Jan 10, 2020

>Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota< >>>>> Volume VI, No. 6, December 2019 >>>>> Article #1 >>>>> Introductory Comments >>>>> A Review of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education, with Iteration as of Academic Year 2019-2020--- KerryJo Felder, Bob Walser, Siad Ali, Kim Caprini, Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison, Josh Pauly, Jenny Arneson, and Ira Jourdain--- Assessed as Particularly Incompetent and Politically Tainted


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) 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 case most of the rest of the board, has strong ties to the MFT-DFL cohort.

 

The election of 2016 narrowly ousted Reimnitz (replaced by Bob Walser in District 4) and Tracine Asberry (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 in 2018.

 

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 were never cast in deference to 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 secured 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.

 

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