Two paramount problems will doom the
impartation of an excellent education to students of the Minneapolis Public
Schools (MPS) until gaining resolution:
1) weak, illogically sequence curriculum; and 2)
teacher quality.
Inasmuch as teacher-scholars would bring
strong subject area curriculum embedded in their brains, the problem of teacher
quality is even graver than that of weak curriculum.
In protecting inadequate teachers, the
Minneapolis Federation fo Teachers (MFT) poses an enormous obstacle to the
impartation to an excellent education to MPS students.
Consider the following 10-point platform put
forward by the MFT in anticipation of the most recent round of contract
negotiations, followed by my analysis.
MFT59
10 Point Platform
Common
Sense Bargaining for the Common Good
Beyond
Academics: Educating the Whole Child
All
students deserve books in the library; instruments in the band
room; supplies in the art room; equipment in the gym; vision,
hearing, and dental screenings every year. Students deserve nurses,
social workers, counselors, psychologists, and library media specialists in
their schools--- all day, every day.
Smaller
Class Sizes
All
students deserve to have individual relationships with their teachers, as
strong relationships create strong classrooms. Small class sizes allow
time for teachers to plan quality lessons, talk to families, talk to each
student every day, and give students the attention they need to learn and grow.
Students
are More Than a Test Score
All
students deserve a broad, rich curriculum including academics, arts, music,
language, and trade, emphasizing engagement and authentic learning, instead of
preparation for high-stakes tests. Students deserve teachers and
administrators focused on development of quality curriculum in an educational
environment that acknowledges and respects backgrounds, perspectives, and
learning styles of our diverse communities.
Support,
Don’t Punish: Restorative Practices
All
students deserve compassion, empathy, and a safe place to learn. Students
deserve educators well-trained in restorative practices. Schools must
move toward practices that build relationships and resolve conflict. MPS
must work to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline.
Clean
and Healthy Buildings
All
students deserve fully staffed schools that ensure a clean, healthy, and safe
environment with soap in the bathroom, safe drinking water, sanitary
classrooms, and working air conditioning in every school.
Full-Service
Community Schools
All
students and their families deserve community-based services. Increasing
the number of full-service community schools throughout the city would provide
school-based community access to critical services such as healthcare,
childcare, dental clinics, adult education courses, and enrichment and
recreational opportunities for children from preschool to high school.
Quality
Education for All: Inclusion and Equity
All
students deserve high quality education regardless of their special education
needs, primary language, race, ethnicity, religion, documentation status,
family income, family composition, sexual orientation, gender identity, or zip
code. Students deserve educators committed to disrupting racism and other
systems of oppression in our classrooms and schools. Our schools need to
be welcoming to all our students and their families.
Invest
in Public Schools
All
students deserve a school district committed to fully funded public schools
governed by a democratically elected school board accountable to the
public. Students deserve schools that will not close at a moment’s
notice, schools that educate all children regardless of their needs, and
schools that are staffed by highly qualified, licensed educators.
$15
an Hour for All MPS Employees
All
students deserve a school district committed to investing in all employees by
paying a living wage. MPS employees include bus drivers, educators, food
servers, secretaries, and engineers who are also mentors to students;
they are also our neighbors and parents to our students.
Recess
All
students deserve at least 30 minutes of play and movement on a daily
basis. Recess promotes social and emotional learning such as working
together as a team, making friends, and deciding which game to play next.
My
Analysis
Now know this about the
ten-point program given above, taken in point-by point order in the following
exposition:
“Educating the whole
child” is a phrase typically used by education professors and other members of
the education establishment to avoid emphasis on academics. Like so much
from the strange world of of education departments, colleges, and schools, the
phrase has a certain facile appeal, capable of moving anyone who claims to love
children and to want to develop them as well-rounded human beings. But
members of the education establishment are better at launching pleasant
sounding slogans into the ether than they are at providing the truly well-round
education in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts that is the
primary responsibility of K-12 teachers and administrators. In this
case, the ten-point MFT program conveys the message that decision-makers at the
Minneapolis Public Schools should make sure that students are provided with an
array of support services and adequate stocks of library books, art supplies,
and gym equipment. These items and services are indeed important, and I
have argued persistently for greatly expanded outreach to families via the
direct provision of certain services and resource referral for others.
But material necessities and support services will go to waste in the absence
of a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education.
East Asian societies (e.
g., South Korea, Taiwan, Shanghai [China], Singapore) conduct highly effective
classrooms with large class sizes, ranging to 50 students and beyond. Students
in these nations; along with those in such nations as Finland, Poland, Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand; regularly outperform students of the United
States on the Program of International Students Assessment (PISA) designed by
Andrea Schleicher to assess ability to analyze problems and to apply knowledge
and skills creatively. Small class sizes have intuitive appeal, and have
many advantages if resources are available to keep classes small. But
class size is much less important than curriculum and teacher quality.
“Authentic learning” is
another education establishment shibboleth. This is code for the project
and portfolio approach to education formerly taken in the defunct Profiles
of Learning of the Minnesota Department of Education in the 1990s, now
replaced by academic standards that I helped to design in the early years of
the new millennium. Standardized tests are the most objective assessments
of student knowledge and skills, the sort of instruments represented by the
college readiness measures of the ACT and SAT and the Minnesota Comprehensive
Assessments (MCAs) for grades 3-8 math and reading, grade 10 reading,
and grade 11 math. Because students (especially those facing challenges
of familial poverty and functionality) in Minnesota record such a lackluster
performance on such tests, the teachers unions (Education Minnesota,
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers) seek escape into the project and portfolio
approach that obscures information on student ability to perform a wide range
of math skills and to read a wide swath of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Students should receive
a knowledge-intensive education in “academics, arts, music, language, and
trade”; but teachers have neither the knowledge nor the approach to
curriculum that can provide such an education. And as a group, teachers
are lamentably short of the training and life experience that would truly allow
them to provide knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education in the liberal,
technological, and vocational arts.
Students should be
provided clean and healthy buildings, restorative justice, and equity.
But, given adequate buildings, if students were engaged with a
knowledge-intensive, skill replete curriculum delivered at the behest of
genuinely excellent teachers, the behavior problems that give rise to the need
for restorative justice would diminish drastically and equity would be
implicit. Recess, health, and physical education are necessary parts of a
fully developed curriculum--- but at present these are not generally
provided in such a way as to encourage the good eating habits and aerobic
exercise that promote quality life on this one earthly sojourn. Varsity
sports get much more attention, again contrasting the educational programs of
the United States with those of the best school systems across the world, all
of which relegate sports activities to community programs rather than the
schools.
Our schools should be
properly funded, but the most vexing dilemma is not lack of funds but rather
proper application of funds for the provision of high-quality curriculum,
teachers, academic enrichment (set-aside time for tutoring and additional
academic challenges), and outreach to families, all delivered by a greatly
trimmed central office (Davis Center) bureaucracy. All employees should
receive at least $15, after proper training and a probationary period in which
all staff members throughout the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools
demonstrate an understanding of the central mission of the locally centralized school
district to impart a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education.
Excellent education is
the provision of a knowledge intensive, skill-replete curriculum in the
liberal, technological, and vocational arts by excellent teachers, delivered in
grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years. As a group, members of
MFT59 do not believe in such a knowledge-focused education, and the nature of
their training does not prepare them to deliver such an education.
Such a
circumstance reduces the MFT 10 Point Platform to a substantively
gossamer document, lacking in either common or intellectual sense, and
certainly not capable of ensuring the common good through the impartation of an
equitably excellent education to students of all demographic descriptors
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Teacher training is the root of the teacher
quality problem at the Minneapolis Public Schools
Teachers at the K-5 level typically receive
a B. A. in Elementary Education, the weakest degree on any
any college or university campus. They are then encouraged by the step and lane
system to secure an M. A. in Elementary Education, for which they take very
similar courses, also the least challenging of any master’s degree
program. Only a few teachers at the K-5
level receive doctorates; all of those doctorates
received by K-5 teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) are in
education.
Teachers at the grades 6-8 and 9-12 levels
do often receive a B. A. or B. S. in fields other than education, but they
almost always receive master’s degrees in education rather than in subject
areas pertinent to the fields in which they teach. Only a few teachers at grades 6-8 and 9-12
receive doctorates. Among teachers at
grades 6-8 in the Minneapolis Public Schools, none hold a Ph. D in a field
other than education. Among MPS teachers
at grades 9-12, only three hold a Ph. D in a field other than education.
One of the two reasons that students
graduate from the Minneapolis Public Schools with so little knowledge in
mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, economics,
psychology, literature, English composition, music, and visual art is because
curriculum is mostly absent at the K-5 level and is weak at grades 6-8 and
9-12, except for Advanced Placement courses at the 9-12 (actually 11-12) level.
The other reason for the knowledge
deficiency of students and graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools is that
very few teachers at grades K-5 have much subject area knowledge at all. At grades 6-8 and 9-12, very few teachers are
genuine masters of their fields. Very
few teachers at these levels have the ability to teach Advanced Placement
courses.
Consider the following data:
Degrees Held by Teachers in the
Minneapolis Public Schools
Number of Teachers Who Hold Each of the
Following as Their Most Advanced Degree
Grade Bachelor’s Master’s Ed. D. Ph. D.
Level
Taught
K-5 515
872 22
6
6-8 172 235 3
5
9-12
289 388 5
11
Number of Teachers Who Hold a Master’s
Degree or Ph. D. in a Field Other Than Education
Grade Master’s Ph. D.
Level
Taught
K-5 56 -----
6-8 23 -----
9-12 48 3
Percentage of Teachers with Master’s
Degree in Education
vs. Teachers with Master’s Degree in Other
Fields
Grade Master’s Degree Master’s
Degrees
Level in Education in Other Fields
Taught
K-5 93.58% 6.42%
6-8 90.21%
9.78%
9-12 87.62% 12.37%
Percentage of Teachers with Ph. D. in
Education
vs. Teachers with Ph. D. Other Fields
Grade Ph. D Ph. D.
Level in Education in Other Fields
Taught
K-5 100.00% 0.00%
6-8 100.00%
0.00%
9-12 81.25% 18.37%
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Teachers are thus philosophically corrupted
by professors of education, and their potential as scholars is thwarted by the
phenomenon of degrees in education having since the 1990s supplanted those in academic
subject areas.
Teachers enter classrooms unprepared to
impart the logically sequenced preK-12 knowledge and skill sets that comprise
an excellent education. They seek the
comfort of schools with student populations that are wealthy and unscarred by
history. Any given teacher is likely to have
very little understanding, despite all the buzz about culturally relevant
curriculum and cultural competency, of students of African American, Latino-Latina,
Somali, or Hmong provenance.
Teachers at the Minneapolis Public Schools
are incompetent across an astonishing array of indicators.
The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers
protects and promotes such incompetence.
Thus, the MFT is the major obstacle to the
impartation of excellent education to students of the Minneapolis Public
Schools.
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