PreK-12 Revolution at the Minneapolis Public Schools Must Start with Knowledge-Intensive Curriculum

Public education in the United States has never been good and for 40 years has been wretched. 

 

The history of public education in the 20^th century featured lacked of confidence that African American students and immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were intellectually capable of mastering knowledge-intensive curriculum.  Education professors were in the main intellectual lightweights who devalued the knowledge dispensed by erudite professors of mathematics, the natural sciences, socials sciences, history, literature, and the fine arts.  They promulgated an anti-knowledge creed that took hold during the 1970s and by the 1980s was firmly entrenched.  This was highly unfortunate timing, coming as white and black middle clas flight left behind the poorest of the poor at the urban core, where crack cocaine hit the streets in 1980, gang activity became rife, and an already inept education establishment was overwhelmed by the task of teaching young people abused by history, of which knowledge-bereft teachers and administrators had no comprehension.

 

When scenarios are as bad as the specter that we have in preK-12 education, revolution becomes imperative.

 

The time for the preK-12 revolution is now.

 

The pre-K12 revolution must include curricular overhaul, teacher training, resource provision and referral to struggling families, highly intentional skill development of students lagging below grade level, and the jettisoning of staff (including at the Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Ed Graff;  Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Aimee Fearing;  the entire Department of Teaching and Learning;  Associate Superintendents Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, and Brian Zambreno;  Office of Black Male Achievement Michael Walker;  and Department of Indian Education Jennifer Simon) who are charged with the responsibility of providing educational excellence to our students but have no idea of the constituent elements or the purposes of an excellent education.

 

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To review, pre-K12 revolution must include curricular overhaul, teacher training, resource provision and referral to struggling families, highly intentional skill development of students lagging below grade level, and the jettisoning of inept central office staff.

 

The revolution must start with overhaul of curriculum for knowledge intensity, for subject area knowledge delivered in grade by grade sequence to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

Curriculum at pre-K-5 (elementary) schools should emphasize

 

mathematics through algebra I and geometry, natural sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, health), social sciences and humanities (government, history, geography, economics, psychology), English literature and usage, and fine arts (visual and musical).

 

Curriculum at grades 6-8 (middle schools) should continue that sequence by providing

 

mathematics instruction through algebra II, trigonometry, and statistics;  natural sciences courses that complete standard secondary training in biology, chemistry, physics, and health;  social science and humanities courses that complete the impartation of broad and deep knowledge in government, American history (with due attention to specific ethnic histories), world history, economics, and psychology;  English literature and usage;  advanced experiences in the fine (visual and musical) arts;  and multiple options in foreign languages, vocational arts, and physical education.    

                                                                                           

Curriculum at grades 9-12 (high school) should emphasize

 

Advanced Placement courses in calculus, United States government, American history, world history, economics, psychology, English, and fine arts;  particularly during the last two years of high school, students should have access to an array of electives in the liberal, technological, vocational arts, so that upon graduation students are prepared to pursue driving interests into secondary education and go forth to lives as culturally enriched, civically engaged, and professionally satisfied citizens.

 

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All students except those possessing truly severe cognitive challenges are capable of mastering and delighting in this logically sequenced, knowledge-intensive curriculum.

 

Lagging academic proficiency rates and low levels of knowledge manifested by students in the Minneapolis Public Schools are due not to student inability to master the requisite knowledge and skills but rather because administrators and teachers do not themselves have those skills, cannot impart knowledge and skills in which they themselves are deficient, and have low levels of pedagogical ability even if they do possess those skills that they have never acquired.

 

Thus, we need an overhaul in personnel;  this will be the focus of the next article.