Feb 3, 2020

Article #13 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 >>>>> World’s Best Workforce (WBWF) Programs Are a Sham and Should Be Understood As Such


The Ed Graff administration submitted as its response to Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) World’s Best Workforce (WBWF) regulations the following programs for academic year 2017-2018, with number of students served given in parentheses:

 

WBWF Program

 

(to prepare children to enter school, third graders to read, students of all ethnicities and at all economic levels to meet grade level standards, all students for career and college, and all students to graduate from high school)

 

                                                                    Number of participating Students

 

AVID (Advancement Via Individual

Determination)                                                               1,921

Check and Connect                                                            616

Ethnic Studies & Social Justice Fellows                         544

Fast Track Scholars                                                            189

GEMS & GiSE                                                                   4,221

(Girls in Engineering, Mathematics,

and Science;

Guys in Science and Engineering)

Grow Your Own Teacher Residency                          3,394

Jobs for America’s Graduates                                        167

MTSS/ Multicultural Materials                                  6,984

LearningWorks at Blake                                                    91

Office of Black Male Achievement                               348

Project SUCCESS                                                         15,229

RIS (Racially Identifiable Schools)                          10,537

Direct Support                              

Spring and Winter Academy                                     5,220

Urban Debate League                                                    394

 

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

 

Total Number of Students in the Minneapolis Public Schools:   36,961

 

……………………………………………….

 

These programs come with significant outlays in the MPS budget but are also heavily subsidized by the provider organizations, making the programs appealing.  But despite the appealing appellations, most of these programs serve only a scant fraction of students enrolled in the Minneapolis Public Schools and not one of them is capable of raising achievement levels across the K-12 years.  Most of these programs have been around for many years;  fewer than 25% of African American, American Indian (Native American), Hispanic, Hmong, and Somali students are meeting grade level standards in reading and math.

 

Thus, these seductively labeled and heavily subsidized programs offer an attractive screen for presentation to the MDE for working to promote academic achievement, but there is nothing behind that screen that offers hope for raising achievement rates.

 

Beyond these programs, the Ed Graff administration offers Social and Emotional Learning and a new PK-5 reading curriculum, the former of which can never be more than an adjunct to explicitly academic initiatives, the latter of which is limited to reading.  That new Benchmark Literacy Program

is sound in approach but prospects for success will be constricted by the mediocrity of K-5 teachers and the weakness of literature and English language usage programming in grades 6-12.

 

Programs funded by external sources and bearing appealing names are conveniently offered to meet MDE requirements, but for officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools to advance a program of academic excellence, highly intentional curriculum overhaul, teacher retraining, resource provision and referral, and time set aside for skill mastery and extension must occur for the impartation of excellent education to the students of the Minneapolis Public Schools. 

 

World Best Workforce Programs are a sham and should be understood as such.

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