The
Comprehensive District Design developed by Superintendent Ed Graff and
Minneapolis Public Schools staff has a number of promising features, all of
which will be vitiated by fatal flaws in the academic portion of the Design.
The Design
is admirable for rationalizing transportation routes, centralizing magnets, and
inducing most students to attend community schools.
But the
academic portion of the Design gives evidence of the ineptitude that
characterizes academic decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public schools.
The Design
promises to bring a holistic approach to
achieving better academic outcomes for all students to the mission of existing
to ensure that all students learn,
upon a vision to ensure every child
college and career ready.
The
emerging design is proceeding with a goal of equipping graduates with the
knowledge and skills to be successful in three key areas: 1) academics; 2) social and emotional skills; and 3)
career and life experiences; with
a plan that keeps students at the center, realigns resources to provide
predictable staffing and programming, and supports stable funding through a
multi-tiered strategy that includes intentional recruitment and retention of
students and families; so that students
are prepared for excellence and success in career, college, and life for having
been equipped with a broad array of knowledge, capacities, skills, and
experience.
The plan
includes five key elements:
ELEMENT 1,
to set clear expectations for all graduates and for the daily experiences of
students, staff and families;
ELEMENT 2,
to enhance academic programming that delivers academically and relevant
programming to meet the needs of all learners, with consistent provision of an
individualized approach to instruction that begins in pre-kindergarten with all
students participating in high-quality coursework aligned to state standards,
enriched to result in a well-rounded education;
ELEMENT 3,
to create a solid and predictable foundation upon which schools can build to
meet the unique needs of the students they serve;
ELEMENT 4,
to provide clear, equitable academic pathways supported by efficient and
financially sustainable transportation options;
and
ELEMENT 5,
to pursue multiple approaches to sustainable funding, including targeted,
data-informed efforts to increase market share.
The Design
contains a promise that students will graduate with a well-rounded education,
adopting the federal definition of a well-rounded education as courses, activities, and programming in
subjects such as English, reading or language arts, writing, science,
technology, engineering, mathematics, global languages, civics and government,
economics, arts, history, geography, computer science, music, career and
technical education, health, physical education, and any other subject, as
determined by the state or local agency, with the purposes of providing all
students access to an enriched curriculum and educational experience.
[Every Student Succeeds Act: S. 1177-298], with the necessary curricular
offerings projected by 2022 at each grade, in the context of a new culture that
supports such learning.
There is a
vow by 2022 to prepare students via elementary and middle school curriculum to
meet the demands of rigorous core and elective courses in high school.
There is
the promise by 2022 to provide health and aide staff needed to establish a
context of student physical and emotional health to abet learning.
And there
is a projected effort to redesign the district so as to create appealing
schools for students of all demographic descriptors and in all geographic
areas, with special emphasis on reaching out to demographic groups who have in
recent years opted for schools outside the Minneapolis Public Schools.
But the MPS
Comprehensive Design will another exercise in academic futility:
…………………………………………………………….
There is
the conceit that “MPS has demonstrated it can provide academic excellence for
some students.”
In fact,
the schools of this school district do not provide academic excellence to any
student in the school district; this is
true of most K-12 providers of education in the United States. Those who wrote this text are making a false
claim, or they are clueless.
Then there
is the problematic phrase, “individualized approach to instruction.” Every teacher, administrator, and staff
member should be sensitive to the individual life circumstances of each child
and young person enrolled in the Minneapolis Public Schools; but curriculum and pedagogy utilized should
be consistent from student to student, including an abundance of whole-class
instruction.
The entire
notion of “articulated pathways” is a misguided, echoing the failed tenure of
former MPS Chief Academic Officer Susanne Griffin.
In fact, teachers
should be teaching from a common curriculum that includes an abundance of
cross-cultural knowledge that would incorporate American Indian, Hmong, Somali
language and culture; visual and
performing arts; and foreign language
learning opportunities. Certain ideas of
Maria Montessori are useful in understanding and teaching the young child, but
the Montessori approach results in gaps in knowledge and skill sets and should
not be the prime means of curricular delivery;
impartation of knowledge and skill sets should be in logical,
grade-by-grade sequence to all students.
A
knowledge-intensive curriculum should be delivered not via an International
Baccalaureate program; rather, students
should acquire those knowledge and skill sets that will lead to enrollment in
Advanced Placement courses in high school.
Programming
should be consistent and multicultural at all sites. Families of all demographic descriptors
respond to a knowledge-intensive, skill replete, ultimately college preparatory
curriculum. They will seek out the
Minneapolis Public Schools if they are presented such a curriculum, and the
knowledgeable teachers required to impart such a curriculum.
……………………………………………………………………………..
Ultimately,
the academic portion of the Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District
Design is overly verbose and fails to focus on an overriding goal of providing
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete
education in grade by grade sequence to all students.
The
emphasis on “creative and critical thinking” at grades K-5 seems an adaptation
of the education professor’s mantra that serves as a smokescreen for providing
very little of the knowledge base that would serve as the springboard for
creative and critical thinking.
There is
verbiage suggestive of the provision of rigorous course work, but there is no
accompanying plan for the overhaul of curriculum so as to impart grade by grade
knowledge and skill sets or to train teachers to become bearers of knowledge.
The notion
of pathways should be jettisoned, making way for a plan to assure that students
arrive in high school with a commonly shared knowledge base so that all
students proceed to advanced courses in algebra, geometry, trigonometry, statistics,
calculus, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, economics,
psychology, literature, and fine arts;
while also gaining as chance at the high school stage to pursue driving
personal interests via electives in the liberal, vocational, and fine arts.
Students at
the Minneapolis Public Schools should be given a common broad, deep,
knowledge-intensive education in grade by grade sequence through middle school,
continuing into high school while at that latter stage also providing the opportunity
to pursue well-informed personal driving interests.
Success in
doing this will assure that the best features of the MPS Comprehensive Design
will be realized.
But failure
to provide the necessary curriculum overhauled for grade by grade knowledge intensity; and to train the teachers necessary to
deliver such a curriculum; will expose
the probable fatal flaws in the design---
making the whole exercise another costly diversion that once again
deceptively promises much but delivers little to the students and families
within the area served by the Minneapolis Public Schools.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
Knowledge-Deficient Academic
Decision-Makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools Have Failed the Students of
the District for Decades and Will Still in the Absence of the Needed Overhaul
Readers should keep in view that when
Superintendent Ed Graff cites good results for some students at the Minneapolis
Public Schools, he tacitly admits that he has no understanding of the meaning
of an excellent education:
No one in the Minneapolis Public Schools
receives an excellent education.
No one.
Not one staff member among academic
decision-makers at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway)
is a scholar or an academician.
Let me repeat that >>>>>
Not one staff member among academic
decision-makers at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway)
is a scholar or an academician.
Academic decision-makers at the Minneapolis
Public Schools have very little knowledge themselves and no respect for
knowledge at the core of an excellent education:
All graduates of the Minneapolis Public
Schools walk across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in
name only.
This magnifies the terrible performance in
key demographic categories:
Decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public
Schools cannot now and have not for decades even been able to impart
mathematics and reading skills to most students at the district.
What an embarrassment, then, is the prevailing
circumstance that we would be turning cartwheels if this incompetent cohort
could just superintend a program for the delivery of basic skills.
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