May 6, 2020

Concluding Comments for a Five-Article Series >>>>> Dismissals and Overhaul That Must Ensue in the Central Offices (Davis Center) of the Minneapolis Public Schools >>>>> Remember That I Will Be Taking MPS Apart Piece By Piece


As readers absorb the next five articles in scrolling on down the blog, they should remember that in writing this series, “Dismissals and Overhaul That Must Ensue in the Central Offices (Davis Center) of the Minneapolis Public Schools,” that I am not suggesting that these dismissals and overhaul ensue:


 

I am demanding that these dismissals and overhaul begin with all due speed.

 

And I will be taking the Minneapolis Public Schools apart piece by piece.

 

Staff members at MPS must be evaluating their own career paths and deciding whether they can comprehend and advance knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum, developed by genuine subject area scholars and imparted by retrained teachers capable of delivering the requisite knowledge and skill sets in grade by grade sequence throughout the preK-12 years.

 

Those staff members who do not embrace logically sequenced knowledge as the philosophical core of an excellent education and commit themselves to making this reality at the Minneapolis Public Schools must find another place to work---  for they will have opted for a course that has witnessed the exit of former Chief of Academics Susanne Griffin, Department of Teaching and Learning Executive Director Macarre Traynham, Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Cecilia Saddler,  and many former occupants of sinecures as inept staff members of the MPS Teaching and Learning.  These former MPS staff members were prevaricators who had been philosophically poisoned by education professors and could not rid themselves of the ideological disease with which they were infected.

 

The next articles respectively analyze the deficiencies of current Interim Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing, the entire staff of the MPS Department of Teaching and Learning, the conventional school site associate superintendents, staff members of the Office of Black Male Student Achievement, and those of the Department of Indian Education.

 

1 >>>>>      Aimee Fearing  holds a bachelor’s degree in English as a Second Language and master’s and doctoral degrees in education;  the latter two degrees have no status on any college or university campus and have not improved Fearing’s  knowledge in any key academic area.  Fearing was also a medicre principal at Wellstone International and gives every evidence of ideological taint.  If she has a role at the Minneapolis Public Schools, the position would be pertinent to the needs of English Language Learners.

 

2 >>>>>      There are no scholars in the Department of Teaching and Learning.  Many hold even their bachelor’s degrees in education and not a single staff member of this longtime ineffective department has a graduate degree in an academic discipline.  Particularly tragi-comic is the fact that any college preparatory or advanced student development pretensions harbored by those identified with AVID and Advanced Learner programs have very slim academic credentials and could never be able to train students at the necessary level to perform well on the ACT college readiness exam.  The Department of Teaching and Learning must be dismantled and staff dismissed.

 

3 >>>>>      Associate Superintendents Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, and Brian Zambreno are similarly academic lightweights:  any advanced degrees and most bachelor’s degrees for this inept group are in education rather than a key academic discipline.  The very position exists because the principals whom the pretend to mentor are so poorly trained, with the absurd solution being to inflict the ideological corruption of Harris-Berry, Ray, Wagner, and Zambreno on them, thus deepening the intellectual mire in which they found themselves after having endured courses mis-taught by education professors.  Harris-Berry, Ray, Wagner, and Zambreno should be dismissed and the position of associate superintendent abolished.  Principals must be retrained by independent and university scholars and then report directly to the superintendent.

 

4 >>>>>      The seven staff members of the Office of Black Male Student Achievement have insubstantial academic credentials.  Director Michael Walker is trained in physical education and counseling.  He and other staff members of this department would be effective in a new Department of Resource Provision and Referral for interacting with students and families living at the urban core.  They must move into this new department as the Office of Black Male Student Achievement is dismantled and African American Students given the benefit of curriculum and teachers trained by independent and university scholars.

 

5 >>>>>    The Department of Indian Education exists by Minnesota legislative mandate, so it cannot be dismantled.  But Jennifer Simon must be terminated as director for her slim academic credentials;  she could be moved into a role similar to that occupied by most of this department, focused on cultural programming and family interactions.  For Native American students to succeed academically, though, they must have culturally sensitive teachers who are convinced that they can master the same knowledge-intensive curriculum for conveyance to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Aimee Fearing cannot be the leader needed in a school district that will now be focused on knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum.  Staff members of the Department of Teaching and Learning must be dismissed and the department dismantled;  neither the existence of that department nor the role now identified for the associate superintendents will be defendable once teachers and principals are retrained by independent and university scholars.  Staff members of the Office of Black Male Student Achievement are not suited to the goal suggested by the department’s title but would be of great value in a new Department of Resource Provision and Referral.  Staff members of the Department of Indian Education have valuable cultural experience and many are compassionate communicators with Native American students and families;  but with regard to academics, American Indian students will be the beneficiaries of the new knowledge-intensive curriculum imparted by culturally sensitive teachers who will deliver this curriculum to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

The dismissals and overhaul summarized above and detailed in the succeeding five articles are not options.

 

They must ensue.

 

Remember that I will be drawing upon my exhaustive research, thorough knowledge of the inner workings of this district, expertise in teaching impoverished students living at the urban core, and firm philosophical vision, so that

I will be taking the Minneapolis Public Schools apart piece by piece

 

and

 

creating this locally centralized school district anew.

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