Ed Graff came to the Minneapolis Public
Schools as a failed superintendent in Anchorage, Alaska.
He spent a quarter of a decade at the
district as elementary school teacher, principal, and occupant of central
administration positions including chief academic officer and ultimately
superintendent (three academic years in the latter role, those ending in 2014,
2015, and 2016). Graff holds a degree in
elementary education from the University of Alaska and a master’s in educational
administration from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Attentive and discerning readers would ask
questions about that record and Graff’s educational preparation, as did I:
>>>>> 1)
Why while holding positions in the Anchorage district did Graff seek a
degree from a low-tier university in another part of the country?
>>>>> 2)
What knowledge of any academic discipline has Graff brought to any of
his roles?
Answers to those questions are as
follows >>>>>
>>>>> 1)
Graff determined that the money and status lamentably granted to
administrators over teachers made a career as an administrator attractive; he sought an easy online degree from an
low-quality institution that gave him the same gossamer qualifications as the
other academic lightweights who dominate
among chief academic officers and superintendents in the nation’s locally
centralized school districts.
>>>>> 2)
Graff has slim knowledge of any legitimate academic discipline; his undergraduate degree qualified him for
the most important profession in the USA but unfortunately also abides as the
weakest degree on any college or university campus, and his one foray into
graduate study conferred upon him a certificate from a program that advanced
his knowledge of mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government,
economics, ethnic and world literature, music, and visual art not one whit.
The school board of Anchorage declined to
renew Graff’s contract after his three-year tenure as superintendent. The MPS Board of Education voted 6-3 to bring
this failed superintendent to lead the public schools of Minneapolis after the
board had botched the search process not once but two times.
Graff took his position as MPS
superintendent on 1 July 2016.
He soon identified Social and Emotional
Learning, Multi-Tiered System of Support, Literacy, and Equity as his
programmatic goals and by the end of his second year launched the process that
has given us the MPS Comprehensive Design.
The Design has numerous favorable qualities in reevaluating and
centralizing magnet programming, inducing attendance at community schools, and
rationalizing transportation so as to reduce costs from $42 million to $35
million.
But the Design is as hopeless as a plan for
academic improvement as is Graff as an academic leader.
Academic improvement at the Minneapolis
Public Schools would involve first giving attention to the Minnesota State
Academic Standards which have been broadly neglected at all levels, most
especially at grades K-5; then go beyond
those standards to construct a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum
for impartation in logical grade by grade sequence with an early emphasis in
grades K-5 on mathematics, natural science, history and social science,
high-quality multiethnic and world literature, and the fine arts--- continuing that emphasis in grades 6-8 and
9-12 while creating abundant opportunities in the technological and vocational
arts.
Having articulated a logically sequenced,
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum, district officials must then
endeavor to lift teachers above their current mediocrity; decision-makers and planners must articulate
and implement a program that goes far beyond standard Professional Development
(PD) so as to provide training in key subject areas and to instill an
understanding of students living at the urban core.
The MPS Comprehensive District Design was
doomed in its fundamental academic responsibility from the start by the
insubstantial intellectual quality and inadequate academic training of
Superintendent Ed Graff.
A district plan that offers no hope for
student academic improvement constitutes a failure of intellect and
morality.
We are moving up toward four years in the
tenure of Superintendent Ed Graff.
He should bring in a university or
independent scholar to design the needed academic program that could salvage an
MPS Comprehensive District Design that took two years to lead the district into
a deeper academic quagmire---
or Ed Graff should resign as Superintendent
of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
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