Aug 14, 2020

Article #13 in a Multi-Article Series >>>>> Those Serious About Assertions that Black Lives Matter Will Work to Defeat KerryJo Felder (District 2) and Kim Ellison (At-Large) on Election Day 3 November 2020; Bob Walser (District 4) Mercifully Decided Not to Run, But We’re Stuck with Unopposed Ira Jourdain in District 6


Analysis of the Members of Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education as to Specific Nature of Culpability  >>>>>  Six Who Should Resign Immediately and Three Who Give Faint Hope


 

Two Members of the MPS Board of Education Who Gave Faint Hope as of Spring 2020:   Siad Ali and Josh Pauly

 

The following article is among those in a series that is adapted from the chapter on the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education in my book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, future Prospect.

 

At that time, Ira Jourdain, Siad Ali, and Josh Pauly represented slim reeds upon which to hang some slight hope for the evolution of decent members of the Minneapolis (MPS) Board of Education.  Yesterday I adapted my article on Ira Jourdain for present consideration, leaving in those parts that seemed favorable last spring but indicating that since that time Jourdain has proven himself ever more inept.  He no longer can be considered to have much potential to become a somewhat effective board member.

 

Siad Ali and josh Pauly are as good as it gets on this board, but that’s not very good.  Ali is not diligent and Pauly has no sound philosophical base from which to work.

 

The abysmal quality of this iteration of the MPS Board of Education makes all the more imperative that we work hard to elect Sharon El-Amin for the District 2 seat to remove KerryJo Felder from the board, and to work just as assiduously to elect Adriana Cerrillos to the District 4 seat mercifully abdicated by Bob Walser.

 

Here I give an adaptation of the analysis on Josh Pauly’s potential, adapted from the pertinent chapter in my book on te Minneapolis Public Schools>>>>>

 

>>>>> 

 

At-Large Member Josh Pauly  >>>>>  Surprising Potential on a Board for Which Slim Hope Must Be Considered

 

Josh Pauly is one of the At-Large representatives on the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education, along with Kim Caprini and Kim Ellison.  He and Caprini won their seats in the election of November 2018 and took their positions formally in January 2020.

 

 

Pauly student taught at Southwest High School, substituted for a while at Lucy Laney and Bethune, and then taught social studies and AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination---  a minimally effective college preparatory program) at Sanford Middle School.  He now works in social and community service while living in South Minneapolis.  Pauly holds one of those easily obtained and insubstantial masters of education degrees.

 

In the election of November 2018, Josh Pauly ran in a four-way candidate race for two open positions.  The other candidates were Caprini, Rebecca Gagnon, and Sharon El-Amin.  Gagnon had out-connived herself and run afoul of the Minneapolis Federation of Teacher (MFT) /Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) cohort.  Gagnon ran essentially even with El-Amin, who has great respect and name recognition for her longtime North Minneapolis residency and business ownership, and for her marriage to the imam of Masjid Annur mosque, Makri El-Amin.  Caprini also has longtime residency and parental involvement on the Northside, and she benefitted enormously from MFT-DFT backing in the citywide race.

 

But Pauly was a nonentity whom El-Amin would have defeated handily on the strength of name recognition and length of community service.  Pauly benefited most decisively from the phone calls made, campaign literature, and door-knocking of his MFT supporters.

 

During the campaign, I did not find Pauly to offer much in the way of vision or program for change needed in view of the degradation that is the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools.  His MFT/DFL backing did nothing to endear him to me.  He seemed to have the inexperience of youth with little compensating vigor;  and rather than offer youthful impetus toward change, he entered his position tainted by association with the MFT/DFL cohort.

 

There is much about Pauly that remains unimpressive:

 

He reads from a script anything of substance that he wants to convey before important votes or in making reports to other board members;  he has little spontaneity or ability to express himself off-script, in the moment.

 

Pauly is tentative on matters of curriculum, teacher quality, or other items pertinent to the academic  program at the core of the locally centralized school district’s reason for being.

 

And yet three observations give me very limited hope that Pauly has some potential to be some degree of a positive force on the MPS Board of Education  >>>>>

 

>>>>>    Pauly has not done any direct harm or said anything so outrageously stupid as have Arneson, Ellison, Caprini, or Inz;  and certainly has uttered none of the insipid, offensive verbiage of Walser.

 

>>>>>    He has a sense of when discussion is tending toward seemingly interminable banter and has been known to call the question or use other devices to move matters forward;  he often seems particularly irritated with the propensity toward scattered verbosity of Felder or the baroque rhetoric of Walser.

                           

>>>>>    And most importantly, Pauly demonstrates a considered skepticism at the academic proposals in the emerging MPS Comprehensive District Design, notably asking Amy Fearing (then Department of Teaching and Learning Executive Director) and Chief of Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore (at a fall semester, academic year 2019-2020 Committee of the Whole meeting) how we can be sure there is anything new in this plan that will improve achievement or is in any way be better than what we have had for lo these many years.

 

By committing no grave offenses and by being properly skeptical, Pauly joins the two others (Ira Jourdain and Siad Ali) who could evolve into an approximation of a decent member of the MPS Board of Education.

 

These are slim reeds---  but better slim reeds than the degraded  wood symbolizing the sad hexagonal formulation of Arneson, Ellison, Felder, Caprini, Inz, Walser---  and Jourdain. 

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