The current (academic year 2019-2020)
iteration of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education is the third
that I have witnessed since my investigation into the inner workings of the
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) began in August 2014.
At that initial stage of my investigation,
the composition of the school board was as follows:
District 1 Jenny
Arneson
District 2 Kim
Ellison
District 3 Mohamud
Noor
District 4 Josh
Reimnitz
District 5 Alberto
Monserrate
District 6 Tracine
Asberry
At Large Richard
Mammen
At-Large Carla
Bates
At-Large Rebecca
Gagnon
Gagnon and Arneson, while proving to have
strong ties to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and the
Democrat-Farmer Labor (DFL) Party that undermined their effectiveness and
promoted a good bit of dissembling, did impress me for their grasp of policy
detail. Mammen was affable if given to
rambling and frequently self-serving commentary; both Mammen and Monserrate clearly also had
political connections to the MFT-DFL cohort.
Mohamud Noor, who came onto the board after a contentious meeting in
which he was appointed to replace a member who had died in office, was even
more brazenly ambitious politically. Kim
Ellison (still on the board in academic year 2019-2020, as is Arneson) also has
deep ties to the MFT-DFL; she enjoys
high name recognition due to her surname and association with former husband
Keith Ellison.
The most positive forces for change on that
school board were Carla Bates, Josh Reimnitz, and Tracine Asberry. Bates was erratic and garrulous but clearly
cared about students. Reimnitz, a former
Teach for America member, had pulled off an upset of an MFT-DFL backed
candidate. Asberry was the most
courageous of the members of this formulation of the MPS Board of
Education; her interaction with Chief (actually,
in those days, Executive Director) of Research, Evaluation, Assessment (REAA),
and Accountability (at that time, more accurately just Research, Evaluation,
and Assessment [REA]) Eric Moore were the best moments I have witnessed in my
five years of observing MPS Board of Education meetings. Asberry would ask close questions, politely
insist on answers, and ask why she was always seeing the same dismal results
year after year.
In the aftermath of the school board election
of November 2014 Nelson Inz (District 5), Don Samuels (At-Large), and Siad Ali
(District 3) replaced Monserrate, Mammen, and Noor (none of whom ran for
reelection) respectively. These were
improvements. Inz had not yet manifested
his traits as a political hack. Samuels
was very consciously unaffiliated with the MFT and therefore not backed by his
own party, the DFL (which does not endorse outright but does so through its MFT
proxy). Ali was not as baldly political
as Noor, more affable, and more focused on students--- although he, as in the cases of most of the
rest of the board, has strong ties to the MFT-DFL cohort.
In the election of 2016 Reimnitz and Asberry
were narrowly ousted. Reimnitz was
replaced by Bob Walser in District 4 and Tracine Asberry was replaced by Ira
Jourdain in District 6. KerryJo Felder
also came onto the board to claim the District 2 seat that Kim Ellison had
vacated to run for an At-Large seat (Bates did not run for reelection). Then in the aftermath of the election of
2018, Kim Caprini and Josh Pauly came onto the board; Samuels had opted not to run again, and
Gagnon was defeated.
Hence, be reminded from Part One, Facts, that
the current composition of the MPS Board of Education is as follows;
District 1 Jenny
Arneson
District 2 KerryJo
Felder
District 3 Siad
Ali
District 4 Bob
Walser
District 5 Nelson
Inz
District 6 Ira
Jourdain
At Large Kim
Ellison
At-Large Josh
Pauly
At-Large Kim
Caprini
………………………………………………………………………
The elections of November 2016 and November
2018 were disastrous, except for the favorable development that Gagnon was
ousted.
The loss of Bates (who, remember, did not run
for reelection), Reimnitz, and Asberry in 2016 constituted a turning point
during the time that I have spent observing the board. These were three independent voices whose
votes did not parrot MFT-DFL stances.
The departure of Asberry completely changed the character of those
evenings when student academic proficiency was at the forefront of discussions; no one since has convincingly demonstrated driving
concern over the ongoing failure to move student academic proficiency rates
above 25% for African American, American Indian, Latino-Latina students and
those on free/reduced price lunch.
The political nature of the school board came
into sharp relief during the 2016 election.
Nelson Inz specifically endorsed Walser over Reimnitz. Gagnon endorsed Jourdain over Asberry. And Inz, Gagnon, and Ellison all aggressively
recruited candidates to run against Reimnitz and Asberry.
Then came the 2018 election, with the prospect
that the independent candidacy of Sharon El-Amin, a well-known Northside
business owner and involved parent, might prove winning. In the end, though, MFT-DFL backing of
Caprini and Pauly was too telling. The
biggest news from the election was the ouster of Gagnon, a generally
politically astute actor whose calculations had gone awry:
Candidate Name Number of
Votes Percentage
Kim Caprini
86,739
33.84%
Josh Pauly
73,994
28.87%
Rebecca
Gagnon 48,567
18.95%
Sharon El-Amin
47,000
18.34%
To understand the power of El-Amin’s campaign,
one must understand the political dynamics at work in this election for the two
At-Large MPS Board of Education seats:
Caprini and Pauly were endorsed by the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), which in turn is allied with
Education Minnesota, the second most powerful political lobby in Minnesota,
capable of spending levels only topped by the National Rifle Association
(NRA). Caprini is a well-known parent and community activist in North
Minneapolis, but Pauly is a largely unknown presence, a teacher of short tenure
at Sanford Middle School who is now a professional in a South Minneapolis-based
non-profit. Pauly gives indication of
caring about issues pertinent to the homeless and the dispossessed, but he has
none of the community involvements of Caprini and El-Amin, none of the heart
and soul understanding of key community issues in the manner of El-Amin, and
none of the political savvy of Gagnon. Pauly had a slim campaign of his
own initiative: His victory was entirely the result of MFT support, with
its member network, phone banks, and enormous publicity-generating capacity.
The matter of Gagnon’s political savvy is
ironic, given that she committed a number of fatal political errors in the months
leading up to the election of November 2018. In the wake of the 2016
elections, Gagnon’s star was on the rise. She had gained a good deal of
cache for her long chairing of the MPS Board of Education Finance
Committee. She was well-connected to many school board groups across the
state and nation and formally served as member in many of these. She was
conniving but diligent, undergirding her political maneuvers with a thorough
knowledge of the public school establishment and the issues considered
important by that establishment. She was elected chair of the board,
albeit soon offending enough fellow members to lose a subsequent election to
current chair Nelson Inz.
Then when MPS financial woes became fully
apparent, she was implicated in those miseries via the financial tanking of the
district on her watch as finance committee chair. Next she showed her
disrespect for gifted MPS Finance Chief Ibrahima Diop by taking the lead in
restoring $6.4 million dollars to funding for high schools with the most
affluent populations, after Diop--- one of the very best-trained,
consummately well-educated school district finance chiefs in the
nation--- had worked with Superintendent Ed Graff and the other chiefs
over many months to craft a budget that put the district on a course toward
structural balance.
Gagnon sought Democratic -Farmer-Labor Party
endorsement for a legislative seat and was set to exit the board; but
when she did not secure the endorsement, she retreated to another run for an
At-Large seat. But by this time, Caprini and Pauly had received the endorsement
of the MFT/DFL cohort for which Gagnon had long served as sycophantic go-fer.
The MFT/DFL political machine went into its
powerful motion once perennial candidate Doug Mann was eliminated in the August
2018 primary and the above four candidates had progressed to the general
election.
Thus, we have the context for Sharon El-Amin’s
strong performance. Those of us who campaigned for her did so to
win. Ms. El-Amin was at that time the head of the North Polar (North High
School) parent group, is a community activist who twice a month prepares
100 meals for those in need, for many years ran the successful El-Amin Fish
Shop on West Broadway Avenue, and has been involved in multiple community
organizations and issues. Husband Makram El-Amin is the imam of Masjid
An’nur mosque on Lyndale Avenue North; wife and husband have deep
connections to the Muslim community in general and the Somali contingent
specifically. El-Amin’s natural base of support is expansive and
deep; the last of four school board candidate forums in this 2018
election season brought forward a crowd at the University of Minnesota
community engagement center at 2100 Plymouth Avenue North (across from the
Minneapolis Urban League) that was overwhelmingly and vocally expressive in
support of her candidacy.
Sharon El-Amin went up against a canny and
seasoned political rival in Rebecca Gagnon and two endorsees of the powerful
MFT/DFL machine. She and Gagnon together received 21,573 more votes than
did Josh Pauly. El-Amin ran just a fraction behind Gagnon; the two
ran essentially even, garnering 18.34% and 18.95% of the vote respectively.
That Sharon El-Amin ran such a strong campaign
is testimony to a level of genuine public backing unmatched by Pauly,
certainly, but also unrivaled by Caprini and Gagnon.
……………………………………………………………………
Moving
left to right across the lineup seated on the raised platform at meetings of
the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education during fall semester of
academic year 2019-2020 one will found eleven people who regularly deny to our
children the education of excellence that is due to students of all demographic
descriptors.
At
far left was KerryJo Felder, who represents MPS District #2 covering
North Minneapolis. Her concerns are focused on building and athletic
field conditions, equitable distribution of resources, Full-Service Community
Schools, and securing a vocational center for location at or near North High
School. She has no understanding of
knowledge-intensive education and is ever hampered by her ties to the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)/ Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL)
cohort. Felder will be a member of the board until the election of 2020,
at which time we must have a candidate in place to replace her.
Next,
moving left to right next to Felder was Bob Walser, the silliest and
most trivial school board member I have witnessed during my five years of
following developments at the Minneapolis Board of Education and, further, in
my half-century of viewing similar spectacles in public education. Walser represents District #4, including Bryn
Mawr, toney Lowry Hill, and the communities around Uptown. He hails from the
Walser auto-dealer family and is a total tool of the MFT/ DFL. He often
spouts the education professor jargon that I detail especially in part Three: Philosophy. Walser is a hippy-dippy
white liberal type who is clueless as to the academic aspirations of students
and especially the needs of students from families facing dilemmas of poverty
and functionality. He frequently references Deborah Meyer, who along with
such folk as Alfie Kohn, Ted Sizer, and Jonathon Kozol appropriates the name
“progressive” and mumbles the education professor speak dating to John Dewey,
William Heard Kilpatrick, and Harold Rugg in the 1920s. This is the
doctrine that has inflicted such knowledge-poor education on our students for
at least forty years. Walser’s seat is up for reelection in 2020;
he must be defeated.
Next
you would observe Kim Caprini.
Caprini grew up on the Northside but mostly attended schools other than
those of the Minneapolis Public Schools, including Ascension and Benilde-St.
Margaret. Her two children, though, did
attend MPS schools, and for many years Caprini has been a participant in
various parent involvement activities.
But her comments as a member have been a disappointment. She shows every sign of being the lackey of
the MFT-DFL cohort that characterizes this iteration of the Minneapolis Public
Schools Board of Education.
Next
moving left to right school board attendees one saw Nelson Inz, who most
abhorrently of all had no opposition for a seat that was up for reelection in
2018. Inz represents District #5, east of I-35 in South
Minneapolis); he is the third most objectionable member of the MPS Board
of Education, for which he serves as chair, having ironically defeated the
second most objectionable member (Rebecca Gagnon) for that position last
January 2018, and having endorsed the very most objectionable member (Bob
Walser) in the latter’s defeat of incumbent Josh Reimnitz in the November 2016
election. Inz is a Montessori-trained former bartender who now teaches in
a Montessori charter middle school. Inz has a habit of inflicting silly
banter on his audience and gives every indication of being bought and paid for
by the MFT/DFL.
Seated
moving left to right from Inz one peered at MPS Superintendent Ed Graff.
Graff came from over fifteen years in Anchorage, Alaska, where he was a
teacher, administrator, and superintendent. His record there was
academically abysmal, even as he touted the same Social and Emotional Learning
formula that has served as one of his major initiatives at the Minneapolis
Public Schools. Three and one-half years into his tenure at MPS, there
has been no improvement in the academic program; any potential for
improvement will come from his masterful slimming and rationalization of the
Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) bureaucracy and some
unexpected epiphany regarding the need for knowledge-intensive curriculum and
thorough teacher retraining for the delivery of such a curriculum. Such
an epiphany is absent from the MPS Comprehensive District Design that he now
touts.
Next to Graff, moving left to right, one saw Kim Ellison,
a former vice-chair and current clerk of the board; as clerk, Ellison
headed the Policy Committee and kept time limiting Public Comments speakers to
three minutes (or to two minutes on those nights when numerous people have
registered to make comments). Ellison is a former alternative school
teacher (at Plymouth [Christian] Youth Center]) and was formerly married to
Keith Ellison, former member of Congress, Vice-Chair of the national Democratic
Party, and winner in the 6 November 2018 contest for Attorney General.
Kim Ellison mostly listens, speaking (in a very soft voice) only to make a
point that she deems germane. But her comments never go to the core of
any of the central dilemmas preventing officials and teachers at the
Minneapolis Public Schools from imparting an excellent education to students of
all demographic descriptors. Ellison does not seem to grasp the problems
pertinent to curriculum and teacher quality, forever impeded in the latter by
her firm ties to the MFT/ DFL establishment. Her seat will be up for
reelection in 2020; we must work toward
her defeat.
Next one sees student representative Janaan Ahmed, whose
term began in January 2019 and will end in December 2019. Ahmed brought an impressive record of
achievement and participation to her role but has not been discerning in her
comments. She gives impression of being
in synch with this terrible assemblage of board members, either as a matter of
deference or agreement. Either way,
Aamed has made little contribution to board meetings, failing conspicuously to
address low student academic proficiency rates, knowledge and skill deficient
curriculum, and poor teacher quality.
Seated
to the right of Ahmed is Jenny Arneson, the current treasurer who
presides over finance committee meetings.
Arneson has abundant mastery of detail pertinent to finance and many
other matters of the system as it is in the Minneapolis Public Schools; she also grew up in Northeast Minneapolis,
attended MPS schools, and has copious knowledge of her community. But, as with all adult, voting members of
this iteration of the board, Arneson has close ties to the MFT-DFL cohort that
prevent her from addressing the ills that plague the district.
Finally, at the end of the row moving left to right the attendee
will see Ira Jourdain (representing District #6), the first American
Indian to serve on the school board. Jourdain seems to have a more
elevated ability to process adverse commentary than do most other board
members, but he gives many indications of being impeded by his MFT/DFL
association.
………………………………………………………………………………..
Readers be reminded to return for
factual detail pertinent to this composition of the Minneapolis Public Schools
Board of Education in Part One, Facts.
Review that generous body of detail and think hard about what you are
reading.
Then peruse again my comments above
and know that the election of November 2020 looms as enormously important,
whereby we must replace those who will be up for reelection (Felder, Inz,
Jourdain, and--- especially--- Walser) with members who are not bought and
paid for by the MFT-DFL cohort. We must
as an ongoing matter in the immediately looming and all subsequent elections
endeavor to install members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education
who will be unafraid to address the chronically grave issues pertinent to
academic quality and ready to embrace the necessary curricular overhaul,
retraining of teachers, and initiatives to ensure that students who face
particular life challenges arrive at school are able to achieve at the high
level of which they are capable.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Analysis of the Members of Minneapolis
Public Schools Board of Education as to Specific Nature of Culpability >>>>> Six Who Should Resign Immediately and Three
Who Give Faint Hope
Six Members of the MPS Board
of Education Who Should Resign Immediately:
Jenny Arneson, KerryJo Felder,
Kim Elllsion, Kim Carpini, Nelson Inz, and Bob Walser
#1 >>>>> Jenny Arneson’s Astoundingly Stupid
Statements and Multi-Year Ineffectiveness Obligates Her to Resign from the
Board of Education
District 1 (Northeast and Southeast
Minneapolis Jenny Arneson is an enigma:
Arneson is the hardest working of the
members on the current Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education.
She is a courageous person who appears to
be triumphing over a very serious case of lymphatic cancer.
Arneson is a masterful accumulator of
factual detail on many aspects of the inner working of the district, notably
information pertinent to her Northeast Minneapolis stomping grounds and items
relevant to current district finances.
She also was an adept chair during her term of service in that position,
a knowledgeable manager of meetings per Robert’s Rules of Order, a skill that
stood her in good stead during fall 2020, when she was chair of the finance
committee.
But three moments impel me to assert that
Arneson should resign, along with fellow MPS Board of Education members KerryJo
Felder, Kim Ellison, Kim Caprini, (yesterday, if possible) Nelson Inz, and--- day before yesterday, if miracles
abide--- Bob Walser.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
In the spring of 2016 a forum sponsored by
the League of Women’s Voters unfolded at Bryn Mawr K-5 school. This forum offered one of the very few chances
for audience members to ask open-ended oral questions; that is to say, there was none of the usual
scripted nonsense, such as questions having to be written down on slips of
paper and then vetted for posing to members of the board. The MPS Board of Education then consisted of Arneson, Siad Ali, Tracine Asberry, Carla Banks,
Kim Ellison, Rebecca Gagnon, Nelson Inz, Josh Reimnitz, and Don Samuels. Ali, Banks, and Reimnitz were not in
attendance; Asberry arrived only very
late. Hence, the members fully available
for questioning were Arneson, Ellison, Gagnon, Inz, and Samuels.
Most of the questions from the audience
were nondescript and had little to do with academics.
I by contrast posed a question that made
reference to the opposing philosophies of education represented by the
knowledge-intensive views of E. D. Hirsh and the student-driven curriculum
advocated by Alfie Kohn; each of these
views have roots in a discussion that began in the 1920s with William C. Bagley
and William Heard Kilpatrick of Teachers College at Columbia University.
My question to the members of the MPS Board
of Education in spring 2017 was:
“Given the description that I just gave you
of the views expressed in Hirsch’s 1996 The
Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them and Alfie Kohn’s 1999 The Schools Our Children Deserve, do you
favor Hirsch’s knowledge-intensive established curriculum or Kohn’s open-ended,
student and teacher driven curriculum?”
Board members were tongue-tied and tried to
have it both ways, articulating their views no better when I maintained that
for clarity they had to favor one of these views over the other, because Hirsch
and Kohn would agree that these approaches result in very different curriculum
and pedagogy.
Jenny Arneson was as inept as the others in
articulating any philosophy of education.
She does not to this day reveal any coherent philosophy of education, a
telling observation regarding a board member who is now in the midst of her
ninth year on the MPS Board of Education.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Arneson should resign for having not
developed an internally consistent philosophy of education in nearly a decade
of board membership.
Two recent statements further obligate her
to resign:
>>>>> At an MPS Board of Education meeting in
late spring 2019, Jenny Arneson noted, as part of her final report at a meeting
of the MPS Board of Education (of the sort with which board members conclude
each of their meetings) that her son had been accepted by his first choice for
college attendance, Grinnell College in Iowa.
She then opined that “This proves that every student at MPS is College
and Career Ready.”
That statement was astonishingly stupid,
given that fewer than thirty percent (30%) of students on Free and Reduced
Price Lunch and those of several ethnicities who tend to fall in the
Free/Reduced category are not proficient in mathematics, reading, or
science; and that one-third (33%) of MPS
students who matriculate on college and university campuses need remedial
courses.
>>>>> At the Committee of the Whole meeting of
Tuesday, 22 October, Arneson conveyed the essence of a conversation that she
had had with a student who liked the idea of ethnic studies courses offered as
alternatives to a United States history course, because the high school course
is just a repetition of what students learned in a course focused on the same
subject in grade seven. Arneson accepted
the student’s view uncritically, thereby revealing appalling ignorance for a
graduate of St. Olaf College, albeit in the academically undemanding field of
social work.
The pertinent truth is two-fold >>>>>
1)
The grade 7 course is typically taught via videos and through packets
that students fill out in the absence of teacher-imparted information or
comment and without class discussion.
And unless students take Advanced Placement (AP) United States History
in high school, the mode of teacher disinterested, unengaging instruction
evident at grade 7 abides also in the high school course--- and lamentably even in some AP courses,
taught as they often are by knowledge-deficient teachers.
2)
Limiting the number of United States history or any other courses in
core subject areas should be determined only as a practical matter, since the
number of such courses would be multiple if the amount of information to be
conveyed were the determinant.
Perpend:
>>>>> Various American Indian groups, tending
toward three hundred (300) in number, upon arrival of Columbus and subsequent
Europeans---
>>>>> Impact of American Indians and Europeans on
each other---
>>>>> the different ruling styles of Spaniard,
Portuguese, French, and British imperialists---
>>>>> pre-slavery organization of agricultural
labor---
>>>>> reasons for the economic appeal of slave as
opposed to indentured labor---
>>>>> exact functioning of the slave trade, from
the sale by Ashanti and Dahomey kingdoms of African human commodities to the
Portuguese, French, Dutch, and eventually mainly the British shippers and
traders---
>>>>> everyday slave resistance and occasional
rebellions---
>>>>> Loyalists versus Rebels in the run-up to the
American Revolution; the tough,
extremely constrained options for African Americans in assessing potential for
manumission via participation---
Now consider that I have not even arrived
at the precipitating events and fighting of the American Revolution, the
American Constitutional Convention, the replacement of the Articles of
Confederation with the United States Constitution, or the first decade (1790s)
of the new republic--- nor to the little
matter of the two complete centuries (19th and 20th) that
by definition reveal the bulk of events in the history of the United States.
Thus, Arneson’s comments regarding the
repetition involved in two courses of United States history is appallingly
stupid because
>>>>> the problem is not repetition but rather that
students learn nothing of great substance in either course because of the
approach to curriculum and pedagogy;
and
>>>>> on the basis of amount of information
important for conveyance, even multiple courses could not impart all that there
is to learn concerning American and United States history--- so that the decision as to how many courses
to offer is a matter of temporal practicality:
Repetition except as a matter of review as foundation for new learning
is a matter of teacher inadequacy, not intrinsic to the abundant knowledge sets
for mastery of American and United States history.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
For lack of a coherent philosophy of
education after nine years on the board, and for the two starkly stupid
comments tendered by her as given above, Jenny Arneson should lead Felder,
Caprini, Ellison, Inz, and Walser out the door (or let the latter two lead,
because the sooner the exit for those two, the better).
>>>>> Jenny Arneson should resign immediately from
the MPS Board of Education.
#2 >>>>> Kim Ellison
Kim Ellison’s ’s Tragi-Comically Silly
Comment Regarding Alternative Schools as a Model for the Minneapolis Public
Schools >>>>> Time for
Resignation of Another Member Who Should Have Departed a Long time Ago
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). 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 throughout
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.
#3 >>>>> Bob Walser
District #4 Member Bob Walser >>>>> The Silliest and Most Offensive of a Motley
Crew
Bob Walser is the silliest, most offensive
member on this and any school board that I have witnessed during my
half-century of observation. This
iteration of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education is by far
the worst that I have witnessed during my particularly close five-year scrutiny
of this motley assemblage.
Walser is a disaster.
Walser was among the group recruited by
Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison, and Rebecca Gagnon to run for the MPS Board of
Education in 2016. Gagnon eventually got
caught in her political manipulations and was ousted in 2018. Inz remains as District #5 (South
Minneapolis, east of I-35) representative and board chair; Ellison as one of three At-Large
members. Inz, Ellison, and Gagnon
recruited candidates friendly to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)
to run against the independent voices of Josh Reimnitz and Tracine Asberry (the
most assertive actor for better academic results); and for the At-Large seat vacated by Carla
Bates.
Walser, who represents the toney areas of
Bryn Mawr, Lowry Hill, and Linden Hills, is a salient example of that creature
who assigns to himself the appellation of “progressive” on matters pertinent to
preK-12 education, thus a participant in a sordid history traceable to Teachers
College at Columbia University. Consistent
with the various strands of this ideology, Walser rails against objective
assessment of student performance and spouts the jargon of putatively
child-centered education.
The most stupid verbal fodder spills from
Walser’s mouth:
Two recent whoppers demonstrate the facile,
grating nature of this lamentable school board creature:
>>>>> At one meeting that involved the fate of
middle schools versus preK-8 schools in the district, Walser wondered why we
have middle schools and asserted that we have only had this type of student
grouping since the 1950s. In making this
comment, Walser demonstrated the typically shallow nature of his reading and
research. He had apparently come across
a reference to the advent of the middle school (grades 6-8), which did from the
1950s mostly replace junior high (grades 7-9).
But Walser’s reference maintained that grouping at the level of the
middle grades did not begin until the 1950s.
In fact, the first junior highs appeared in 1909.
>>>>> At the September meeting of the MPS Board of
Education, Walser mentioned during the final, tortuous comments that members
make on the cusp of each meeting’s adjournment that he had attended a number of
community meetings lately and found the comment of one African American mother
especially moving. Walser said that she
identified the problems of the Minneapolis Public Schools as grounded in the
northern European approach to education taken by the district.
I have been deeply embedded in the African
American community for forty-eight years:
African Americans do in public forums
occasionally have recourse to the same jargon of “cultural relevance” and
“cultural competence” with assertions of Western bias as do hippy-dippy white
liberals of the sort that my radical leftist inclinations find abhorring. But face to face, I never hear such
jargon. When African American parents,
the largest familial contingent in the New Salem Educational Initiative, come
to me in behalf of their children, their plea is in essence, “Please impart to
my baby the mathematical and reading skills that the district of the
Minneapolis Public Schools fails to render, along with strong college
preparatory knowledge sets that MPS does not deliver.” They trust and know that I have a strong
grasp of European-based culture and history and also the traditions of Asia,
Africa, African America, and a bevy of other ethnicities. What they want for their children is the best
education that can be had, so that those precious young people can be the
vanguard that leads the family forth from cyclical poverty and centuries of
abusive history.
Armchair white liberals of the Walser type
are offensive to most African Americans.
They sense that those who shout adoring phrases from afar are frauds,
full of condescension and paternalism.
Bob Walser has offended most African Americans in positions of
leadership at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
They know a fake and a patronizer when they encounter one.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
In any case, the approach taken by the
Minneapolis Public Schools is not northern European, except inasmuch as it is
through British conveyance that a curriculum consisting of knowledge gathered
from the entire globe was delivered to American colonists and thence to the
fledgling United States of America. The
knowledge thus conveyed came prominently from southern (not northern) Europe,
China, India, and from the Muslim empires of the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman
dynasties. The best contemporary masters
of modern curricula are students of South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Note the absence in any of those references
from the last two sentences of anything identifiable as northern European.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Bob Walser is the silliest, most
intellectually trivial board member I have witnessed on the MPS or any other
board of education.
Walser needs to excuse himself for forging
ahead of Jenny Arneson and Kim Ellison as he leads them with all appropriate
haste out the Davis Center door.
#4 >>>>> Nelson Inz
District #5 Member Nelson Inz >>>>> The Specter of the Political Hack as Board
Chair
Nelson Inz was elected to the Minneapolis
Public Schools Board of Education in November 2014 and reelected without
opposition in November 2018. Lack of
opposition to call Inz on his corrupt ineptitude demonstrates public
disinterest in, and misunderstanding of, the chronic deficiencies of preK-12
education.
Inz is a former bartender turned teacher
who has located professionally in several different school systems during his
five years on the MPS Board of Education.
After Rebecca Gagnon quickly offended enough of her fellow offenders to
turn the majority on the board against her as chair, Inz began his stint as
chair in January 2017.
By that time, Inz had joined Kim Ellison
and Rebecca Gagnon in recruiting Ira Jourdain and Bob Walser to run against
Tracine Asberry and Josh Reimnitz for the District 6 and District 4 seats
respectively. Asberry was a particularly
effective advocate for academic progress who would closely question Research,
Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Chief Eric Moore when he would
deliver the latest bad news on student academic achievement; Reimnitz, a former Teach for America
participant, was also an independent voice.
Jourdain and Walser were recruited to do the bidding of the Minneapolis
Federation of Teachers (MFT). Gagnon
specifically endorsed Jourdain; Inz
endorsed Walser.
Endorsement of Walser, the silliest, most
offensive school board member I have ever witnessed on this or any other board,
conveys much about Inz’s personal judgment.
He is a political hack who harbors the same ambitions as do Ellison and
Gagnon, neither of whom has been able to realize goals for exalted political
futures. Inz describes his endorsement
of Walser over Reimnitz as the action of a “team player.” There were many of those in the regimes of
Hitler and Stalin; they abide in the
administration of Donald Trump today.
Before the Public Comments phase of every
meeting of the MPS Board of Education during his stint as chair, Inz read the
following protocol:
>>>>>
The
MPS Board of Education values public comment
and
input at board meetings to inform our decision
making
and provide information and insight into
what
is happening throughout the district.
If
you did not sign-up ahead of time, there are sign
up
sheets on the table where you entered, near the
meeting
agendas. We will close sign-ups 15 minutes
after
public comment begins. Each person wishing to
address
the board will be given 3 minutes and the
clerk
will let you know when your time has expired.
Individuals
will be called up in the order in which they
signed
up to speak. Please approach the podium, if
able,
and state your name, area of the city you live in,
and
connection to Minneapolis Public Schools.
To
ensure we are modeling constructive public
engagement
for our students, we ask that if you wish
to
address the board, you observe the following:
- Address your comments to the Board Chairand not to individual Board directors, staff,or the audience.
- Refrain from personal attacks, swearing,abusive or threatening language, or otherdisruptive behavior.
- Respect those around you and do not holdup signs that block the view of others—please do not bring signage to the podium.
- Do not discuss employee or employmentrelated issues, as public comment is not theappropriate venue to raise such issues.
- Refrain from referring to a person by nameor position.
- Making accusations and derogatorystatements about employees is notappropriate.
This
is a time for the Board to listen so we will not be
responding
to comments or questions posed. If you
have
a question that requires a response, please
submit
it to the Board’s Executive Assistant in the
back
of the room. Thank you.
<<<<<
This protocol was appropriately read by the
political hack that Inz is but was not of his authorship. The protocol was written by Ed Graff and
Rebecca Gagnon (when the latter was briefly chair), because I was regularly
citing specific Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) staff
members who were not doing their jobs and also taking to task particular board
members. The protocol is written as a
shield from criticism of central office bureaucrats and MPS Board of Education
members and makes mockery of the opening claim to value public comment. Board members now know that I have so many
venues for issuing my views that the
Graff-Gagnon ploy was an exercise in futility;
but the protocol does have an inhibiting effect on some speakers.
The current iteration of the MPS Board of
Education is composed of politicos heavily indebted to the MFT for electoral
backing.
These corrupt board members are cowards who
hide behind metaphorical embankments that they have devised to shield them from
criticism.
That they have opted for Nelson Inz as Hack
in Chief is telling.
The public must become better informed and
in doing so show Inz out the Davis Center door with the others.
If he should search within himself and find
a soul, Nelson Inz should resign immediately from the MPS Board of
Education.
#5 >>>>> Kim Caprini
At-Large Member Kim Caprini >>>>> The Case of a Corrupt and ignorant Board
Member in Deep Denial
Joining the contingent of most
objectionable members of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of
Education--- thus far conveyed as Bob
Walser, Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison, and Jenny Arneson--- are Kim Caprini and KerryJo Felder.
Caprini ran against Felder for the District
2 (North Minneapolis) seat in 2016, losing narrowly; she then ran successfully for an At-Large
seat, with heavy Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) backing, in 2018.
Caprini grew up in North Minneapolis but
mostly attended non-MPS schools, graduating from high school at Benilde/St.
Margaret’s. She has taken scattered
post-secondary courses but does not hold a college degree; she has a background in culinary arts but now
works in social service. Caprini has two
daughters who have attended Henry High School.
Caprini has proven herself to be a corrupt
politico that most typically describes members on this iteration of the MPS Board of Education,
and she frequently betrays a woeful knowledge base, generally and particularly
pertaining to the history and philosophy of education. But her most frequent mode gives appearance
of a person in deep denial.
She has proclaimed that her daughters got a
“first-rate education” at Henry, by factual counterpoint demonstrating that she
has no understanding of the constituents of an excellent education.
At board meetings during November
2019-January 2020, a contingent of Hispanic parents have cited woeful
conditions at what they describe as “low-performing” schools attended by their
children, calling for “priority enrollment” that would give their children
better educations at “higher performing” schools. Public commentators have voiced other
complaints, such as the turmoil frequently witnessed at and outside Harrison
school attended by students with severe emotional disorders.
Board members by protocol do not respond in
the moment to Public Comments but have ample opportunity to do so in the course
of regular and Committee of the Whole meetings.
Caprini’s response is impulsively reactive: She reflexively defends schools where
wretched academic quality is most obvious, and she is in seemingly deep denial
over conditions at Harrison. Concerning
Harrison, Caprini correctly countered criticism with citations of good
programs, such as those pertaining to culinary arts and music; but Caprini never concerns herself with the
palpable and chronic turmoil at Harrison, and she has never addressed the
abundant deficiencies in curriculum and teacher quality that describe not only
“low-performing” schools but the classrooms of the Minneapolis Public Schools
as a whole.
At-Large member Kim Caprini is a political
hack and gravely ignorant as to the history and philosophy of preK-12
education.
Her most prevalent and manifest mode is
that of the MFT sycophant in deep denial.
She should be shown the Davis Center door,
following closely behind Bob Walser, Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison, and Jenny
Arneson.
#6 >>>>> KerryJo Felder
District #2 Member KerryJo Felder >>>>> Fraudulent Claimant to North Minneapolis
Leadership
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of
Education member KerryJo Felder represents District #2, encompassing North
Minneapolis. She was endorsed by the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) for her winning candidacy in November
2016. She also has firm ties to the
Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party that looms behind the MFT front powerfully to
influence the outcomes of school board elections.
Thus, Felder is a political hack doing the
bidding fo the MFT/DFL cohort, as is the case for all nine members on this
unfortunate current assemblage of the MPS Board of Education.
Felder has children in Northside schools
and was active at MPS sites and at board meetings many years before she ran for
a seat. She had an unsettled childhood
and adolescence, mostly growing up in South Minneapolis. Her personal accounts allude incoherently to
an academician father who held a doctorate---
and to a life of poverty as a youth.
Also in her shadowy background is a young adulthood spent for many desultory
years in a lifestyle lacking firm vocational articulation in California.
Those South Minneapolis and California
sojourns do not denote a firmly rooted Northsider.
Felder has little connection to the North
Minneapolis of the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House, W. Gertrude Brown, Harry Davis, Bertha Smith,
Marion McElroy, Larry Brown, the Edmund Cohen Community Center, old Sixth
Avenue, North High School in its academic heyday of Jewish and African American
composition and friendship, or even to the more recent influence of the Way and
Opportunities Unlimited (where Syl Davis, Gwen Davis, and Spike Moss held sway)
and the City, Inc., as a successor to
the Way.
And yet Felder projects an image of herself
as a Northsider out to claim resources for MPS schools that have been
previously denied investment for buildings, athletic fields, and academic
programs by comparison to sites and programs in other areas of the city.
But Felder is a fraud, as a claimant to
firm Northsider status, and as an advocate for the schools of North
Minneapolis.
She is a corrupt politico with very little
knowledge of the history and philosophy of education.
Felder is a particularly objectionable
member of the MPS Board of Education for pretending that she is an advocate for
academic quality in what she abidingly refers to as “my schools” for “my
Northsiders.”
When confronted with student reading,
mathematics, and science proficiency rates at North High School that are less
than seven percent (7%) and ACT scores averaging 15.7, Felder has no
comment. When she is told that there are
classes at North that are so out of order that teachers have quit teaching, she
utters not a word. When Felder is told
that an English teacher pretending to teach The
Autobiography of Malcom X has absolutely no knowledge of that towering
personage, she sits silently and never thenceforth addresses the problem. When told by Hispanic parents that the
pre-K-5 and preK-8 schools of North Minneapolis are failing, she gives
appearance of the denial that is her wont.
KerryJo Felder is a fraud as pretender to
firm Northsider status.
She is a corrupt political hack typical for
a group that to a member is beholden to the MFT/DFL cohort.
Felder has no grasp of the history or
philosophy of pre-K-12 public education.
And she is in immoral, neglectful denial of
the rampant deficiencies of curriculum and teacher quality in the Minneapolis
Public Schools.
Felder projects the image of a fighter.
She should fight her way among Bob Walser,
Nelson Inz, Kim Caprini, Kim Ellison, and Jenny Arneson off the MPS Board of
Education and out the door of the Davis Center.
Three Members of the MPS
Board of Edudcation Who Give Faint Hope:
Ira Jourdain, Siad Ali, and Josh Pauly
#1 >>>>> District #6 Member Ira Jourdain >>>>> Error-Prone, Philosophically Bereft,
Politically Tainted, But Seemingly Well-Meaning
Ira Jourdain was suspect from the beginning
of his tenure on the Minneapolis Public Schools(MPS) Board of Education for running against
Tracine Asberry in November 2016.
Asberry was the best participant that I have witnessed on this or any
other school board. She did not have a
clearly expressed dedication to the knowledge-intensive preK-12 education that
I advocate, but she did manifestly care about fundamental skills in mathematics
and reading. Whenever Chief of Research,
Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore would deliver the latest
round of bad news regarding MPS student academic performance, Asberry would ask
detailed questions pertinent to plans for improvement. When Moore or others would offer double talk
or pleasing promises, Asberry would ask why we inevitably get the same vows for
future progress that we’ve gotten before but little of substance to warrant
confidence.
Asberry made a nuisance of herself by not
walking the party line of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers
(MFT)/Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL), calling failure as she did by that name, and
implying that better instruction was needed.
As detailed above, board members Kim Ellison, Rebecca Gagnon, and Nelson Inz acted at the
behest of the MFT/DFL cohort to recruit opponents to run against Asberry and
Josh Reimnitz. Inz endorsed Bob Walser
against Reimnitz; Gagnon endorsed Ira
Jourdain against Asberry. Both endorsees
won narrowly.
Thus Jourdain is politically tainted.
He also is philosophically bereft, giving
no evidence of any knowledge of the history of education or any coherent views
of his own.
As a matter of particularly great
irritation to me, Jourdain has stated that he signed waiver forms for his
children (he has two, one in elementary and one in middle school, enrolled in
the Minneapolis Public Schools) to opt out of taking the Minnesota
Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs);
moreover, when he did this at a regular meeting of the MPS Board of
Education, Jourdain looked out at the audience and advocated letting other parents
know that they had the right to allow their children to opt out.
The MCAs are linked to the Minnesota State
Academic Standards and are the most objective way of assessing student mastery
of the standards. When students opt out
in significant numbers, as they have done at Henry, South, and Southwest high
schools, this vitiates the pool of students assessed and skews the accuracy of
the results. Allowing and encouraging
students to opt out is irresponsible.
Jourdain bears the political taint of
MFT/DFL backing, he is philosophically bereft, and he is error-prone. Urging students to opt of the MCAs went
beyond error to indication of political taint (the MFT rails against
standardized testing) and philosophical waywardness.
Less clear was Jourdain’s voting with a 5-4
majority led by Rebecca Gagnon to restore $6.4 million dollars in funding that
had been cut in a well-crafted budget emanating from Chief Ibrahima Diop’s
Finance Division in spring 2018. Gagnon
was putting herself in the service of her affluent constituency in Southwest
Minneapolis (she occupied an At-Large position but counted voters in that area
as key supporters); Jourdain voted with
the slim majority roused by his campaign endorser and mentor Gagnon.
Jourdain, who respects Ibrahima Diop and
eventually realized the error of his ways, later showed remorse for his
vote. Also, Jourdain has expressed
skepticism about the academic promises proffered in the MPS Comprehensive
District Design, now under review pending further public vetting and due for a
vote in spring semester 2020. On a
recent evening, he sounded some very Asberry-like comments of the “Haven’t we
heard this before?” type.
The vibe of one who cares emanates from
Jourdain’s vocal tone and facial expression.
He has the unfortunate connection to the MFT, he lacks philosophical
coherence, and he has been prone to errors.
But Jourdain gives some evidence of improvement. If he can distance himself from the MFT/DFL
cohort, develop a consistent philosophical approach to academics, and avoid
major miscues of the type that characterized his votes especially in the first
two years of his tenure, Jourdain gives some hope for improvement.
I have learned to hope faintly with regard
to members of the MPS Board of Education.
But with the likes of Bob Walser, Nelson
Inz, Kim Ellison, Jenny Arneson, Kim Caprini, and KerryJo Felder still abiding
on the board, one seizes hope even if borne on waves emanating indistinctly
from chambers much less than fully known.
#2 >>>>> Siad Ali
District #3 Member Siad Ali >>>>> Hail Fellow, Well Met Needs to Develop
Diligence and Philosophy While Stiffening His Spine
Siad Ali represents Minneapolis Public
Schools (MPS) Board of Education District #3.
Ali is originally from Somalia, studied in India (where he obtained a
master’s degree in business), and speaks Hindi, as well as Somali and English,
at a high level of fluency. Ali gained
election to the board in 2014 and was reelected without opposition in
2018. In his successful run, Ali
replaced fellow Somali Mohamud Noor, who had gained controversial appointment
when the previous District #3 representative died in office. District #3 is centered on the
Cedar-Riverside area wherein a large Somali population resides. The district will for the foreseeable future
most likely be represented by a member of the Somali community, with much
discussion therein as to who will run for the position.
As is the case with all members of the
current iteration of the MPS Board of Education, Ali has firm ties to the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)/Democrat-Farmer-Labor cohort that
determines most elections to school boards in Minnesota. Ali in fact works for Amy Klobuchar. He gives no evidence as yet of finding fault
with either group in the cohort. Like so
many, he appreciates the greater propensity of DFL politicians to provide
generous funding for education, by comparison with Republicans, and to assume
that more funding in the absence of meaningful change is a good thing. He does not understand or does not want to
think about the deleterious effect that DFL administrations (e. g., Mark Dayton
with his Minnesota Department of Education [MDE] Commissioner Brenda
Cassellius; Tim Walz with his MDE
Commissioner Mary Cathryn Ricker) have on enforcement of state academic standards
and objective measurement via the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs).
Thus, Siad Ali bears the same taint of
political corruption that is true of all members of this board. And he gives no indication of having any more
knowledge of the history and philosophy of education in the United States than
do the others. But he is an amicable,
proverbial “Hail Fellow, Well Met” who professes love for everybody and seems
to mean it. He does not do his homework
very well to apprise himself of policy details, but neither does he make
clearly lamentable judgements. In
support of the work of Ed Graff and especially Chief of Finance Ibrahima Diop,
Ali voted with the minority to uphold the budget as presented in spring 2018,
losing in the 5-4 vote to the contingent led by Rebecca Gagnon to restore $6.4
million that upon budget trimming had engendered opposition by affluent parents
whose students’ high schools had been affected.
Although he has as yet to take meaningful
action, Ali listens more empathetically than do most other board members to Public
Commentators such as the Hispanic parents who have appealed for “priority
enrollment” giving their children the option of attending schools perceived as
“higher performing.” He also listens to
my Public Comments and is the only member of the MPS Board of Education who
still approaches me personally (and only one of three whose approach I would
welcome). But in private conversation,
Ali is a terrible listener who, despite understanding the main thrust of my
advocacy for a knowledge-intensive curriculum and the paramount importance of
academics, cannot get far enough beyond the MFT/DFL party line to digest
cognitively my comments.
Like Ira Jourdain, Siad Ali has faint
potential to become a better board member.
But Ali must do more homework, read tracts
on the history and philosophy of education in the United States, stiffen his
spine, and lend a more careful ear in assessing words of dissent and
advocacy. Should he do these things, Ali
has a slight chance for becoming a more thoughtful and independent voice on the
MPS Board of Education; that slight
chance is more than can be assigned to Bob Walser, Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison,
Jenny Arneson, Kim Caprini, and KerryJo
Felder.
#3 >>>>> At-Large Member Josh Pauly >>>>> Surprising Potential on a Board for Which
Slim Hope Must Be Considered
Josh Pauly is one of the At-Large
representatives on the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education,
along with Kim Caprini and Kim Ellison.
He and Caprini won their seats in the election of November 2018 and took
their positions formally in January 2020.
Pauly student taught at Southwest High
School, substituted for a while at Lucy Laney and Bethune, and then taught
social studies and AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination--- a minimally effective college preparatory
program) at Sanford Middle School. He
now works in social and community service while living in South
Minneapolis. Pauly holds one of those
easily obtained and insubstantial masters of education degrees.
In the election of November 2018, Josh
Pauly ran in a four-way candidate race for two open positions. The other candidates were Caprini, Rebecca
Gagnon, and Sharon El-Amin. Gagnon had
out-connived herself and run afoul of the Minneapolis Federation of Teacher
(MFT) /Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) cohort.
Gagnon ran essentially even with El-Amin, who has great respect and name
recognition for her longtime North Minneapolis residency and business
ownership, and for her marriage to the imam of Masjid Annur mosque, Makri
El-Amin. Caprini also has longtime
residency and parental involvement on the Northside, and she benefitted
enormously from MFT-DFT backing in the citywide race.
But Pauly was a nonentity whom El-Amin
would have defeated handily on the strength of name recognition and length of
community service. Pauly benefited most
decisively from the phone calls made, campaign literature, and door-knocking of
his MFT supporters.
During the campaign, I did not find Pauly
to offer much in the way of vision or program for change needed in view of the
degradation that is the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools. His MFT/DFL backing did nothing to endear him
to me. He seemed to have the
inexperience of youth with little compensating vigor; and rather than offer youthful impetus toward
change, he entered his position tainted by association with the MFT/DFL cohort.
There is much about Pauly that remains
unimpressive:
He reads from a script anything of
substance that he wants to convey before important votes or in making reports
to other board members; he has little
spontaneity or ability to express himself off-script, in the moment.
Pauly is tentative on matters of
curriculum, teacher quality, or other items pertinent to the academic program at the core of the locally
centralized school district’s reason for being.
And yet three observations give me very
limited hope that Pauly has some potential to be some degree of a positive force
on the MPS Board of Education >>>>>
>>>>> Pauly has not done any direct harm or
said anything so outrageously stupid as have Arneson, Ellison, Caprini, or
Inz; and certainly has uttered none of
the insipid, offensive verbiage of Walser.
>>>>> He has a sense of when discussion is
tending toward seemingly interminable banter and has been known to call the
question or use other devices to move matters forward; he often seems particularly irritated with
the propensity toward scattered verbosity of Felder or the baroque rhetoric of
Walser.
>>>>> And most importantly, Pauly
demonstrates a considered skepticism at the academic proposals in the emerging
MPS Comprehensive District Design, notably asking Amy Fearing (then Department
of Teaching and Learning Executive Director) and Chief of Research, Evaluation,
Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore (at a fall semester, academic year
2019-2020 Committee of the Whole meeting) how we can be sure there is anything
new in this plan that will improve achievement or is in any way be better than
what we have had for lo these many years.
By committing no grave offenses and by
being properly skeptical, Pauly joins the two others (Ira Jourdain and Siad
Ali) who could evolve into an approximation of a decent member of the MPS Board
of Education.
These are slim reeds--- but better slim reeds than the degraded wood symbolizing the sad hexagonal
formulation of Arneson, Ellison, Felder, Caprini, Inz, and Walser.
On the Matter of the Student
Representative to the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education
Student Representative Janaan Ahmed >>>>> One Major Bright Moment, But Mostly the
Typical Wasted Opportunity
Janaan Ahmed was the student representative
on the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education from January through
December 2019.
Ahmed was the fifth student representative
to serve. In order, with full calendar
years beginning each January during which they served given in parentheses, the
representatives have been the following:
Noah Branch (2015), Shaadia Munye (2016), Gabriel Spinks (2017), Ben
Jaeger (2018), and Janaan Ahmed (2019).
Three of the student representatives (Branch, Munye, Ahmed) have been
students at Henry High School; Spinks
was a student at Edison High School, Jaeger at Roosevelt High School.
I have the same high expectations of these
young people that I do for my students in the New Salem Educational
Initiative. Each of the representatives
has ultimately been disappointing to me as potential agents of change who have
not seized the moment. These students
all attend high schools at which the mean ACT score is approximately 16 (at the
20th percentile by national standards); at which major modes of teaching are to
distribute packets, show videos, group students together for projects in the
absence of contextualizing information, or send them singly to computers to
seek information on topics for which they similarly have little background
knowledge; where teacher burnout leads
to long-term substitutes with tangential subject area expertise; and from which students graduate with
insubstantial knowledge and skill sets and often need remedial coursework if
attending colleges or universities.
And yet not one of these students has
articulated the grave problems at her or his high school. Some had their moments of eloquence but to no
ultimate effect. Jaeger in particular
presented himself as an advocate for those student groups for which academic
achievement has lagged; he did not,
however, seem to grasp the fundamental reasons for the lag or to have any
compelling suggestions for improved achievement.
Thus, Ahmed has been the typical
unproductive student representative, rather than bearing particular
culpability.
Ahmed’s most consistent point of advocacy
has been to call for the change of name for Patrick Henry High School, on the
grounds that Henry was a slave owner.
This appeal jibes with the temper of our times, in which we change names
while leaving historically mistreated groups still suffering from various
ongoing gaps in social wellbeing. The
appeal in this case is also simplistic, as are most such entreaties. If one considers the American Revolution a
positive occurrence (and there were Loyalists who did not, with Native
Americans and African Americans having internally opposing views), then Henry
was one of the most forceful proponents of the break with Great Britain. Further, George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson each famously owned more slaves than did Henry. As a leftist revolutionary, I view the hippy
dippy liberal tendency to launch attacks on people out of historical context
while failing to address injustices today unseemly and frequently
infuriating.
Ahmed did have one bright moment, at a
recent meeting of the MPS Board of Education Committee of the Whole. Her incisive comment came when the subject of
new ethnic studies courses came up. At
issue was whether to offer these new courses as electives or as permissible
replacements for core subjects such as United State history. Ahmed said that she has a passion for ethnic
studies but that ethnic specific courses would be unnecessary if subjects such
as United States history were taught as they should be, with that history as
necessarily entailing the participation of multiple ethnicities in all past
events.
Janaan Ahmed is an apparently very bright
young woman whose ability and capacity for public leadership and engagement
will stand her in good stead during her postsecondary life.
She has, though, contributed very little to
a regular board membership of adults who are variously ignorant, corrupt, or in
denial. Those adults had great need of a
an incisive, oppositional student force that Ahmed--- like her predecessors--- did not provide.
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