At the same Tuesday, 22 October 2019,
Committee of the Whole meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of
Education at which District #1 member Jenny Arneson made her astonishingly
stupid comment regarding the sequence of United States history courses in the
district, At-Large member Kim Ellison chimed in with a remark of her own that,
when taken together with her nearly decade of ineffective participation on the
board, should induce her resignation and departure with Arneson out the Davis
Center door.
After hearing Executive Director of
Teaching and Learning Aimee Fearing and Chief of Research, Evaluation,
Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore engage in double talk and
jargon-infested presentation of an academic plan that has no hope of success,
Ellison felt impelled to make a comment pertinent to Social and Emotional
Learning (SEL). Social and Emotional
Learning is part of a four-point
emphasis in that academic plan that has no hope of succeeding, for reasons I
have detailed in many places on this blog and in my Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect; the other components of that hopeless plan
are Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), Literacy, and Equity.
Ellison commented that Graff’s emphasis on
Social and Emotional Learning resonated with her immediately because of her
experience as a teacher at an alternative school. She did not mention the name of the school,
but the school of reference was known as Plymouth Christian Youth Center (PCYC)
for a number of years, now rendered as Plymouth Youth Center (PYC) Arts and
Technology High School. Ellison said
that at her school there was a strong emphasis on teacher and staff
relationships with students, with the implication that this produced student
success.
Ellison is half-right but the half-wrong
part reveals the abominable level of academic substance delivered at such
schools. The City, Inc., and the Street
Academy/ Minneapolis Urban League High School were schools at which
relationship building was touted; those
schools are now defunct. The Minneapolis
Public Schools contracts with seven privately run alternative schools to
provide academic and other services to students whom MPS failed to engage. Those contract alternative schools are 800
West Broadway, Loring Nicollet, Menlo Park, Merc, PYC Arts and Technology
(Ellison’s school of reference), Tatanka Academy, and Volunteers of America
(VOA) High School. Academic performance
for many years at these schools has stagnated at levels witnessed in the
following aggregate results for academic year 2018-2019:
Percentage of Students Proficient at MPS
Contract Alternative Schools
(Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment [MCA])
Mathematics 2%
(52 tested)
Reading
(32 tested) 22%
Science
(30 tested) 13%
Many more than 52 students are enrolled at
these alternative schools, so that even the number (52) representing students
taking the mathematics MCA fails to capture the number of students
enrolled. But absences are high; on any given day, a small percentage of
enrolled students actually are in attendance.
There was also some formal opting out, as well as spontaneous refusal to
take the tests.
Staff members at alternative schools do
tend to build amicable relationships with students and to reach out to families
with a persistence and compassion not prevailing in mainline MPS schools. In that sense, the overwrought term, Social
and Emotional Learning, could resonate with Kim Ellison’s experience at PYC
High School. That she would only mention
this facet of the school, though, is telling:
I return to my abiding questions. Are the members of this constituent
composition of the MPS Board of Education
1) ignorant;
2) in denial;
or
3)
corrupt.
Accumulated evidence over five years of
observation strongly suggests to me that the members of this board manifest all
three qualities:
1) They are ignorant as to the history and
philosophy of education in the United States and have little understanding of
the components of an excellent education.
2)
Given their fascination with their ability to attain membership by
winning elections with the strong support of the Minneapolis Federation of
Teachers (MFT), they are in denial on matters of curriculum and teacher
quality;
and
3)
They are corrupt political hacks who care more about maintaining their
positions, in some cases for potential to spring from the school board to a legislative
seat or other political position--- than
they do about the academic sustenance of the precious students whose lives they
disregard.
Kim Ellison is ignorant, in denial, and
corrupt in making such comments as attend her advocacy of alternative schools
as models for the Minneapolis Public Schools.
She has made such comments and failed to identify the problems pertinent
to curriculum and teacher quality for her near-decade of membership on the MPS
Board of Education.
Ellison needs to catch sight of Jenny
Arneson’s exit out the Davis Center door and follow with due haste.
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