>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.