Ibrahima Diop is a superlatively
trained MPS Finance Chief, with undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics
and public finance. Karen Devet holds
undergraduate and graduate degrees in fields related to operations, with
particular expertise in food service. Fadi
Fadhil and Justin Hennes are technology experts of the highest order, with graduate academic
training germane to that expertise.
Maggie Sullivan is a graduate of the elite St. Paul Academy and well-regarded
Lewis and Clark College and obtained a graduate degree in public policy from
Carnegie Mellon. Rochelle Cox earned her
academic degrees in early childhood education and then pursued on-the-job
training in special education for many years at MPS before becoming head of the
division.
These are people and professionals of the highest
caliber.
Ed Graff, Aimee Fearing, and the
entire department of MPS Teaching and Learning trained under intellectually
corrupt college presences dubbed education “professors.”
Those who care about young people
and the creation of a knowledgeable citizenry must understand these differences
in training as we overhaul curriculum and teaching and proceed with the preK-12
Revolution.
………………………………………………………………..
Ed Graff and
the Abiding Dilemma of the Ineffective Superintendent
Superintendent Ed Graff is an academic
mediocrity and in that regard he is typical of his profession.
Soon after Superintendent Bernadeia
Johnson resigned (effective January 2015), I told the Minneapolis Public
Schools Board of Education that they should not conduct a nationwide search
because finding a superior candidate with conventional training is a near
impossibility. Although Michael Goar had
been brought in (Johnson says at her own behest) to serve strangely as Chief
Executive Officer (that title [unusual in the locally centralized school
district] would signal similar duties to a superintendent, and he did quickly
become a leading candidate for the post), I was myself thinking at the time of
Michael Thomas, then Chief of Schools with administrative oversight of the
associate superintendents.
“Go in-house,” I told members of the
board in one of my messages during Public Comments at a meeting in spring 2015
as preparations for the search began.
“You’re not going to find anyone more qualified than some of our own
administrators (I was not yet openly touting Thomas, thinking that Eric Moore
and others were also viable vehicles of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete
education); superintendent candidates
with the typical certifications have all been trained in the same way, and thus
all have been intellectually ruined by education professors.”
The board went ahead with the search,
botched that search in multiple ways, opted ultimately for Graff, who indeed
has a conventional profile, and who has been just as academically ineffective in
Minneapolis as he was in Anchorage.
Graff has proven himself to be an able
administrator, paring the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West
Broadway) from approximately 650 to 450 staff members and giving scope for
brilliant Chief of Finance Ibrahima Diop to work the district out of a financial
tangle and devise a structurally balanced budget. But Graff has no idea of how to design a
preK-12 curriculum toward the impartation of broad and deep knowledge to
students.
Graff has a degree in
elementary education from the University of Alaska, Anchorage; and an online master’s degree in educational
administration from the University of Southern Mississippi. Elementary education, while constituting the
requisite training for one of the nation’s most important jobs, features the
weakest academic training on any college or university campus. The online degree from a lower-tier university
is suspect and in any case whatever of value is learned in the pertinent courses
is not focused on any subject area (mathematics, natural science, history,
government, or English) that should be at the core of any preK-12 curriculum.
Accordingly, three and a half years
into Graff’s tenure at the Minneapolis Public Schools (his contract was renewed
in spring 2019), student academic performance is essentially flat and for some key demographic groups has gone
down. As I have repeatedly told Graff and
members of the board, for academic performance to advance for all demographic
groups, 1) curriculum is going to have to be overhauled to deliver carefully
sequenced knowledge and skill sets throughout the preK-12 years; 2) teachers must be thoroughly
retrained; 3) a Department of Resource Provision and
Referral must be created and staffed with people comfortable connecting with
students and families living at the urban core, right where they live; 4)
highly intentional academic development experiences must be provided to
all students, focused on basic skills or enrichment opportunities as necessary
and appropriate; and 5) the bureaucracy
must be pared. Only the last of the
five-point program has been in some measure realized.
We must transform locally centralized
school districts such as the Minneapolis Public Schools so as to impart to our
young people a knowledge-intensive curriculum, delivered by teachers who are
themselves bearers of knowledge.
To do that, citizens, including those who
claim an interest in the public schools, must become much more discerning in
their understanding of the system that fails so many of our precious young
people.
Ed Graff’s assumption of a second
three-year term (should he defy the odds and actually stay the full
three-year [academic years 2019-2020, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022] term of the
current contract, totaling six years for a tenure that began with his first
contract on 1 July 2016) came at the behest of the members of the MPS Board of
Education, who voted 8-0 (KerryJo Felder was absent) on 14 March 2019 to offer
the second contract.
Graff is a salient
example of the academically mediocre superintendent inflicted on our young
people by departments, schools, and colleges of education; and an example of the mediocrity witnessed
generally among academic decision-makers and teachers in our locally
centralized school systems.
In opting for a lightweight
master’s degree, from an institution of meager quality, while serving as an
administrator in the Anchorage School District, Graff exercised the option typical
of the locally centralized school district administrator, who seeks not
knowledge but rather enhanced professional remuneration in ascending the
bureaucratic ladder.
Graff spent ten years as a teacher in the Anchorage School District
(ASD) and then sixteen years as an administrator. As an administrator, these positions included
the following
Professional Background
Anchorage School District,
2000-2016
Superintendent, 2013-2016
Chief Academic Officer,
2009-2013
Executive Director, Elementary Education, 2008-2009
Readers should notice that Graff spent five years in positions that
very directly gave him the opportunity to implement an effective academic
program; and another three years (for a
total of eight) as superintendent, whose driving goal should be to design an
organization that delivers knowledge-intensive curriculum, imparted by
knowledgeable teachers.
But after all of those years, by the academic year ending in 2015, achievement of
students in the Anchorage School District was very low.
Elsewhere on Graff’s resume one finds evidence of success in bureaucratic
streamlining and fiscal management.
Those are the areas in which Graff has acted most adroitly as MPS
superintendent. But all of this will go
for naught if student academic proficiency levels continue to languish.
Graff has become an effective manager of the school district
bureaucracy as to finances, including the elimination of the most unnecessary
staff positions. He has, though, been a
failure as leader of the academic program, which is all that ultimately
matters, that which all other administrative maneuvers must serve.
………………………………………………………………………………..
Ed Graff’s program at the Minneapolis
Public Schools has focused on 1) Social
and Emotional Learning; 2) Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS); 3)
literacy; and 4) equity.
Of these four key programmatic areas
under Graff, literacy is a very basic skill that under previous administrations
nevertheless was not addressed in any coherent fashion. Graff and staff tout the new Benchmark
curriculum as addressing this fundamental skill, but objective results have not been forthcoming. And
equity can only be achieved if teachers impart a knowledge-intensive,
skill-replete education to students of all demographic descriptors.
In advancing Multi-Tiered System of
Support, the Graff administration seeks to address the needs of students by
identifying academic, psychological, and social needs of students and
addressing those needs with the appropriate professional assistance. This would be a promising initiative if adroitly
conceived and then implemented district-wide.
Such conception and implementation have not occurred.
This leaves Social and Emotional
Learning as defined by the organization CASEL, with which Graff was affiliated
as a failed administrator in Anchorage.
CASEL (Cooperative for Academic,
Social, and Emotional Learning), based in Chicago, was founded in 1994. Both CASEL and the term “social and emotional
learning” were created at a meeting in 1994 hosted by the Fetzer Institute. The meeting was meant to address a perceived
need for greater coherence in an array of programs pertinent to drugs,
violence, sex education, and civic and moral responsibility. Social and Emotional Learning is meant to
bring coherence.
In 1997 CASEL and the Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) brought together writers and
researchers to produce Promoting Social
and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for
Educators. The Collaborative for
Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning claims to have made great advances in serving
the multiple needs of youth over the course of the last twenty and more years,
but the abiding ill-addressed academic, psychological, and social need of
students in urban school districts across the nation (including that of
Anchorage and of the Minneapolis Public Schools during the Ed Graff tenure)
belies those claims.
Social and Emotional Learning focuses
on five designated competencies: 1) self-awareness; 2)
self- management; 3) responsible decision-making; 4)
social awareness; and 5) relationship building skills. This is the kind of facile thinking
frequently witnessed in the utterances of education professors and pop
psychologists, the kind of goals that should be assumed but not touted for any
transformative power.
For when all of these admirable
competencies have been achieved, there will still be the matter of academic
curriculum that should be at the core of any public school system.
Ed Graff is not capable of devising
such a program, nor is anyone on staff at the Davis Center or elsewhere in the
school district capable of creating such a program. The absence of a viable academic program in the Minneapolis Public Schools
Comprehensive Design makes the incompetence abundantly clear.
Ed Graff is the typically ineffective
superintendent of the locally centralized school district.
The locally centralized school
district should be the best conduit of an excellent education to students of
all demographic descriptors. To realize
the potential of the locally centralized school district, Ed Graff and all
academic decision-makers must be replaced by true academicians, scholars whose
credentials feature advanced training in rigorous academic disciplines, not in
lightweight education programs.
Accordingly, we must sweep the halls
of the Davis Center clean of Ed Graff and academic decision-makers currently on
staff and replace them with those who have respect for knowledge and are
themselves knowledgeable. In addition to Graff, those who must be
swept away are Aimee Fearing, Michael Walker and the staff of the Office of
Black Male Achievement, Jennifer Simon and staff of the Department of Indian
Education, and Associate Superintendents Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron
Wagner, and Brian Zambreno.
The
Intellectually Corrupt Academic Program of the Minneapolis Public Schools
Soon after I began my
investigation of the Minneapolis Public Schools in late summer 2014, Susanne
Griffin was hired by then Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson to be Chief of
Academics, Leadership, and
Learning. Griffin was told that she was
not in her position, which paid $151,000, to make any major changes, that
Johnson had her own program (including Focused Instruction, High Priority
Schools, Shift, and Community Partnership Schools), and that Griffin’s job was
to implement that program. Griffin in
any case was an administrator whose programmatic inclinations followed the
knowledge-light formulations of education professors, which would not have produced
a rigorous academic program for students of all demographic descriptors. Griffin had been a teacher, principal, and
administrator in the Rochester Public Schools and had taken time to follow an
interest in inner city youth by going to Atlanta to gain intensive experience
with students living in challenging urban environments. Griffin is a good person but too ruined by
education professors to be an academic leader.
She was not truly supportive of Focused Instruction, which had the
potential to incorporate a Core Knowledge curriculum. I ultimately advocated for Griffin’s
dismissal; she was demoted and then made
her exit during Ed Graff’s first year as superintendent.
Chief of Schools Michael Thomas
replaced Griffin as Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning but was locked
into Graff’s program. Graff was jealous
of Thomas’s popularity within the district and in the community. Thomas aggressively pursued positions
elsewhere and is now serving as superintendent in a district of Colorado
Springs, Colorado.
In the aftermath of Thomas’s
departure, the position of Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning has
been mostly vacant. Chief of Research,
Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore briefly (November
2018-January 2019) held the position.
There was opposition within the Department of Teaching and Learning to
Moore’s appointment, so that from January through June 2019 his title was
scaled back to interim status. A job
posting was issued for a permanent replacement, then Ed Graff decided that for
now anyway he would personally take the lead as academics leader.
For a stretch of time with the
academic leadership position in flux, Cecilia Saddler remained at the position
of Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning. She was passed over for the top position,
first in the immediate aftermath of Michael Thomas’s departure and then when the job was posted from
spring into summer 2019. During academic
year 2018-2019 she was effectively the head of the Department of Teaching and
Learning, which had been led for many years by an executive director but left
vacant upon the departure of Macarre Traynham after the latter’s short tenure
in academic year 2015-2016.
Thus, while she was largely scuttled
aside from mainline academic decision-making, Cecilia Saddler was the highest titular
academic leader at the Minneapolis Public Schools as academic year 2019-2020
began. Saddler has been with the
Minneapolis Public Schools for a decade and a half as an English teacher,
principal of South High School, an associate superintendent, and then the
current deputy chief position.
Saddler's responsibility as Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning was to manage
operational connections to support associate superintendents, principals and teaching staff in accelerating student achievement and overall school improvement that is aligned to the core values and academic goals of Acceleration 2020
Saddler’s
academic credentials were as follows:
Cecilia Saddler (Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and
Learning)
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Earned
M. A., Teaching University of Iowa
B.A., English University
of Iowa
Saddler is currently working on a doctorate in educational administration, which in combination with her master’s degree in teaching would give her no advanced training in her field of English. As in the case of Graff and all other academic decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools she is not a scholar of an academic discipline (mathematics, natural science, history, government, English) that should be at the core of curriculum of any public school system.
Predictably,
Saddler has been ruined as an academic decision-maker by education professors. A quotation that accompanied her identifiers
included with her emails was from William Butler Yeats and opines that the goal
of education is
“not the filling
of a pail but the lighting of a fire.”
We certainly want
to light those fires, but we better fill that pail with lots of informational
fuel.
Saddler does not
grasp the importance of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education. She did not superintend rising academic
achievement levels as principal at South High School. As associate superintendent, she did not
mentor site principals to be effective academic leaders. Cecilia Saddler was essentially a nonentity
as Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning. She made little contribution to drafts for
the Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design, although the
script for the jargon-infested academic portion of the Design is of the sort
that Saddler muttered when she appeared before the Minneapolis Public Schools
Board of Education.
According to the
best information available to me, Cecilia Saddler was a good English
teacher. She should have gotten an
advanced degree in that field and stayed in the classroom. Instead, she climbed a bureaucratic ladder littered
in the familiar way with meaningless education degrees but at the top of which
lies a larger pot of money.
As of the early
to middle reaches of first semester, academic year 2019-2020, Cecilia Saddler
ceased to be Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership and Learning Cecilia Saddler.
She became, then,
just one of many among the host of academic decision-makers who have been swept
away but, at least as important, part of a general bureaucratic cleaning at the
Minneapolis Public Schools that must continue, with replacement by scholars who
value knowledge and can accordingly design curriculum for implementation in
logical sequence tyhrought the preK-12 years.
Aimee Fearing has
recently been tapped by Superintendent Ed Graff to occupy an Interim Chief of
Academics position. The interim should
be short. Graff must appoint an academic
chief who is the scholar that he is not---
or find his own way out the Davis Center door.
Aimee Fearing
>>>>> Another Inept Head
of Academics and Executive Director of the Department of Teaching and Learning
Over summer 2019, the
position of Executive Director of the Department of Teaching and Learning
was bestowed upon Aimee Fearing. This was another affront to Cecilia Saddler,
who had assumed leadership of that department as Deputy Chief of Academics,
Leadership, and learning after being passed over for Chief of Academics,
Leadership, and Learning with Michael Thomas’s departure for Colorado Springs,
Colorado.
Fearing’s credentials are as
follows.
Academic
Credentials for Aimee Fearing
Minneapolis
Public Schools
Executive
Director, Teaching and Learning
Degrees
Earned Field in
Which
Institution at
Which
Degree Was Earned
Degree Was Earned
Bachelors
Degree ESL Education
University of Northwestern
13 May 2000
Masters
Degree Education
Hamline University
23 May 2003
Doctorate
Degree Education
Hamline University
30 April 2015
Other Credentials
Professional
Licensures
K-12 Principal
Licensure
Expiration, 30
June 2023
K-12 ESL
Licensure
Expiration, 30
June 2023
5-12
Communication Arts Licensure
Expiration, 30 June 2023
Thus, Fearing has the typical
profile for an academic decision-maker at the Minneapolis Public Schools: Her training is entirely in education rather
than in an academic discipline (mathematics, natural science, history,
government, English) that should be at the core of the curriculum of a locally
centralized school district. Fearing is
not a scholar. She is not a subject area
specialist. She should not be making
decisions pertinent to academics. And
yet she leads a department that has the official responsibility for the
academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
The position of Executive
Director of Teaching and Learning was most ably filled by Mike Lynch. Lynch served under Superintendent Bernadeia
Johnson and was fully behind her program of Focused Instruction, which had the
potential for imparting a Core Knowledge curriculum that Lynch also
embraced. But Lynch encountered a great
amount of opposition for his support of knowledge-intensive curriculum from
staff members of the Department of Teaching Learning. Although he and his immediate superior, Chief
of Academics Susanne Griffin, seemed to have a good relationship, Griffin
herself made few initiatives and leaned more to the prevailing anti-knowledge,
education professor-espoused view of her Department of Teaching and Learning
staff. Lynch departed for graduate study
in Boston in 2015.
Griffin brought in Macarre Traynham, whose main expertise was in Culturally Relevant
Curriculum. I met with Traynham and did
not find her to have much enthusiasm for knowledge-intensive curriculum or what
by then was a Focused Instruction plank of the Bernadeia Johnson program that
was being sabotaged by Teaching and Learning staff members. A mid-level Teaching and Learning official by
the name of Tina Platt had responsibility for Focused Instruction, without possessing
impressive credentials or the requisite knowledge base to oversee
knowledge-intensive curriculum. I
advocated for the dismissal of Traynham and Platt; Traynham lasted just a few months and Platt
also departed the district.
There was no Executive Director
of Teaching and Learning during academic years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. Mercifully, this bloated department was
slimmed down from 53 staff members to a current 30. But the department is still overstaffed and
full of incompetent occupants of sinecures.
The department should be cleared of present occupants, all of whom are
trained in education rather than academic programs, at the graduate level and
for most even at the undergraduate level.
Again, we have the phenomenon of
non-academicians bearing the responsibility for the academic program of the
Minneapolis Public Schools.
If teachers were properly
trained in their subject areas, there would be little need for a Department of
Teaching and Learning. No such
department exists on college and university campuses to train professors, who
are experts in the subjects they teach.
Such a department would be ludicrous.
…………………………………………………………………………….
Ibrahima Diop, Karen Devet, Fadi
Fadhil, Justin Hennes, Maggie Sullivan, and Rochelle Cox are professionals of the
highest caliber.
Ed Graff, Aimee Fearing, and the
entire MPS Department of Teaching and Learning are inept, by the intellectually corrupt nature
of their training.
Those specialists of excellence at
the Minneapolis Public Schools must acknowledge and confront the incompetence of their
colleagues in the MPS academic division and commit themselves with all due speed
to the imperatives of the preK-12 Revolution.
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