Sep 25, 2019

>Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect< >>>>> Chapter Fifty (Part Two, Analysis) >>>>> Jennifer Rose Simon and Department of Indian Education Should Be Evaluated for Ability to Raise Academic Achievement for American Indian Students and Major Academic Field Scholars Should Be Added to Staff

Late in the last too academic years of 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 I have attended meetings held under the aegis of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors (MUID).  As gleaned from a statement of MUID leaders concerning the Franklin-Hiawatha housing struggle, the organization, Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors (MUID) is a coalition of leaders representing Native American organizations and official tribal groups in Minneapolis.  Membership includes nonprofits focused on the provision of services or issues pertinent to health services, education, housing, and economic development.  The MUID organization is partner in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the City of Minneapolis. 

 

At the meetings that I attended, Executive Director Anna Ross and other staff from the MPS Department of Indian Education reported on developments at MPS schools that serve heavily American Indian populations.  These schools include Anishinabe Elementary, NaWayEE Center School, American Indian OIC/Takoda Academy, and Tatanka Academy.

                                                                                                                      

Be reminded of these data from Part One, Facts:

 

MPS Proficiency Rates for American Indian Students, Academic Years ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, & 2018

 

Math                     2014       2015       2016      2017      2018

 

American             23%        19%           19%       16%        17%

Indian

 

Reading               2014       2015       2016      2017      2018

 

American             21%        20%           21%       22%        23%

Indian

 

Science                                2014       2015       2016      2017      2018

 

American             14%        16%           13%       16%        13%

Indian

 

Performance and profile for Anishinabe Elementary is as follows:

 

Percentage of Students Proficient on the

Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs),

Academic Years ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018

 

Anishinabe Elementary School                 Principal >>>>>   Laura Sullivan

 

Math                     2014       2015       2016      2017      2018

 

                                  6%          12%         8%          8%          8%

 

                                (186)      (172)      (156)     (156)     (98)

                                                                               

Reading               2014       2015       2016      2017      2018

 

                                  7%           9%          9%          6%         16%

 

                                (186)      (172)        (156)      (156)    (98)

 

Science                                2014       2015       2016      2017      2018

 

                                   1%         7%           2%          2%         14%

                               

                                 (69)       (59)          (45)        (44)      (21)

 

Student Population

 

Enrollment:  not tabulated as yet by MPS officials

 

                                                Percentage of                   Percentage of

                                                Enrollment at Site           Enrollment

Districtwide

 

Native American                     78%                       4%

African American                    10%                                     36%

Asian American                                         0%                                       6%

Hispanic American                 10%                                     20%

White American                       2%                                     34%

 

English Learners                        1%                                     24%

Receiving Free or                   97%                                     63%

         Reduced Price Lunch

Receiving Special                   18%                                     14%

         Education Services

     

Contact Information

 

3100 E. 28th Street

Minneapolis  MN  55406

Grades PreK-5

Principal:  Laura Sullivan

Hours:  8:40 AM-3:10 PM

Phone:  612-668-0880

FAX:       612-668-0890


Website:  anishinabe.mpls.k12.

 

District information on the academic performance at American Indian/OIC is sketchy.  The reading proficiency rate in academic years 2013-2014 and 2016-2017 was fourteen percent (14%);  The science proficiency rate in academic year 2015-2016 was seventeen percent (17%).  Data for other categories and in other years is missing, raising questions regarding attendance and fulfillment of assessment obligations.

 

Staff at Takoda Prep/American Indian OIC assert that the school is “focused on helping all students make advances in reading, writing, and mathematics while making a strong connection to American Indian culture.”  Those at NaWayEE School seek to serve at-risk students as described in MN Statute 126.22.

 

The Department of Indian Education identifies the following as four key services provided by staff members:

 

1)  Support for Instruction;

 

2)  Support for Family involvement;

 

3)  College Readiness

 

4)  Advocacy for Families

 

The Mission of the Department of Indian Education is given as follows:

 

Improve Native American achievement and graduation rates through academically rigorous culturally responsive instruction, family and student engagement, and collaborative partnerships with schools and communities.

 

The Vision of the Department of Indian Education is given as follows:

 

All American Indian students are empowered as lifelong learners to be fully engaged leaders, stewards, and citizens.

 

National American Indian/OIC President/CEO Joe Hobot received press coverage on 29 June 2017 for his touting of Takoda Prep’s success in closing the achievement gap.  But as in similar claims regarding bridging of that gap, reality confronts verbiage.  The claim had little to do with academic performance:  The only achievement cited was implicit in a comparison with graduation rates at the Minneapolis Public Schools for Native American students as a whole with those at Takoda Academy;  for MPS Native American students as a whole, the graduation rate  in 2017 was thirty-six percent (36%);  for Takoda Academy, the corresponding figure was eighty-five percent (85%).  In the Minneapolis Public Schools, graduating students lack proper academic preparation for postsecondary education;  this is even truer for alternative schools:  Graduation rates do not equate with academic achievement. 

 

………………………………………………………………………………..

 

With this background information at the forefront of my consciousness, I entered each of these meetings vainly hoping to hear something encouraging from the academic programs serving American Indian students in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

But what I heard concerned cultural programming and successful efforts to connect with the American Indian families and communities served by each of the schools. 

 

I was the only person at either of these two gatherings to ask any questions focused on academic progress.  Minneapolis Public Schools Board members Kim Ellison, Bob Walser, and Ira Jourdain (the latter himself a member of the Red Lake band of Anishinabe/ Ojibway) attended the meeting in spring 2018;  board members Kim Ellison, Bob Walser, Ira Jourdain, and Jenny Arneson attended the meeting in spring 2019.  Superintendent Ed Graff also attended the 2019 meeting.  Neither Graff nor the board members asked even one question regarding academic programming for the purpose of raising American indian student achievement.

 

In the first meeting, my own questions were posed to the principal of Takoda Academy.  Memorably, I asked him what the range and median ACT scores of students at Takoda Academy were.  He nervously uttered that he had seen everything from 14 to 28, to which I replied,

 

“Someone scored a 28 [a very high score out of 36 that would place such a student at the 89th percentile]?  Oh, really?  And what is the median score for students at Takoda Academy?”

 

“Well, I really don’t…”

 

“The median is 21,” broke in Anna Ross, perhaps doing a quick calculation to split the difference between a score of 14 and a score of 28.

 

“The median at Takoda Academy is 21?” I queried.

 

“Yes,” came her terse reply.

 

I later checked this fantasy figure out, knowing that achievement rates did not support such a claim.  The actual figure is 16, at the 20th percentile, well below the 21 figure, which is the national average (50th percentile).

 

Ms. Ross had engaged in quite a bit of prevarication.

 

………………………………………………………………………………..

 

Leaders of the schools at the second meeting again touted cultural programming and familial connections.  I asked each one of them about academic progress.  There was none of the Anna Ross prevarication, but not a single leader could offer much that promised academic progress.  There was, though, a hopeful moment when a dedicated and adroit English teacher at South High School conveyed her difficult but ultimately successful struggle to gain interest and then avid participation in the generation of creative work for and publication of a splendid book of poetry by American Indian students.  I lauded her for this very piece of artful teaching.

 

…………………………………………………………………………….

 

Anna Ross announced at this last gathering in spring 2019 that she was leaving the department.    

Ross’s salary increased from $116,509 in December 2017 to $119,422 in February 2019, a hefty sum for such dismal results in academic achievement for American indian students.   He replacement, Jennifer Rose Simon, will be receiving $109,273 in salary.

 

Perusal of staff information for the Department of Indian Education indicates a program heavy on cultural and social workers but sparse approaching zero as to subject area scholars:

 

Staff Member                                   Position

 

1)           Anna Ross                                            Director
2)            Terrell Bignell                                   School Success  

     Program Assistant

3)            Jodi Burke                                           Counselor on Special

     Assignment

4)            Tracy Burke                                        Counselor on Special

     Assignment

5)            Braden Canfield                               Social Worker
6)            Miskwa-Mukwa Desjarlait          Youth Engagement Specialist

7)            Ida Downwind                                  District Program Facilitator

8)           Alicia Garcia                                        Social Worker
9)            Tami Johnson                                    Counselor on Special

     Assignment

10)          Elaine Kopischke                             Office Specialist
11)          Gary Lussier                                       District Program Facilitator 

12)          James Vukelich                                School Success  

     Program Assistant

13)          Christine Wilson                              Family Engagement Specialist

14)          Odia Wood-Krueger                       District Program Facilitator 

 

The Department of Indian Education exists by Minnesota legislative mandate;  hence, the department, unlike the Office of Black Male Achievement, must abide.  But the department must be transformed for focus on academic achievement.  Staff should be evaluated.  The cultural programming is laudable and those who are effective in this capacity should be maintained in their positions.  But academics is the main reason for any locally centralized school district.  The students themselves are fully capable, and their lives depend on going forth as culturally enriched, civically prepare, and professionally satisfied adults.  Only a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education will facilitate the realization of those aims;  accordingly, staff retained or added to the Department of Indian Education should work closely with thoroughly retrained teachers to impart an academically ambitious education of the sort that must be delivered by the Minneapolis Public Schools to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

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