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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