Initial Comments
on the Nine Elected Members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of
Education >>>>> The Spectacle of Rampant Intellectual Corruption
Moving
left to right across the lineup seated on the raised platform at meetings of
the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education during fall semester of academic
year 2019-2020 one found eleven people who regularly deny to our children the
education of excellence that is due to students of all demographic
descriptors.
At
far left was KerryJo Felder, who represents MPS District #2 covering
North Minneapolis. Her concerns are focused on building and athletic
field conditions, equitable distribution of resources, Full-Service Community
Schools, and securing a vocational center for location at or near North High
School. She has no understanding of
knowledge-intensive education and is ever hampered by her ties to the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)/ Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL)
cohort. Felder will be a member of the board until the election of 2020,
at which time we must have a candidate in place to replace her.
Next,
moving left to right next to Felder was Bob Walser, the silliest and
most trivial school board member I have witnessed during my five years of
following developments at the Minneapolis Board of Education and, further, in
my half-century of viewing similar spectacles in public education. Walser represents District #4, including Bryn
Mawr, toney Lowry Hill, and the communities around Uptown. He hails from the
Walser auto-dealer family and is a total tool of the MFT/ DFL. He often
spouts the education professor jargon that I detail especially in part
Three: Philosophy. Walser is a
hippy-dippy white liberal type who is clueless as to the academic aspirations
of students and especially the needs of students from families facing dilemmas
of poverty and functionality. He frequently references Deborah Meyer, who
along with such folk as Alfie Kohn, Ted Sizer, and Jonathon Kozol appropriates
the name “progressive” and mumbles the education professor speak dating to John
Dewey, William Heard Kilpatrick, and Harold Rugg in the 1920s. This is
the doctrine that has inflicted such knowledge-poor education on our students
for at least forty years. Walser’s seat is up for reelection in 2020;
he must be defeated.
Next
you would observe Kim Caprini.
Caprini grew up on the Northside but mostly attended schools other than
those of the Minneapolis Public Schools, including Ascension and Benilde-St.
Margaret. Her two children, though, did
attend MPS schools, and for many years Caprini has been a participant in
various parent involvement activities.
But her comments as a member have been a disappointment. She shows every sign of being the lackey of
the MFT-DFL cohort that characterizes this iteration of the Minneapolis Public
Schools Board of Education.
Next
moving left to right school board attendees one saw Nelson Inz, who most
abhorrently of all had no opposition for a seat that was up for reelection in
2018. Inz represents District #5, east of I-35 in South
Minneapolis); he is the third most objectionable member of the MPS Board
of Education, for which he serves as chair, having ironically defeated the
second most objectionable member (Rebecca Gagnon) for that position last
January 2018, and having endorsed the very most objectionable member (Bob
Walser) in the latter’s defeat of incumbent Josh Reimnitz in the November 2016
election. Inz is a Montessori-trained former bartender who now teaches in
a Montessori charter middle school. Inz has a habit of inflicting silly
banter on his audience and gives every indication of being bought and paid for
by the MFT/DFL.
Seated
moving left to right from Inz one peered at MPS Superintendent Ed Graff.
Graff came from over fifteen years in Anchorage, Alaska, where he was a
teacher, administrator, and superintendent. His record there was
academically abysmal, even as he touted the same Social and Emotional Learning
formula that has served as one of his major initiatives at the Minneapolis
Public Schools. Three and one-half years into his tenure at MPS, there
has been no improvement in the academic program; any potential for
improvement will come from his masterful slimming and rationalization of the Davis
Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) bureaucracy and some
unexpected epiphany regarding the need for knowledge-intensive curriculum and
thorough teacher retraining for the delivery of such a curriculum. Such
an epiphany is absent from the MPS Comprehensive District Design that he now
touts.
Next
to Graff, moving left to right, one saw Kim Ellison, a former vice-chair and
current clerk of the board; as clerk, Ellison headed the Policy Committee
and kept time limiting Public Comments speakers to three minutes (or to two
minutes on those nights when numerous people have registered to make
comments). Ellison is a former alternative school teacher (at Plymouth
[Christian] Youth Center]) and was formerly married to Keith Ellison, former
member of Congress, Vice-Chair of the national Democratic Party, and winner in
the 6 November 2018 contest for Attorney General. Kim Ellison mostly
listens, speaking (in a very soft voice) only to make a point that she deems germane.
But her comments never go to the core of any of the central dilemmas preventing
officials and teachers at the Minneapolis Public Schools from imparting an
excellent education to students of all demographic descriptors. Ellison
does not seem to grasp the problems pertinent to curriculum and teacher
quality, forever impeded in the latter by her firm ties to the MFT/ DFL
establishment. Her seat will be up for reelection in 2020; we must work toward her defeat.
Next one sees student representative Janaan Ahmed, whose
term began in January 2019 and will end in December 2019. Ahmed brought an impressive record of
achievement and participation to her role but has not been discerning in her
comments. She gives impression of being
in synch with this terrible assemblage of board members, either as a matter of
deference or agreement. Either way,
Aamed has made little contribution to board meetings, failing conspicuously to
address low student academic proficiency rates, knowledge and skill deficient
curriculum, and poor teacher quality.
Seated
to the right of Ahmed is Jenny Arneson, the current treasurer who
presides over finance committee meetings.
Arneson has abundant mastery of detail pertinent to finance and many
other matters of the system as it is in the Minneapolis Public Schools; she also grew up in Northeast Minneapolis,
attended MPS schools, and has copious knowledge of her community. But, as with all adult, voting members of
this iteration of the board, Arneson has close ties to the MFT-DFL cohort that
prevent her from addressing the ills that plague the district.
Finally,
at the end of the row moving left to right the attendee will see Ira Jourdain
(representing District #6), the first American Indian to serve on the school
board. Jourdain seems to have a more elevated ability to process adverse
commentary than do most other board members, but he gives many indications of
being impeded by his MFT/DFL association.
………………………………………………………………………………..
The election of November 2020 looms as
enormously important, whereby we must replace those who will be up for
reelection (Felder, Inz, Jourdain, and---
especially--- Walser) with
members who are not bought and paid for by the MFT-DFL cohort. We must as an ongoing matter in the immediately
looming and all subsequent elections endeavor to install members of the
Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education who will be unafraid to address
the chronically grave issues pertinent to academic quality and ready to embrace
the necessary curricular overhaul, retraining of teachers, and initiatives to
ensure that students who face particular life challenges arrive at school are
able to achieve at the high level of which they are capable.
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