Chapter One >>>>> Introductory Comments
Across the landscape of the United States, locally centralized
school districts deliver a terrible quality of preK-12 education.
The conditions that make this so are traceable to the
establishment of departments, colleges, and schools of education on university
campuses, especially the Teachers College of Columbia University, in the early
20th century:
Prior to the installation of teacher training programs on
university campuses, teachers were generally trained in normal schools which,
while varying wildly in quality, typically proceeded on the basis of the
importance of a set body of knowledge and skills that made reference to a
classic curriculum that included Latin, mathematics, English literature and
usage, the natural sciences, government, and history. Until the very late 19th century
and early 20th century, most young people were educated in small,
often one-room grammar schools that packed in students in grades one through
eight; many students did not, in fact,
matriculate beyond the sixth grade.
But in the course of the early 20th century, students
seeking a high school education became more numerous. The first high schools featured an
elaboration upon the core classical curriculum that had long guided private
tutors and those who had presided over private high schools--- and that served as a continuation of what
grammar schools had offered via McGuffey
Readers and the like: A set body of
knowledge and skill was considered central to quality education.
But with the establishment of teacher training programs on
university campuses, the emphasis on knowledge and skill underwent a
change. Knowledge was the purview of
field specialists who were so much more erudite than education professors, so
that the latter moved toward a position in which pedagogy was paramount and
knowledge was considered unimportant by comparison to items of classroom focus
that catered to the perceptible needs of particular students, teacher whim, and
an evolving litany of thematic foci purporting to advance desirable aims in the
larger society.
The ideology of the education professor took many decades to gain
implantation into the curricula of local school districts. Many parents, including immigrant groups and
African Americans migrating by the tens of thousands to the major urban centers
of the American North and Northeast, wanted a substantive education for
children whom they hoped would climb the social ladder. But by the 1960s, the ideology of the
education professor was moving to the fore;
this trend continued into the 1970s and then became dominant from the
1980s forward and continues to this day in locally centralized systems such as
the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
In this book I convey the results of my five-year investigation
into the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools. The book proceeds in three parts: Part One, Facts; Part Two, Analysis; and Part Three, Philosophy.
In Part One, Facts, I present the objective reality that abides in
the Minneapolis Public Schools, pertinent to central office (Davis Center, 1250
West Broadway) administration, including division chiefs and executive
directors, and all departments; academic
results over a five-year period; academic
curriculum for grades preK-5, 6-8, and 9-12;
MPS Board of Education; Minneapolis
Federation of Teachers; Acceleration
2020 Strategic Plan; Educational Equity
Framework, Educational Diversity Impact Assessment (EDIA); profiles of the district’s more than 70
schools; World’s Best Workforce
programs; World’s Best Workforce
Committee; district finances; national and state context, including No
Child Left Behind (NCLB), Every Student Succeeds (ESSA), Minnesota State
Department of Education North Star Accountability System; Minnesota State Academic Standards, Minnesota
Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs), and teacher training programs at the
University of Minnesota, Augsburg, Hamline, Mankato, and Wisconsin
institutions; and the most recent draft
for the emerging MPS Comprehensive District Design.
In Part Two, Analysis, I examine the effectiveness of the above
and point out the particular deficiencies of the following;
Superintendent Ed Graff
Former Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Cecilia
Saddler
Interim Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Aimee Fearing
Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Jennifer Rose
Office of Black Male Achievement Director Michael Walker and staff
Executive Director of the Department of Indian Education Jennifer
Simon and staff
Associate Superintendents
Shawn Harris-Berry
Lashawn Ray
Ron Wagner
Carla Steinbach-Huther
Brian Zambreno
All of those ineffective school site principals whom the above
incompetent group of associate superintendents are supposed to mentor but
cannot
Michelle Wiese and Staff at the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers
All of those classroom teachers who hand out worksheets, packets,
and show videos rather than teaching
In examining the wretched performance of these individuals, I
convey their academic credentials and explain how they have all been adversely
affected by the ideology of education professors or have no acceptable academic
credentials at all.
In Part Three, Philosophy, I detail the history and philosophy of
education in the United States, extending the comments that opened this introductory
chapter, present views counter to those espoused by education professors, offer
a complete curriculum for grades preK-5, grades 6-8, and grades 9-12, and
advance a plan for teacher training within the school district that would atone
for the slim training that prospective teachers receive in departments,
colleges, and schools of education.
……………………………………………………………………………..
This is a seminal work.
No one has examined the inner workings of a particular locally
centralized school district.
The overhaul of the locally centralized school district is central
to the development of an educated citizenry living lives of cultural
enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction; to ending cyclical poverty; to atoning for a history of grave abuse of
large segments of the American populace;
and for laying the foundations for a society that uses the power of
knowledge to refrain from such horrible acts as now dominate the social
landscape, looking toward a societal transformation that realizes the best
qualities of the human spirit, rather than the worst.
Nothing is more important than our young people.
Empowered by knowledge and skill, they will create the democracy
that we imagine ourselves to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment