Curricular shibboleth and erroneous
pedagogy pervade the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Comprehensive District Design, with adverse
implications for the Design’s academic portion.
The academic segment of the Design is what
one would expect from the academic decision-makers at the Davis Center (MPS
central offices, 1250 West Broadway) Design:
a jargon-infested document that inflicts upon readers and the district’s
students the terms “academically rigorous curriculum,” “culturally relevant
curriculum,” “differentiated instruction,” “personalized curriculum,” lifelong
learning,” and “critical thinking” as mere shibboleths manifesting the corrupt
ideology of Superintendent Ed Graff, Interim Senior Academic Officer Aimee
Fearing, and the 30-member Department of
Teaching and Learning.
Readers should be fully focused on the grim
reality presented by the academic program under Ed Graff and ask 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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