With this article concludes the
five-article series on the curricular shibboleth and erroneous pedagogy that pervade
the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Comprehensive District Design, with
adverse implications for the Design’s academic portion.
Previous articles in this series have
emphasized the jargon-infested nature of the MPS Comprehensive District Design,
identifying terms and claims for “academically rigorous curriculum,”
“culturally relevant curriculum,” “differentiated instruction,” “personalized
curriculum,” lifelong learning,” and “critical thinking” as mere shibboleths spouted
by the academic decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools who have inserted
their corrupt ideology into the academic portion of the MPS Comprehensive
District Design; such terms have no utility as guides to knowledge-intensive,
skill-replete education.
In Article #5, I reviewed the inadequacy of
MPS Superintendent Ed Graff’s Four Core Priorities of Social and Emotional Learning,
Multi-Tiered System of Support, Literacy, and Equity.
Readers should be fully focused on the grim
reality presented by the academic program under Ed Graff and asked themselves
why this has been the record compiled during his now nearly four-year tenure:
MPS Academic Proficiency Rates for 2014, 2015,
2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019
Math
2014
2015 2016
2017 2018
2019
African 22%
23% 21% 18% 18% 18%
American
American
23%
19% 19%
17% 17% 18%
Indian
Hispanic
31% 32%
31% 29%
26%
25%
Asian
48% 50%
50% 47%
50%
47%
White
77% 78%
78% 77%
77% 75%
Free/
26% 26%
25% 24%
22%
20%
Reduced
All
44% 44%
44% 42%
42%
42%
Reading
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019
African 22%
21%
21% 21% 21% 23%
American
American
21% 20%
21% 23%
24% 25%
Indian
Hispanic
23% 25% 26%
26% 27% 29%
Asian
41% 40%
45% 41%
48%
50%
White
78% 77%
77% 78%
80%
78%
Free/
23% 23%
23% 25%
25%
25%
Reduced
All
42% 42%
43% 43%
45%
47%
Science 2014
2015
2016 2017 2018 2019
African 11%
15%
13%
12% 11% 14%
American
American
14% 16%
13% 17%
14% 17%
Indian
Hispanic
17% 18%
21% 19% 17% 16%
Asian
31% 35%
42% 38% 37% 40%
White
71% 75%
71% 70%
71% 70%
Free/
14% 15%
17% 16% 15% 14%
Reduced
All
33% 36%
35%
34% 34% 36%
……………………………………………………………………………..
Why, given this abysmal record, would
anyone have any faith that the academic portion of the MPS Comprehensive Design
holds any promise for the construction and implementation for a
knowledge-intensive, skill replete education?
No one who has had any part in creating the
Design or explaining its academic implications to the public is herself or
himself a scholar in a key academic subject area. Both Superintendent Ed Graff and Interim Senior
Academic Officer Aimee Fearing are academic lightweights who hold absolutely no
expertise in a major academic discipline, nor does a single person in the
Department of Teaching and Learning.
One searches in
vain for any discussion in the academic portion of the design that details
curricular revamping to provide grade by grade sequenced knowledge sets that meet
the legal requirements of the Minnesota State Academic Standards and then go
beyond those to impart a knowledge-intensive education in mathematics, natural
science, history, the socials sciences, literature, and the fine arts.
An excellent
education begins in prekindergarten and kindergarten with preparatory knowledge
sets in those areas from the liberal arts and with increasing emphasis through
middle school and into high school also provides abundant opportunities in the
technological and vocational arts. Both In
the final model for the MPS Comprehensive District Design presented to school
board members on 27 March pertinent to centralized magnets and bus routes and
in the academic portion of the Design the astute reader gains much more confidence in the
probable efficacy of instruction in the technological and vocational arts than
one does in the academic portion at the core of curriculum, necessary for the inculcation
of broad and deep knowledge sets, and for pragmatic purposes necessary for
greatly improved results indicated by objective measures found in such instruments
as the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) and the ACT college readiness
exam.
The MPS Comprehensive District Design is a curious
document that with logical synchronicity induces community school attendance by
rationalizing transportation routes, the latter abetted also by centralization
of magnet schools. But the academic
portion of the Design, at the core of the mission of any locally centralized
school district, is heavy on jargon and vacuous claims for “academically
rigorous curriculum,” “culturally relevant curriculum,” “differentiated
instruction,” “personalized curriculum,” lifelong learning,” “critical thinking,”
“social and emotional learning,” “multi-tiered system of support,” “literacy,’
and “equity” that are variously misguided, unrealizable under the ideology of current
leadership, and insubstantial for the delivery of a knowledge-intensive,
skill-replete education.
……………………………………………………………………………
No one who now occupies a sinecure at the
Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) has any idea how to
construct and articulate such a curriculum.
Only university or independent scholars in
key academic disciplines will be able to construct the logically sequenced
knowledge-intensive curriculum necessary for an excellent education in
substance rather than shibboleth.
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