The current (academic year 2019-2020)
iteration of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education is the third
that I have witnessed since my investigation into the inner workings of the
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) began in August 2014.
At that initial stage of my investigation, the
composition of the school board was as follows:
District 1 Jenny
Arneson
District 2 Kim
Ellison
District 3 Mohamud
Noor
District 4 Josh
Reimnitz
District 5 Alberto
Monserrate
District 6 Tracine
Asberry
At Large Richard
Mammen
At-Large Carla
Bates
At-Large Rebecca
Gagnon
Gagnon and Arneson, while proving to have
strong ties to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) the Democrat-Farmer
Labor (DFL) Party that undermined their effectiveness and promoted a good bit
of dissembling, did impress me for their grasp of policy detail. Mammen was affable if given to rambling and
frequently self-serving commentary; both
Mammen and Monserrate clearly also had political connections to the MFT-DFL cohort. Mohamud Noor, who came onto the board after a
contentious meeting in which he was appointed to replace a member who had died
in office, was even more brazenly ambitious politically. Kim Ellison (still on the board in academic
year 2019-2020, as is Arneson) also has deep ties to the MFT-DFL; she enjoys high name recognition due to her
surname and association with former husband Keith Ellison.
The most positive forces for change on that
school board were Carla Bates, Josh Reimnitz, and Tracine Asberry. Bates was erratic and garrulous but clearly
cared about students. Reimnitz, a former
Teach for America member, had pulled off an upset of an MFT-DFL backed
candidate. Asberry was the most
courageous of the members of this formulation of the MPS Board of
Education; her interaction with Chief
(actually, in those days, Executive Director) of Research, Evaluation,
Assessment (REAA), and Accountability (at that time, more accurately just
Research, Evaluation, and Assessment [REA]) Eric Moore were the best moments I
have witnessed in my five years of observing MPS Board of Education
meetings. Asberry would ask close
questions, politely insist on answers, and ask why she was always
seeing the same dismal results year after
year.
In the aftermath of the school board election
of November 2014 Nelson Inz (District 5), Don Samuels (At-Large), and Siad Ali
(District 3) replaced Monserrate, Mammen, and Noor (none of whom ran for
reelection) respectively. These were
improvements. Inz had not yet manifested
his traits as a political hack. Samuels
was very consciously unaffiliated with the MFT and therefore not backed by his
own party, the DFL (which does not endorse outright but does so through its MFT
proxy). Ali was not as baldly political
as Noor, more affable, and more focused on students--- although he, as in the case most of the rest
of the board, has strong ties to the MFT-DFL cohort.
The election of 2016 narrowly ousted Reimnitz (replaced
by Bob Walser in District 4) and Tracine Asberry (replaced by Ira Jourdain in
District 6). KerryJo Felder also came
onto the board to claim the District 2 seat that Kim Ellison had vacated to run
for an At-Large seat (Bates did not run for reelection). Then in the aftermath of the election of
2018, Kim Caprini and Josh Pauly came onto the board; Samuels had opted not to run again, and
Gagnon was defeated.
Hence, be reminded from Part One, Facts, that
the current composition of the MPS Board of Education is as follows;
District 1 Jenny
Arneson
District 2 KerryJo
Felder
District 3 Siad
Ali
District 4 Bob
Walser
District 5 Nelson
Inz
District 6 Ira
Jourdain
At Large Kim
Ellison
At-Large Josh
Pauly
At-Large Kim
Caprini
………………………………………………………………………
The elections of November 2016 and November
2018 were disastrous, except for the favorable development that Gagnon was
ousted in 2018.
The loss of Bates (who, remember, did not run
for reelection), Reimnitz, and Asberry in 2016 constituted a turning point
during the time that I have spent observing the board. These were three independent voices whose
votes were never cast in deference to MFT-DFL stances. The departure of Asberry completely changed
the character of those evenings when student academic proficiency was at the
forefront of discussions; no one since
has given any evidence of concern over the ongoing failure to move student
academic proficiency rates above 25% for African American, American Indian,
Latino-Latina students and those on free/reduced price lunch.
The political nature of the school board came
into sharp relief during the 2016 election.
Nelson Inz specifically endorsed Walser over Reimnitz. Gagnon endorsed Jourdain over Asberry. And Inz, Gagnon, and Ellison all aggressively
recruited candidates to run against Reimnitz and Asberry.
Then came the 2018 election, with the prospect
that the independent candidacy of Sharon El-Amin, a well-known Northside
business owner and involved parent, might prove winning. In the end, though, MFT-DFL backing of
Caprini and Pauly was too telling. The
biggest news from the election was the ouster of Gagnon, a generally
politically astute actor whose calculations had gone awry:
Candidate Name Number of
Votes Percentage
Kim Caprini
86,739
33.84%
Josh Pauly
73,994
28.87%
Rebecca
Gagnon 48,567
18.95%
Sharon El-Amin
47,000
18.34%
To understand the power of El-Amin’s campaign,
one must understand the political dynamics at work in this election for the two
At-Large MPS Board of Education seats:
Caprini and Pauly were endorsed by the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), which in turn is allied with
Education Minnesota, the second most powerful political lobby in Minnesota,
capable of spending levels only topped by the National Rifle Association
(NRA). Caprini is a well-known parent and community activist in North
Minneapolis, but Pauly is a largely unknown presence, a teacher of short tenure
at Sanford Middle School who is now a professional in a South Minneapolis-based
non-profit. Pauly gives indication of
caring about issues pertinent to the homeless and the dispossessed, but he has
none of the community involvements of Caprini and El-Amin, none of the heart
and soul understanding of key community issues in the manner of El-Amin, and
none of the political savvy of Gagnon. Pauly had a slim campaign of his
own initiative: His victory was entirely the result of MFT support, with
its member network, phone banks, and enormous publicity-generating capacity.
The matter of Gagnon’s political savvy is
ironic, given that she committed a number of fatal political errors in the months
leading up to the election of November 2018. In the wake of the 2016
elections, Gagnon’s star was on the rise. She had gained a good deal of
cache for her long chairing of the MPS Board of Education Finance
Committee. She was well-connected to many school board groups across the
state and nation and formally served as member in many of these. She was
conniving but diligent, undergirding her political maneuvers with a thorough
knowledge of the public school establishment and the issues considered
important by that establishment. She was elected chair of the board,
albeit soon offending enough fellow members to lose a subsequent election to
current chair Nelson Inz.
Then when MPS financial woes became fully
apparent, she was implicated in those miseries via the financial tanking of the
district on her watch as finance committee chair. Next she showed her
disrespect for gifted MPS Finance Chief Ibrahima Diop by taking the lead in
restoring $6.4 million dollars to funding for high schools with the most
affluent populations, after Diop--- one of the very best-trained,
consummately well-educated school district finance chiefs in the
nation--- had worked with Superintendent Ed Graff and the other chiefs
over many months to craft a budget that put the district on a course toward
structural balance.
Gagnon sought Democratic -Farmer-Labor Party
endorsement for a legislative seat and was set to exit the board; but
when she did not secure the endorsement, she retreated to another run for an
At-Large seat. But by this time, Caprini and Pauly had secured the
endorsement of the MFT/DFL cohort for which Gagnon had long served as
sycophantic go-fer.
The MFT/DFL political machine went into its
powerful motion once perennial candidate Doug Mann was eliminated in the August
2018 primary and the above four candidates had progressed to the general
election.
Thus, we have the context for Sharon El-Amin’s
strong performance. Those of us who campaigned for her did so to
win. Ms. El-Amin was at that time the head of the North Polar (North High
School) parent group, is a community activist who twice a month prepares
100 meals for those in need, for many years ran the successful El-Amin Fish
Shop on West Broadway Avenue, and has been involved in multiple community
organizations and issues. Husband Makram El-Amin is the imam of Masjid
An’nur mosque on Lyndale Avenue North; wife and husband have deep
connections to the Muslim community in general and the Somali contingent
specifically. El-Amin’s natural base of support is expansive and
deep; the last of four school board candidate forums in this 2018
election season brought forward a crowd at the University of Minnesota
community engagement center at 2100 Plymouth Avenue North (across from the
Minneapolis Urban League) that was overwhelmingly and vocally expressive in
support of her candidacy.
Sharon El-Amin went up against a canny and
seasoned political rival in Rebecca Gagnon and two endorsees of the powerful
MFT/DFL machine. She and Gagnon together received 21,573 more votes than
did Josh Pauly. El-Amin ran just a fraction behind Gagnon; the two
ran essentially even, garnering 18.34% and 18.95% of the vote respectively.
That Sharon El-Amin ran such a strong campaign
is testimony to a level of genuine public backing unmatched by Pauly,
certainly, but also unrivaled by Caprini and Gagnon.
……………………………………………………………………
Moving
left to right across the lineup seated on the raised platform at meetings of
the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education during academic year
2019-2020 one will find eleven people who regularly deny to our children the
education of excellence that is due to students of all demographic
descriptors.
At
far left is KerryJo Felder, who represents MPS District #2 covering
North Minneapolis. Her concerns are focused on building and athletic
field conditions, equitable distribution of resources, Full-Service Community
Schools, and securing a vocational center for location at or near North High
School. She has no understanding of
knowledge-intensive education and is ever hampered by her ties to the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)/ Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL)
cohort. Felder will be a member of the board until the election of 2020,
at which time we must have a candidate in place to replace her.
Next,
moving left to right next to Felder is Bob Walser, the silliest and most
trivial school board member I have witnessed during my five years of following
developments at the Minnepolis Board of Education and, further, in my
half-century of viewing similar spectacles in public education. Walser represents District #4, including Bryn
Mawr, toney Lowry Hill, and the communities around Uptown. He hails from the
Walser auto-dealer family and is a total tool of the MFT/ DFL. He often
spouts the education professor jargon that I detail especially in part Three,
Philosophy. Walser is a hippy-dippy white liberal type who is clueless as
to the academic aspirations of students and especially the needs of students
from families facing dilemmas of poverty and functionality. He frequently
references Deborah Meyer, who along with such folk as Alfie Kohn, Ted Sizer,
and Jonathon Kozol appropriates the name “progressive” and mumbles the
education professor speak dating to John Dewey, William Heard Kilpatrick, and
Harold Rugg in the 1920s. This is the doctrine that has inflicted such
knowledge-poor education on our students for at least forty years.
Walser’s seat is up for reelection in 2020; he must be defeated.
Next
you’ll observe Kim Caprini.
Caprini grew up on the Northside but mostly attended schools other than
those of the Minneapolis Public Schools, inclduing Ascension and Benilde-St.
Margaret. Her two children, though, did
attend MPS schools, and for many years Caprini has been a participant in
various parent involvement activities. But
her comments as a member have been a disappointment. She shows every sign of being the lackey of
the MFT-DFL cohort that characterizes this iteration of the Minneapolis Public
Schools Board of Education.
Next
moving left to right school board attendees will see Nelson Inz who most
abhorrently of all had no opposition for a seat that was up for reelection in
2018. Inz represents District #5, east of I-35 in South
Minneapolis); he is the third most objectionable member of the MPS Board
of Education, for which he serves as chair, having ironically defeated the
second most objectionable member (Rebecca Gagnon) for that position last
January 2018, and having endorsed the very most objectionable member (Bob
Walser) in the latter’s defeat of incumbent Josh Reimnitz in the November 2016
election. Inz is a Montessori-trained former bartender who now teaches in
a Montessori charter middle school. Inz has a habit of inflicting silly
banter on his audience and gives every indication of being bought and paid for
by the MFT/DFL.
Seated
moving left to right from Inz one will observe MPS Superintendent Ed Graff.
Graff came from over fifteen years in Anchorage, Alaska, where he was a
teacher, administrator, and superintendent. His record there was academically
abysmal, even as he touted the same Social and Emotional Learning formula that
has served as one of his major initiatives at the Minneapolis Public
Schools. Three and one-half years
into his tenure at MPS, there has been no improvement in the academic
program; any potential for improvement will come from his masterful
slimming and rationalization of the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250
West Broadway) bureaucracy and some unexpected epiphany regarding the need for
knowledge-intensive curriculum and thorough teacher retraining for the delivery
of such a curriculum. Such an epiphany is not clear in the MPS Comprehensive
District Design that he now touts.
Next to Graff, moving left to right, one will see Kim
Ellison, a former vice-chair and current clerk of the board; as clerk,
Ellison heads the Policy Committee and keeps time limiting Public Comments
speakers to three minutes (or to two minutes on those nights when numerous
people have registered to make comments). Ellison is a former alternative
school teacher (at Plymouth [Christian] Youth Center]) and was formerly married
to Keith Ellison, the Vice-Chair of the national Democratic Party and the
winner in the 6 November contest for Attorney General. Kim Ellison mostly
listens, speaking (in a very soft voice) only to make a point that she deems
germane. But her comments never go to the core of any of the central
dilemmas preventing officials and teachers at the Minneapolis Public Schools
from imparting an excellent education to students of all demographic descriptors.
Ellison does not seem to grasp the problems pertinent to curriculum and teacher
quality, forever impeded in the latter by her firm ties to the MFT/ DFL
establishment. Her seat will be up for reelection in 2020; we must work toward her defeat.
Next one sees student representative Janaan Ahmed, whose
term began in January 2019 and will end in December 2019. Ahmed brought an impressive record of
achievement and participation to her role but has not been discerning in her
comments. She gives impression of being
in synch with this terrible assemblage of board members, either as a matter of
deference or agreement. Either way,
Aamed has made little contribution to board meetings, failing conspicuously to
address low student academic proficiency rates, knowledge and skill deficient
curriculum, and poor teacher quality.
Seated
to the right of Ahmed is Jenny Arneson, the current treasurer who
presides over finance committee meetings.
Arneson has abundant mastery of detail pertinent to finance and many
other matters of the system as it is in the Minneapolis Public Schools; she also grew up in Northeast Minneapolis,
attended MPS schools, and has copious knowledge of her community. But, as with all adult, voting members of
this iteration of the board, Arneson has close ties to the MFT-DFL cohort that
prevents her from addressing the ills that plague the district.
Finally,
at the end of the row moving left to right the attendee will see Ira
Jourdain (representing District #6), the first American Indian to serve on
the school board. Jourdain seems to have a more elevated ability to
process adverse commentary than do most other board members, but he gives many
indications of being impeded by his MFT/ DFT association.
………………………………………………………………………………..
Readers be reminded to return for
factual detail pertinent to this composition of the Minneapolis Public Schools
Board of Education in Part One, Facts.
Review that generous body of detail and think hard about what you are
reading.
Then peruse again my comments above
and know that the election of November 2020 looms as enormously important,
whereby we must replace those who will be up for reelection (Felder, Inz,
Jourdain, and--- especially--- Walser) with members who are not bought and
paid for by the MFT-DFL cohort. We must
as an ongoing matter in the immediately looming and all subsequent elections
endeavor to install members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of
Education who will be unafraid to address the chronically grave issues pertinent
to academic quality and ready to embrace the necessary curricular overhaul, retraining
of teachers, and initiatives to ensure that students who face particular life
challenges arrive at school able to achieve at the high level of which they are capable.
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