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 20^th 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 19^th century and early 20^th 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 20^th 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).

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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.

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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.