Article #12 in A Series of Highlights from My Book, >Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect<, Concerning Staff and Systemic Overhaul at the Davis Center and at MDE That Will Occur Due to My Revelations >>>>> The Educational Equity Framework as One of Many Documents Existing Only to Fulfill Legal Mandates: Remembering the Abysmal Presentation on Educational Equity by Kimberly Matier and Lanise Block at the Tuesday, 11 August 2015, Meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education

Jargon is an insidious feature of all documents at the Minneapolis Public Schools pertaining to academics and equitable education.

 

Equity is one of four programmatic emphases of Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Ed Graff, along with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), and Literacy. 

 

Each year MPS officials must file an Equity and Diversity Impact Statement to demonstrate how district policies will affect and promote equitable education for MPS students.  Since 2015, there has been officially in force an Educational Equity Framework for achieving equity.

 

The main features of the framework were first presented to the MPS Board of Education by Kimberly Matier and Lanise Block on 11 August 2015.

 

To understand just how wretched was the presentation of the document, Acceleration 2020/  Educational Equity:  Developing a Framework for Student Achievement for All by Kim Matier and Lanise Block at the Tuesday, 11 August 2015, meeting of the Minneapolis Board of Education, remember these requisite features of educational equity:

 

Educational equity results from three sources: 

 

1)  excellent education;

 

2)  excellent teachers;

 

3)  warm relationships with students and their families.

 

Hence, with this understanding, we have again the definitions for excellent education and excellent teachers, with a comment also on building relationships with students and their families

 

1)

 

An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a rich liberal arts curriculum in math, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts in grade-by-grade sequence to all students throughout the K-12 years.

 

2)

 

An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.

 

When educational excellence (by definition including excellent teachers who, in turn by definition, have the ability to impart knowledge to all students) prevails, educational equity is attained.  Therefore, we must set about specifying curriculum for each grade throughout the K-12 years, and we must at the central school district level retrain teachers capable of delivering the challenging, deep, and broad liberal arts curriculum to all students by the time they walk across the stage at high school graduation.

 

3)

 

An excellent teacher, building principal, and any central school district personnel responsible for imparting an education of excellence to all of our precious children, should have a high level of comfort in connecting with families of students, necessarily entailing comfort with numerous ethnicities and economic levels.  When families understand the steps that are being taken to ensure excellent education for their children, they will respond with gratitude.  So we must make sure that all school district personnel are highly adept and sensitive as they establish connections and relationships with the families of the students for whom they have the sacred duty to provide an excellent education.    

 

……………………………………………………………………………

 

Rather than focus on the delivery of excellent education in the context of excellent relationships with students and their families, Lanise Block and Kimberly (Kim) Matier delivered a jargon-infested travesty of banal generality as apparently the best that the Office of Academic Affairs at the Minneapolis Public Schools can promote as a program for achieving equity. 

 

In their presentations, Matier and Block stuck closely to a power point document that stated goals for the presentation to be the provision of the rationale and history for achieving educational equity;  explanation of this new effort’s relationship to an existing Equity and Diversity and Impact Assessment (EDIA);  and designation of the timeline for steps toward finalizing the framework of the equity program, with reference to ongoing efforts synchronous with this new initiative.  The need for an equity framework was stated to be the elimination of racial predictability, development of racial and cultural skill, and the acceleration of student outcomes.

 

This verbiage was then tied to a stated Equity Policy 1304, which reads:  “embracing our diversity through inclusion creates an environment that leverages diversity and creates schools where students, families, community members, and employees feel welcomed, valued, and supported;  and where students and staff can perform to their personal bests.”  Clustered around the goal of equity, a graphic presented the following priorities:  culturally linguistically responsive practices, inclusive and innovative systems, positive school-wide engagement, and effectively assessed quality core instruction and 21^st century skills.

 

Matier and Block stated that they started by convening a group of “internal equity practitioners,” reviewing research and existing equity frameworks in the interest of developing a common understanding.  They vow that they “committed to key elements of the framework” and then requested initial feedback from key community partners.

 

The “Draft for Educational Equity” was presented in triangular visualization with “Collective Accountability” at the center, with “instructional transformation,” “personal transformation,” and “structural transformation” each located pictorially at one of the three angles.  Then outside the triangle, on each of the three sides were given the values, “evidence-based research”;  “families  and communities”;  and  “integrated systems”;  with “pedagogy of equity” topping the visual at the triangle’s apex.

 

These values then gained a bit of additional comment on another page with the heading, “Desired Outcomes for Systemic Change.“  Additional comment highlighted the following:

 

>>>>>  “evidence-based policy, program, and practice,” so as to “integrate racial/ cultural competency in the development and implementation of systems to rapidly improve outcomes “;

 

>>>>>   “pedagogy of equity,“ so as to “ensure targeted groups access learning with the cultural and linguistic assets of students in mind “;

 

>>>>>  “integrated systems,” so as to “build and manage interdependent relationships that create and sustain adaptive systems to meet diverse needs” ;

 

>>>>>  “families and communities as education partners,” so as to “normalize the inclusion of  the perspectives of our families of color and American Indian communities to interrupt marginalization.”

 

The steps in the process were given according to the following timetable:

 

Phase One          >>>>>    April 2015-October 2015

                                >>>>>    Identify Desired Outcomes

                                >>>>>    Develop Draft Framework and Recommend Changes to EDIA

 

 

Phase Two          >>>>>    November 2015-June 2016

                                >>>>>    Stakeholder Groups formed

                                >>>>>    Action Plans Developed for Desired Outcomes

                                >>>>>    EDIA Piloted, Feedback Collected, and Final Adjustments Made

 

Phase Three       >>>>>    January 2016-June 2016

                                >>>>>    Board Update on Equity Framework and EDIA (January and June)

                                >>>>>    Board Training

                                >>>>>    Equity Audit

 

The document and presentation ended with a citation of work that will continue, according to certain existing offices and programs:  Racial Equity Institute/ Professional Development, Coaching for Equity, B.L.A.C.K. (not listed in the power-point, Block explained helpfully that his acronym stands for “Black Lives Acquiring Cultural Knowledge”), Ethnic Studies Courses, Social Justice Fellows, Vendor Diversity work, and EDIA.

 

………………………………………………………………………………….

 

That’s a lot of verbiage, which I decode as follows:

 

Since we’ve got a raging achievement gap, we’re going to pretend one more time that we’re addressing a problem by creating a program.  We created the Office of Black Male Achievement to no noticeable effect, but no matter.  You, school board members;  and you, the public;  can be distracted as always by the problems at hand as we assure you that we are going to move forward with processes designed to make teachers, administrators, and people throughout the Minneapolis Public Schools more culturally sensitive.  Even though we already have offices and highly paid personnel in place who should be reaching out to all parents and creating a climate that embraces ethnic diversity----  we’re really, really, really going to do it this time. 

 

Really. 

 

Really, really. 

 

Really.

 

                                ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 

But school board members squirmed almost as much as I did during this presentation.  Each in her or his own way, board members at the time Don Samuels, Carla Bates, Tracine Asberry, Siad Ali, and even Rebecca Gagnon, Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison and Jenny Arneson asked, “But haven’t we heard this before?  How will this program be measured more effectively, and don’t we already have the Equity and Diversity Impact Assessment (EDIA) for doing this?  Do we really have the luxury of time?”

 

To the latter question, District Member Reimnitz noted, in essence, that the board had not itself been vigilant enough as to previous equity issues and needs now to give this new process time to work.  Bates, having been among the most forceful in objecting to the innocuous generality of the presentation by Matier and Block, agreed with Reimnitz that at this point the board did need to be patient, but with a heightened sense of vigilance.

 

To all questions, Matier and Block offered more banal bromides and empty rhetoric, with Interim Superintendent Goar chiming in to the prevailing atonality with his usual choral double-talk.

 

                                …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

 

 

So again be reminded that 

  

Educational equity results from three sources: 

 

1)  excellent education;

 

2)  excellent teachers;

 

3)  warm relationships with students and their families.

 

These sources of educational equity should be observable right now, and could be if we had the abiding components of an excellent education in place.

 

But since these components of an excellent education are not in place, and decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools have not the vision to recognize educational excellence, the understanding of the teacher training necessary, or the empathic ability to reach out to students and families right where they live---  we are forever creating distractions that divert us from the pathway to educational excellence.

 

Thus it is that I have decided that the time is now for saying that the time is now.  We cannot afford to wait.  Babies are dying.  Young people, especially young African American males, are headed disproportionately to prison.   Young African American female bodies are being sold.  Human beings of great potential are missing their chance in this one earthly sojourn for lives of cultural enrichment, civic preparedness,, and professional satisfaction because we do not care enough.

 

We have had enough exercises in goal setting and documents generated to fulfill legal mandates.

 

We need equity via the provision of excellent education by excellent teachers.

 

Generous details on these matters are offered in Part Three, Philosophy.

Article #11 in A Series of Highlights from My Book, >Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect<, Concerning Staff and Systemic Overhaul at the Davis Center and at MDE That Will Occur Due to My Revelations >>>>> Strategic Plan: Acceleration 2020 of the Minneapolis Public Schools: A Sorry Exercise in Goal Setting Unsupported by a Viable Plan of Action

Shortly after Ed Graff arrived to take the position of superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), he took stock of the prevailing Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 and determined that this could not work as a plan of action for guiding the academic program of the district.  As he looked toward 2020, he began consideration of a Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive Design that was to take the place of the strategic plan in place upon his arrival.  The MPS Comprehensive District Design will not work either, for reasons that I will detail in a succeeding chapter, but Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 was a particularly unrealistic exercise in goal setting lacking any force of action capable of achieving the stated goals.

 

A close look at Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) reveals the document’s stark deficiencies as a guide for excellence in K-12 education.

 

This document was approved at a September 2014 meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.  Via the program advocated in the pages of the work overseen by then Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson and Chief Executive Officer Michael Goar, the public schools of Minneapolis were to advance educational excellence and equity for all students enrolled in the district.

 

Six high-level goals were given in the document:  1) Improved Student Outcomes;  2) Equity;  3)  Family and Community Partnership;  4) Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff;  5) Stewardship;  and 6) Resources for Students and Schools.

 

Goals offered in what was termed the “big, bold spirit of the 5-8-10 plan” included the following, to be attained in the run-up to year 2020:

 

>>>>>    5 percent annual increase in students overall meeting or exceeding state standards in reading

and math;

 

 >>>>>   8 percent annual increase in students meeting or exceeding state standards in reading

and math for MPS’s lowest performing students;

 

 >>>>>   10 percent annual increase in the four-year graduation rate

 

Officials at MPS declared that

 

“Our targets are intentionally high to reignite a sense of urgency in the system and ensure that everyone is operating with growth mindset. Meeting these targets is absolutely possible.  Under this plan, we will achieve our vision of every child graduating college and career ready.”

 

The enormous amount of jargon and generality contained in Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 is instructive for the similarity to the verbiage encountered in the new Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design.

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number One, Improved Student Outcomes, officials at MPS stressed that teachers at Grades Pre-K through Grade 3 should have routines in place for development of student reading and language skills;  that teachers at Grade 4 through Grade 12 and for adult learners should abet the development of such skills via guided academic conversations and “close reading”;  and that  teachers at Grade 6 through Grade 12 and for adult learners develop students’ math and science vocabulary and content knowledge using “literacy strategies.”  Also stressed were core instruction for all categories of learners;  personalized learning opportunities;  readiness at key points of transition from one major age grouping to another;  behavioral interventions that minimize suspensions;  and the availability of ethnic studies courses in high school.

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Two, Equity, officials at MPS emphasized the use of student data as examined and then acted upon by Professional Learning Communities of teachers at each site, problem-based learning and critical thinking;  multiple pathways to graduation via dual enrollment, Post-Secondary Options (PSEO), credit recovery, community-based GED and literacy programs, and online learning;  and availability of world languages.  Associate Superintendents were to monitor progress toward the goal of equity and the given sub-goals;  and staff at all schools are to be given proper supports, with enhanced supports at High Priority Schools and Focus Schools.

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Three, Family and Community Partnership, officials at MPS underscored the importance of engagement with families of students, with appropriate language translation and interpreting services, with training for teachers in communication with families, and with great effort made to provide accessible locations and temporally flexible times for familial participation.  They also stressed increases in corporate support, grant funding, and volunteers---  with ongoing monitoring of community partnerships for effectiveness.

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Four, Effective Teachers, School Leaders, and Staff, officials at MPS emphasized the need for diversity in hiring, identification and placement of individuals particularly suited for teaching and staff roles to meet the needs of students at certain schools, and the provision of training and supports for staff in performing to expectation.  There was also emphasis placed on providing leadership training and career advancement opportunities;  and on implementing Quality Compensation (Q-Comp) to promote staff retention and career development.   

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Five, Stewardship, officials at MPS stressed accountability on the part of administrators at all levels for the implementation of Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 via ongoing assessment of effectiveness and adjustment of strategies as necessary; use of the Baldrige Criteria for Education Organizations as a guide to ongoing staff training in planning, management, decision-making and data collection and utilization;  and central office adjustments to abet increased school autonomy.

 

Toward the achievement of Goal Number Six, Resources for Students and Schools, officials at the district MPS emphasized “zero-based budgeting” to assure that funds are used where they are truly needed, with allocations prioritized for the classroom, and with attention to services pertinent to transportation, food security, instructional technology, school environment, and athletics that have a direct impact on students’ lives.

 

All of these goals were to be attained in the context of an inclination toward school autonomy and upon the conviction that the individual site---  the school---  is the meaningful unit of change and that school staff members should have flexibility to meet the needs of their particular student population. 

 

………………………………………………………………….

 

Stating that the school is the unit of change, with attention to the needs of particular populations, is one of those expressions that can float into the ears of people without giving offense and even seeming favorable---  but actually may be harmful, depending on those devils called details. 

 

In reality, in the United States the locally centralized district itself must be the unit of change.  At that level, we must specify a knowledge-rich curriculum for implementation throughout the schools of MPS, for impartation by knowledgeable teachers trained by the school district itself.  With the definition of an excellent education, the identification of a knowledge-rich curriculum, and the training of knowledgeable teachers accomplished, then most functions of the central bureaucracy could be moved out to the individual sites, with principals and teachers given responsibility for implementation.  With the central bureaucracy having acted meaningfully as the original unit of change, the sites will then become subsidiary units of change.  

 

Remember that an

 

excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, logically seqauenced curriculum in the liberal (mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, fine arts), technological, and industrial arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the K-12 years.

 

And remember that

 

an excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Remember also that the

 

purpose of an excellent K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts is to provide maximum probability that students will graduate with the likelihood of going forth to lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.   

 

With those succinct definitions and observations, I have provided more detail in my vision of an excellent education than officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools have given in their entire Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 document---  or that they give in the projected academic program in the Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design

 

In the Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020, the most specific statements were those pertinent to goals for student achievement;  and those identifying the school as the unit of change.  But those statements seem to assume that annual increases in math and reading skills (5% annually for the general student population,  8% for previously lowest-performing students),  and 10% annual increases in the four-year graduation rate;  can be attained without highly specific approaches for achieving results.  And MPS officials focus measurable goals on basic skills, while relying on site-based school innovation, multiple pathways, and linguistic and advanced course opportunities to forge a path to excellence.  

 

Relying on site-base innovation is a “Hail Mary” approach that the  Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design seems to counter with a properly centralized plan auguring consistency and continuity from school to school.  But, lamentably, the jargon-infested generality of the Design will still find officials yelling, “Hail Mary”---  hoping for the best in a program wherein curriculum remains weak, teachers ill-trained, and the academic and life struggles of students with familial challenges of poverty and functionality go unaddressed.  

 

We will achieve educational excellence for all of our precious children when we specify a knowledge-rich curriculum for implementation in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.  Teachers of such an information-heavy curriculum must have a much stronger knowledge base than they have now. 

 

As I have detailed in other chapters, the knowledge base of our K-5 teachers is particularly wretched and must be rectified via mandatory acquisition of a challenging Masters of Liberal Arts degree for knowledge mastery in math, natural science, history, economics, literature, English usage, and the fine arts---  with a required master’s thesis and a full year of internship served under the guidance of the best teacher available;  this Masters of Liberal Arts degree must be superintended at the central school district (MPS) level, with instruction provided by professors and other experts in their fields of instruction.    

 

Secondary (Grade 6 through Grade 12) teachers should possess an academic master’s degree (granted in legitimate disciplines, not from faculty composed of education professors) and serve the same full year of internship as given for K-5 teachers.

 

This level of specificity for achieving excellent education, detailed in part Three, Philosophy, is what was missing from the  Strategic Plan:  Acceleration 2020 document of MPS, and from the Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design.

Article #10 in A Series of Highlights from My Book, >Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect<, Concerning Staff Overhaul at the Davis Center That Will Occur Due to My Revelations >>>>> The Sea of Corruption That Is the Minnesota Department of Education

The islands that are locally centralized school districts such as the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) are surrounded by a sea of corruption that vitiates preK-12 public education throughout the state and makes imperative that on one of these islands an edifying structure for delivery of educational excellence be built.

 

The appointment of a commissioner of education in Minnesota is highly political, with the selection occurring at the behest of the governor.  With one exception in recent memory, Republican appointees tend to be less activist;  they have no ties to Education Minnesota, the state teachers union, so they are not tainted by that association, but inasmuch as Republicans lean toward local control, nothing in the way of very assertive policy typically occurs during Republic administrations.  By contrast Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) administrations are heavily beholden to Education Minnesota as a key supportive lobby and campaign funder and enact policy consonant with teacher union positions.

 

A major exception to the rule of Republican passivity on education policy came during the Tim Pawlenty administration (2002-2010), the first part of which his commissioner of education was Cheri Pierson Yecke.  These were the days in which No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was launched, Minnesota State Standards were written, and the Minneapolis Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) were formulated.  The standards and the assessments were in accord with NCLB strictures;  for the next half-decade, a harsh light shone on locally centralized school districts as disaggregated data indicated massive failure on the part of districts throughout the state to impart even basic skills in reading, mathematics, and science to students, especially those on free and reduced price lunch and bearing the burden of historical abuse.

 

As forces of both the political left and right went to work to terminate NCLB, pressures mounted on Yecke and forced her exit.  In 2016, the Every Student Succeed Act (ESSA) replaced NCLB;  by this time, Mark Dayton’s administration (2010-2018) that included education commissioner Brenda Cassellius had been in office for six years and seized on waiver opportunities offered by the Obama administration to undo much of what had been put in place under No Child Left Behind.   A waiver produced a Multiple Measurement Rating System (MMRS) that relegated the MCAs to just one of a number of other measures (including graduation rates and incremental academic improvement) used to judge school performance.  Then within the last two years of the Dayton-Cassellius administration, the Minnesota Department of Education announced its new North Star Accountability System.

 

During the Dayton Cassellius years, administration of MCAs continued each spring (typically in April), fulfilling the continuing mandate under ESSA that objective assessment be part of school accountability.  But the 9^th grade writing test was eliminated and academic proficiency as indicated by the 10^th grade reading and 11^th grade mathematics MCAs was no longer a requirement for graduation.  This created a climate in which the MCAs as assessment tools were vitiated and the opt-out movement could ensue.  The anti-assessment advocates in Education Minnesota and local affiliates such as the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers had had their way.

 

The advent of the North Star Accountability System  (NSAS) serves as an example of the cynicism and corruption that invests the Minnesota Department of Education.

 

Please review my objective presentation of this system in Part One, Facts, then consider the following comments and experiences I had with officials who are perpetrating this ruse on the students of Minnesota.

 

…………………………………………………………………………

 

At 6:00 PM on Monday, 24 September, in Conference Center B at the Minnesota Department of Education, Brenda Cassellius’s aide Michael Diedrich and others conducted an information session focused on the North Star Accountability system.  This is the system of purported accountability now being foisted on the public in the latest failed proclamation hailing a program that nevertheless has no chance of raising academic performance of Minnesota students.

Of the approximately 2,000 schools in Minnesota, 485 of them have failed to demonstrate  acceptable performance along several indicators:  graduation rates, attendance, academic progress for English learners, general academic progress, and proficiency as demonstrated on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs).  Note that the latter indicator, which is the only measure that reveals the actual proficiency levels of students in a given academic year, now is a mere inclusion in an array of indicators.  Much mention was made at the meeting of reference to how schools now have multiple ways of demonstrating that they are making progress;  the matter of academic performance is not clearly in focus, as was the case during 2002-2016 before Congressional jettisoning of No Child Left Behind and the passage of the new Every Student Succeeds Act.  The Every Student Succeeds Act and the North Star Accountability System designed by staff at the Minnesota Department of Education allow for considerable more wiggle room for failing schools to claim some level of success:

 

Perpend, on the latter matter:   

 

One MDE presenter gave his approval to a case in which a school has done a particularly good job of cleaning up around and plugging bullet holes in lockers, indicating that this could be a case of what MDE staff is touting as “Quick Wins.” 

 

I kid you not. 

 

And some members in the audience comprised heavily of people from Minnesota Public Schools systems gave verbal expressions of approval. 

 

I kid you not on that, as well.

 

 

After the meeting had proceeded through three presentations and the clock indicated that we had rolled past the hour point, with less than thirty minutes to go, I raised the following question, with introductory comments as follows:

 

“There are to be six Regional Centers of Excellence, staffed with a total of 45 members, so that each center will have seven or eight people providing assistance.”

 

“That’s about right,” the presenter responded.

 

I continued: 

 

“Back in the late 1990s and very early 2000s in the time of the Minnesota Basic Skills Test, the school systems of Minnesota demonstrated that they could not even educate an acceptable percentage of students at a grade 8 level.  Then we had No Child Left Behind and more embarrassing academic results, at that time with the MCAS;   No Child Left Behind was attacked by the left (Education Minnesota, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, DFL) and right (when the right figured out, “Oh, yeah, these are central government mandates”), so that we then had the Multiple Measurement Rating System, the Every Student Succeeds Act and with it the current North Star Accountability System.

 

“My question to you, then, is: 

 

Do you at the Minnesota Department of Education live in a fantasy world, or are you knowingly perpetrating this hoax on the students of Minnesota?”

 

The crowd, comprised mainly of public school administrators and teachers, sat in stolidly stunned silence.  The presenter stammered that answering that question would take a lot of unpacking.

 

  I said, “Sure would.  Go ahead and unpack it.”

 

“Not now,” he said.

 

 And I then responded, “Well then, would you meet me in a public debate”?

 

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said.

 

“Of course, you wouldn’t,” I asserted, “because you don’t have the ability.  You know that I’m correct about the new system being a hoax.  You’d be defending the indefensible.”

 

Members of the audience, all of those retorting representing either Minnesota school districts or the MDE, then began to issue rejoinders to me.  I challenged two more MDE members and one school district representative to a refereed public debate.  There were no takers.

 

One of the previous presenters came to the fore and threatened to call a security guard.

 

“And on what basis would you do that?” I asked.

 

“Disturbing our meeting,” came the reply.

 

Michael Diedrich, I kid you not once again, hastened out of the room to summon the nearest security guard.

 

I just laughed.

 

As the last presenter made one more lame presentation, Diedrich returned with the security guard as both remained at the back of the room (I was sitting right up front).  The presenter concluded, called for questions, there were no takers, and the meeting was over.

 

I rose slowly but was the first to stride up the aisle.  I expected a few people to meet me in the eye with angry stares, given the dominant composition of the crowd representing the state department and the school districts culpable for the academic results that have no more than sixty percent (60%) of our students reading and performing mathematical tasks with grade level proficiency. 

 

But not a single person met my eye.

 

I continued my trip up the aisle, staring a hole in Michael Diedrich’s prevaricating countenance.

 

But I turned amiably to the security guard and said, “Hey, good to see you, man.”  He shook my proffered hand.  I strode out the door smiling at the stupidity that I had witnessed on the part of the audience at this charade of a meeting.  But I had three attending thoughts as I strode to my Toyota Matrix and drove home:

 

With regard to public and official attitudes about K-12 education;  people variously

 

>>>>>      are dimwitted on the issues;

 

>>>>>      are dissembling officials or their sycophants; 

 

or

 

>>>>>      they just don’t care.

 

………………………………………………………………………….

 

The chief initiative on which the success of the North Star Accountability depends is a cooperative arrangement with six Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE), located in Rochester, Marshal, Sartell, Thief Rive Falls, Mountain Iron, and Fergus Falls;  additionally, the Minneapolis Public Schools and St. Paul Public Schools act as their own RCEs, purportedly in consultation with and the support of MDE staff.  In all, the sites have only 45 staff members, meaning only seven or eight staff members per RCE.

 

This all a massive gambit.

 

Here is an introduction to the RCEs in the words of staff at MDE, from the department’s website:

 

Minnesota’s Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE) deliver a wealth of support and services straight to schools -- and it’s working. Centers are staffed by specialists with a full range of expertise, including math, reading, special education, English language development, equity, graduation support, implementation, data analysis, school leadership and district support.

For districts or charters with schools identified under the accountability system, the RCEs provide on-the-ground assistance to create the capacity and conditions that support change and continuous improvement. The Centers partner with leadership teams to facilitate school improvement efforts focused on equity for underserved student groups.
 

Once designated, comprehensive support and improvement (CSI) and targeted support and improvement (TSI) schools must conduct a needs assessment, build and strengthen leadership teams, and develop school improvement plans, but they don’t have to go it alone. The schools can get help from Minnesota’s Regional Centers of Excellence. In addition to content expertise, center specialists offer an outside perspective on schools’ efforts to increase student outcomes.

In 2015, the Regional Centers of Excellence were named one of Harvard Ash Center’s Top 25 Innovations in Government.

 

In attempt to sell the putative Regional Centers of Excellence to the public, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has posted feel-good features of certain staff at RCE sites.

 

One of the chief mantras of education professors and the education establishment with which they infect their vacuous notions is that of “critical thinking,” of which they do so little but that they use as a smokescreen behind which lurks massive failure to provide vital knowledge and skill sets to the students of Minnesota.

 

Regarding the Regional Centers of Excellence, state officials claim and convey the following:   

 

August 20, 2018

 

The Regional Centers of Excellence (RCEs) work in conjunction with the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to help schools make long-lasting improvements to student learning, providing hands-on support to help guarantee that every student has the opportunity to reach his or her full potential. The RCEs are made up of a team of education specialists, called advocates, who travel across the state to help guide schools and districts through the process of identifying needs, creating an action plan, and implementing changes to improve student outcomes. RCE school advocates specialize in the areas of literacy, equity, math, special education, English language development, high school graduation, and principal and district support.

 

The most important resource advocates bring districts is active implementation, a systems-based approach that links all of a system’s moving parts and builds a process that creates a way to sustain the good work being done by schools. Advocates do a lot for their schools and bring their unique backgrounds and expertise to each unique situation and challenge.

 

……………………………………………………………………………………

Readers may contact staff at these Regional Centers of Excellence to inquire how much they have improved the schools of Minnesota, testing my assertion that they have not improved and cannot improve student proficiency to make any aggregate difference whatsoever:

 

Regional Centers of Excellence

 

Directors Name and Region Phone Number Email Address

 

Lowell Haagenson  Central Lakes Region Cell: 320-492-9092 lhaagenson@mnce.org Resource Training and Solutions 137 - 23rd Street South Sartell, MN 56377

 

Tara Lindstrom Northern Pines Region Cell: 218-410-8111 tlindstrom@mnce.org Northeast Service Cooperative 5525 Emerald Avenue  Mountain Iron, MN 55768

 

Becca Neal Northern Sky Region Cell: 218-686-9719 bneal@mnce.org Northwest Service Cooperative 114 - 1st Street West Thief River Falls, MN 56701

 

Jane Drennan Southeast-Metro Region Cell: 507-696-5572 jdrennan@mnce.org Southeast Service Cooperative 210 Wood Lake Drive Southeast Rochester, MN  55904

 

Nicole Lydick Southwest Prairie Region Cell: 231-878-1925 nlydick@mnce.org Southwest/West Central Service Cooperative 1420 East College Drive Marshall, MN 56258

 

Staci Allmaras Western Lakes Region Cell: 218-255-1650 sallmaras@mnce.org Lakes Country Service Cooperative 1001 East Mount Faith Fergus Falls, MN 56537 Minnesota Department of Education - Regional Centers of Excellence Support Name and Region Phone Number Email Address

 

Toni Cox RCE Program Manager Cell: 218-416-2416 toni.cox@state.mn.us Minnesota Department of Education c/o Northwest Service Cooperative  114 - 1st Street West Thief River Falls, MN 56701

 

Tyler Livingston Director, Division of School Support Office: 651-582-8427 tyler.livingston@state.mn.us Minnesota Department of Education 1500 Hwy 36 West Roseville, MN 55113

 

Greg Keith Chief Academic Officer Office: 651-582-8316 greg.keith@state.mn.us Minnesota Department of Education 1500 Hwy 36 West Roseville, MN 55113

 

……………………………………………………………………………………..

 

My assertion that you may test by calling one or all of these Centers is as follows:

 

These Regional Centers of Excellence, six in number, with approximately 42 total staff members and designation of the Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools systems as their own RCEs, have no capacity to improve education in Minnesota by lifting overall achievement or addressing the particular injustices perpetrated on students on free and reduced price lunch or student populations bearing the bruises of history.

 

This is a salient example of the kind of hoax perpetrated decade after decade on the students of Minnesota by the Minnesota Department of Education.

 

Soon after the Minnesota Department of Education presented its North Star Accountability Systems, the Department announced results of Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) in math and reading for the 2017-2018 academic year.  Just 60 percent of Minnesota students were proficient in mathematics, the same figure as that for 2016-2017;  for reading the comparable figures were 59 percent in academic year 2016-2017 and 57 percent in 2017-2018,a two percentage point decline.

 

In the Minneapolis Public Schools, reading proficiency rose a bit over those two academic years, from 43 percent to 45 percent, with math proficiency flat at 42 percent.  In that school district, one-third of graduates who matriculate at colleges and universities need remedial instruction.  And most graduates walk across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only, so deficient are they in key knowledge and skill sets in mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, economics, quality literature, English composition, and the fine, vocational, and technological arts.

 

The North Star Accountability System has no chance to improve basic skills proficiency or to induce local districts to design knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum.  The Minnesota Department of Education must be identified and called to account for maintaining the sea of corruption that defines the MDE inept bureaucracy.