Introductory Comments to a Five-Article Series >>>>> My Replacement Plan for the Academic Portion of the Comprehensive District Design As I Take the Minneapolis Public Schools Apart for Piece by Piece

While the Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design projects a plan with the admirable features of rationalizing transportation routes, inducing attendance at community schools,      and geographically centralizing reevaluated magnet schools, the academic portion of the design is a jargon-infested document that cannot possibly provide for the improved student academic proficiency     that must be the core of the Design.

 

Accordingly, my revolutionary overhaul of the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools, as I take the district apart piece by piece and then reassemble for the provision of knowledge-intensive education, will include the provision of a new academic plan to replace that embedded in the Design as written.

 

As currently p[resented, the Design correctly embraces the definition of a well-rounded education given in the Every Student Succeeds Act. 

 

That definition is as follows:

  

ESSA Definition of a Well-Rounded Education

 

>>>>>    MPS supports the federal definition of a well-rounded education

 

>>>         …..  courses, activities, and programming in subjects such as English, reading, or language arts, writing, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, global languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, geography, computer science, music, career and technical education, health, physical education, and any other subject, as determined by State of local educational agency, with the purpose of providing all students access to an enriched curriculum and educational experience.

(Every Student Succeeds Act: S. 177-298)

 

There is nothing in the academic portion of the MPS Comprehensive District Design that instils confidence that in the aftermath of the Design’s adoption “MPS will graduate students with a well-rounded education regardless of zip code.”

 

The replacement plan that I provide in the succeeding five articles as readers scroll on down the blog will give reality to the vow to provide a well-rounded education. 

 

In those articles and thus in the replacement plan, I will detail logically sequenced knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum;  initiatives pertinent to skill remediation, teacher training, and communication with families struggling with dilemmas of poverty and functionality;  and programmatic approaches necessary to assure the success of demographic groups for which academic proficiency rates have been abysmal.

 

In the course of these next weeks and months, I will be taking the Minneapolis Public Schools apart piece by piece.

 

My replacement plan for the academic portion of the MPS Comprehensive District Design indicates the parts for inclusion in the re-assemblage.