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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