K-12 years.

 

2)

 

An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.

 

When educational excellence (by definition including excellent teachers who, in turn by definition, have the ability to impart knowledge to all students) prevails, educational equity is attained.  Therefore, we must set about specifying curriculum for each grade throughout the K-12 years, and we must at the central school district level retrain teachers capable of delivering the challenging, deep, and broad liberal arts curriculum to all students by the time they walk across the stage at high school graduation.

 

3)

 

An excellent teacher, building principal, and any central school district personnel responsible for imparting an education of excellence to all of our precious children, should have a high level of comfort in connecting with families of students, necessarily entailing comfort with numerous ethnicities and economic levels.  When families understand the steps that are being taken to ensure excellent education for their children, they will respond with gratitude.  So we must make sure that all school district personnel are highly adept and sensitive as they establish connections and relationships with the families of the students for whom they have the sacred duty to provide an excellent education.    

 

……………………………………………………………………………

 

Rather than focus on the delivery of excellent education in the context of excellent relationships with students and their families, Lanise Block and Kimberly (Kim) Matier delivered a jargon-infested travesty of banal generality as apparently the best that the Office of Academic Affairs at the Minneapolis Public Schools can promote as a program for achieving equity. 

 

In their presentations, Matier and Block stuck closely to a power point document that stated goals for the presentation to be the provision of the rationale and history for achieving educational equity;  explanation of this new effort’s relationship to an existing Equity and Diversity and Impact Assessment (EDIA);  and designation of the timeline for steps toward finalizing the framework of the equity program, with reference to ongoing efforts synchronous with this new initiative.  The need for an equity framework was stated to be the elimination of racial predictability, development of racial and cultural skill, and the acceleration of student outcomes.

 

This verbiage was then tied to a stated Equity Policy 1304, which reads:  “embracing our diversity through inclusion creates an environment that leverages diversity and creates schools where students, families, community members, and employees feel welcomed, valued, and supported;  and where students and staff can perform to their personal bests.  Clustered around the goal of equity, a graphic presented the following priorities:  culturally linguistically responsive practices, inclusive and innovative systems, positive school-wide engagement, and effectively assessed quality core instruction and 21^st century skills.

 

Matier and Block stated that they started by convening a group of “internal equity practitioners,” reviewing research and existing equity frameworks in the interest of developing a common understanding.  They vow that they “committed to key elements of the framework” and then requested initial feedback from key community partners.

 

The “Draft for Educational Equity” was presented in triangular visualization with “Collective Accountability” at the center, with “instructional transformation,” “personal transformation,” and “structural transformation” each located pictorially at one of the three angles.  Then outside the triangle, on each of the three sides were given the values, “evidence-based research”;  “families  and communities”;  and  “integrated systems”;  with “pedagogy of equity” topping the visual at the triangle’s apex.

 

These values then gained a bit of additional comment on another page with the heading, “Desired Outcomes for Systemic Change.“  Additional comment highlighted the following:

 

>>>>>  “evidence-based policy, program, and practice,” so as to “integrate racial/ cultural competency in the development and implementation of systems to rapidly improve outcomes “;

 

>>>>>   “pedagogy of equity,“ so as to “ensure targeted groups access learning with the cultural and linguistic assets of students in mind “;

 

>>>>>  “integrated systems,” so as to “build and manage interdependent relationships that create and sustain adaptive systems to meet diverse needs” ;

 

>>>>>  “families and communities as education partners,” so as to “normalize the inclusion of  the perspectives of our families of color and American Indian communities to interrupt marginalization.”

 

The steps in the process were given according to the following timetable:

 

Phase One          >>>>>    April 2015-October 2015

                                >>>>>    Identify Desired Outcomes

                                >>>>>    Develop Draft Framework and Recommend Changes to EDIA

 

 

Phase Two          >>>>>    November 2015-June 2016

                                >>>>>    Stakeholder Groups formed

                                >>>>>    Action Plans Developed for Desired Outcomes

                                >>>>>    EDIA Piloted, Feedback Collected, and Final Adjustments Made

 

Phase Three       >>>>>    January 2016-June 2016

                                >>>>>    Board Update on Equity Framework and EDIA (January and June)

                                >>>>>    Board Training

                                >>>>>    Equity Audit

 

The document and presentation ended with a citation of work that will continue, according to certain existing offices and programs:  Racial Equity Institute/ Professional Development, Coaching for Equity, B.L.A.C.K. (not listed in the power-point, Block explained helpfully that his acronym stands for “Black Lives Acquiring Cultural Knowledge”), Ethnic Studies Courses, Social Justice Fellows, Vendor Diversity work, and EDIA.

 

………………………………………………………………………………….

 

That’s a lot of verbiage, which I decode as follows:

 

Since we’ve got a raging achievement gap, we’re going to pretend one more time that we’re addressing a problem by creating a program.  We created the Office of Black Male Achievement to no noticeable effect, but no matter.  You, school board members;  and you, the public;  can be distracted as always by the problems at hand as we assure you that we are going to move forward with processes designed to make teachers, administrators, and people throughout the Minneapolis Public Schools more culturally sensitive.  Even though we already have offices and highly paid personnel in place who should be reaching out to all parents and creating a climate that embraces ethnic diversity----  we’re really, really, really going to do it this time. 

 

Really. 

 

Really, really. 

 

Really.

 

                                ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 

But school board members squirmed almost as much as I did during this presentation.  Each in her or his own way, board members at the time Don Samuels, Carla Bates, Tracine Asberry, Siad Ali, and even Rebecca Gagnon, Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison and Jenny Arneson asked, “But haven’t we heard this before?  How will this program be measured more effectively, and don’t we already have the Equity and Diversity Impact Assessment (EDIA) for doing this?  Do we really have the luxury of time?”

 

To the latter question, District Member Reimnitz noted, in essence, that the board had not itself been vigilant enough as to previous equity issues and needs now to give this new process time to work.  Bates, having been among the most forceful in objecting to the innocuous generality of the presentation by Matier and Block, agreed with Reimnitz that at this point the board did need to be patient, but with a heightened sense of vigilance.

 

To all questions, Matier and Block offered more banal bromides and empty rhetoric, with Interim Superintendent Goar chiming in to the prevailing atonality with his usual choral double-talk.

 

                                …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

 

 

So again be reminded that 

  

Educational equity results from three sources: 

 

1)  excellent education;

 

2)  excellent teachers;

 

3)  warm relationships with students and their families.

 

These sources of educational equity should be observable right now, and could be if we had the abiding components of an excellent education in place.

 

But since these components of an excellent education are not in place, and decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools have not the vision to recognize educational excellence, the understanding of the teacher training necessary, or the empathic ability to reach out to students and families right where they live---  we are forever creating distractions that divert us from the pathway to educational excellence.

 

Thus it is that I have decided that the time is now for saying that the time is now.  We cannot afford to wait.  Babies are dying.  Young people, especially young African American males, are headed disproportionately to prison.   Young African American female bodies are being sold.  Human beings of great potential are missing their chance in this one earthly sojourn for lives of cultural enrichment, civic preparedness,, and professional satisfaction because we do not care enough.

 

We have had enough exercises in goal setting and documents generated to fulfill legal mandates.

 

We need equity via the provision of excellent education by excellent teachers.

 

Generous details on these matters are offered in Part Three, Philosophy.

>Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect< >>>>> Chapter Fifty-Five (Part Two, Analysis) >>>>> Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 of the Minneapolis Public Schools: A Sorry Exercise in Goal Setting Unsupported by a Viable Plan of Action

Shortly after Ed Graff arrived to take the position of superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), he took stock of the prevailing Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 and determined that this could not work as a plan of action for guiding the academic program of the district.  As he looked toward 2020, he began consideration of a Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive Design that was to take the place of the strategic plan in place upon his arrival.  The MPS Comprehensive District Design will not work either, for reasons that I will detail in a succeeding chapter, but Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 was a particularly unrealistic exercise in goal setting lacking any force of action capable of achieving the stated goals.

 

A close look at Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) reveals the document’s stark deficiencies as a guide for excellence in K-12 education.

 

This document was approved at a September 2014 meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.  Via the program advocated in the pages of the work overseen by then Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson and Chief Executive Officer Michael Goar, the public schools of Minneapolis were to advance educational excellence and equity for all students enrolled in the district.

 

Six high-level goals were given in the document:  1) Improved Student Outcomes;  2) Equity;  3)  Family and Community Partnership;  4) Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff;  5) Stewardship;  and 6) Resources for Students and Schools.

 

Goals offered in what was termed the “big, bold spirit of the 5-8-10 plan” included the following, to be attained in the run-up to year 2020:

 

>>>>>    5 percent annual increase in students overall meeting or exceeding state standards in reading

and math;

 

 >>>>>   8 percent annual increase in students meeting or exceeding state standards in reading

and math for MPS’s lowest performing students;

 

 >>>>>   10 percent annual increase in the four-year graduation rate

 

Officials at MPS declared that “Our targets are intentionally high to reignite a sense of urgency in the system and ensure that everyone is operating with growth mindset. Meeting these targets is absolutely possible.  Under this plan, we will achieve our vision of every child graduating college and career ready.”

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number One, Improved Student Outcomes, officials at MPS stress that teachers at Grades Pre-K through Grade 3 should have routines in place for development of student reading and language skills;  that teachers at Grade 4 through Grade 12 and for adult learners should abet the development of such skills via guided academic conversations and “close reading”;  and that  teachers at Grade 6 through Grade 12 and for adult learners develop students’ math and science vocabulary and content knowledge using “literacy strategies.”  Also stressed are core instruction for all categories of learners;  personalized learning opportunities;  readiness at key points of transition from one major age grouping to another;  behavioral interventions that minimize suspensions;  and the availability of ethnic studies courses in high school.

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Two, Equity, officials at MPS stress the use of student data as examined and then acted upon by Professional Learning Communities of teachers at each site, problem-based learning and critical thinking;  multiple pathways to graduation via dual enrollment, Post-Secondary Options (PSEO), credit recovery, community-based GED and literacy programs, and online learning;  and availability of world languages.  Associate Superintendents are to monitor progress toward the goal of equity and the given sub-goals;  and staff at all schools are to be given proper supports, with enhanced supports at High Priority Schools and Focus Schools.

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Three, Family and Community Partnership, officials at MPS

Stress engagement with families of students, with appropriate language translation and interpreting services, with training for teachers in communication with families, and with great effort made to provide accessible locations and temporally flexible times for familial participation.  They also stress increases in corporate support, grant funding, and volunteers---  with ongoing monitoring of community partnerships for effectiveness.

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Four, Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff, officials at MPS stress the need for diversity in hiring, identification and placement of individuals particularly suited for teaching and staff roles to meet the needs of students at certain schools, and the provision of training and supports for staff in performing to expectation.  There is also emphasis placed on providing leadership training and career advancement opportunities;  and on implementing Quality Compensation (Q-Comp) to promote staff retention and career development.   

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Five, Stewardship, officials at MPS stress accountability on the part of administrators at all levels for the implementation of Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 via ongoing assessment of effectiveness and adjustment of strategies as necessary; use of the Baldrige Criteria for Education Organizations as a guide to ongoing staff training in planning, management, decision-making and data collection and utilization;  and central office adjustments to abet increased school autonomy.

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Six, Resources for Students and Schools, officials at MPS stress “zero-based budgeting” to assure that funds are used where they are truly needed, with allocations prioritized for the classroom, and with attention to services pertinent to transportation, food security, instructional technology, school environment, and athletics that have a direct impact on students’ lives.

 

All of these goals are to be attained in the context of an inclination toward school autonomy and upon the conviction that the individual site---  the school---  is the meaningful unit of change and that school staff members should have flexibility to meet the needs of their particular student population. 

 

………………………………………………………………….

 

Stating that the school is the unit of change, with attention to the needs of particular populations, is one of those expressions that can float into the ears of people without giving offense and even seeming favorable---  but actually may be harmful, depending on those devils called details. 

 

In reality, in the United States the locally centralized district itself must be the unit of change.  At that level, we must specify a knowledge-rich curriculum for implementation throughout the schools of MPS, for impartation by knowledgeable teachers trained by the school district itself.  With the definition of an excellent education, the identification of a knowledge-rich curriculum, and the training of knowledgeable teachers accomplished, then most functions of the central bureaucracy could be moved out to the individual sites, with principals and teachers given responsibility for implementation.  With the central bureaucracy having acted meaningfully as the original unit of change, the sites will then become subsidiary units of change. 

 

Remember that an excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, logically seqauenced curriculum in the liberal (mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, fine arts), technological, and industrial arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the K-12 years.

 

And remember that an excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Remember also that the purpose of a strong K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts is to provide maximum probability that students will graduate with the likelihood of living lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.   

 

With those succinct definitions and observations, I have provided more detail in my vision of an excellent education than officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools have given in their entire Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 document.

 

In the latter document, the most specific statements are those pertinent to goals for student achievement;  and those identifying the school as the unit of change.  But those statements seem to assume that annual increases in math and reading skills (5% annually for the general student population,  8% for previously lowest-performing students),  and 10% annual increases in the four-year graduation rate;  can be attained without highly specific approaches for achieving results.  And MPS officials focus measurable goals on basic skills, while relying on site-based school innovation, multiple pathways, and linguistic and advanced course opportunities to forge a path to excellence.

 

Compare such “Hail Mary” approaches to my own approach, summarized above and detailed in articles posted on this blog focused on the meaning and purpose of excellent education;  and the need for thorough training of teachers, all of whom come ill-prepared to enter the classroom by virtue of the abominable training that they get in departments, schools, and colleges of education.

 

We will achieve educational excellence for all of our precious children when we specify a knowledge-rich curriculum for implementation in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.  Teachers of such an information-heavy curriculum must have a much stronger knowledge base than they have now. 

 

As I have detailed in other chapters, the knowledge base of our K-5 teachers is particularly wretched and must be rectified via mandatory acquisition of a challenging Masters of Liberal Arts degree for knowledge mastery in math, natural science, history, economics, literature, English usage, and the fine arts---  with a required master’s thesis and a full year of internship served under the guidance of the best teacher available;  this Masters of Liberal Arts degree must be superintended at the central school district (MPS) level, with instruction provided by professors and other experts in their fields of instruction.    

 

Secondary (Grade 6 through Grade 12) teachers should possess an academic master’s degree (granted in legitimate disciplines, not from faculty composed of education professors) and serve the same full year of internship as given for K-5 teachers.

 

This level of specificity for achieving excellent education, detailed in part Three, Philosophy, is what is missing from the  Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 document of MPS.