Aug 1, 2020

Article #6 in a Multi-Article Series >>>>> Those Serious About Assertions that Black Lives Matter Will Work to Defeat KerryJo Felder (District 2), Ira Jourdain (District 6), Kim Ellison (At-Large), and--- Especially--- Bob Walser--- For the Four Contestable Seats on the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education in November 2020


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


 

Six Members of the MPS Board of Education Who Should Resign Immediately:  Jenny Arneson,  KerryJo Felder, Kim Elllsion, Kim Carpini, Nelson Inz, and Bob Walser

 

Case Number Two for Resignation >>>>>    

 

Kim Ellison

 

Kim Ellison’s ’s Tragi-Comically Silly Comment Regarding Alternative Schools as a Model for the Minneapolis Public Schools >>>>>  Time for Resignation of Another Member Who Should Have Departed a Long time Ago

 

At the same Tuesday, 22 October 2019, Committee of the Whole meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education at which District #1 member Jenny Arneson made her astonishingly stupid comment regarding the sequence of United States history courses in the district, At-Large member Kim Ellison chimed in with a remark of her own that, when taken together with her nearly decade of ineffective participation on the board, should induce her resignation and departure with Arneson out the Davis Center door.    

 

After hearing Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Aimee Fearing and Chief of Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore engage in double talk and jargon-infested presentation of an academic plan that has no hope of success, Ellison felt impelled to make a comment pertinent to Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).  Ellison commented that Graff’s emphasis on Social and Emotional Learning resonated with her immediately because of her experience as a teacher at an alternative school.  She did not mention the name of the school, but the school of reference was known as Plymouth Christian Youth Center (PCYC) for a number of years, now rendered as Plymouth Youth Center (PYC) Arts and Technology High School.  Ellison said that at her school there was a strong emphasis on teacher and staff relationships with students, with the implication that this produced student success.

 

Ellison is half-right but the half-wrong part reveals the abominable level of academic substance delivered at such schools.  The City, Inc., and the Street Academy/Minneapolis Urban League High School were schools at which relationship building was touted;  those schools are now defunct.  The Minneapolis Public Schools contracts with seven privately run alternative schools to provide academic and other services to students whom MPS failed to engage.  Those contract alternative schools are 800 West Broadway, Loring Nicollet, Menlo Park, Merc, PYC Arts and Technology (Ellison’s school of reference), Tatanka Academy, and Volunteers of America (VOA) High School.  Academic performance for many years at these schools has stagnated at levels witnessed in the following aggregate results for academic year 2018-2019:

 

Percentage of Students Proficient at MPS Contract Alternative Schools 

(Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment [MCA])

 

Mathematics                        2%

(52 tested) 

 

Reading                              

(32 tested)                          22%

 

Science

(30 tested)                          13%

 

Many more than 52 students are enrolled at these alternative schools, so that even the number (52) representing students taking the mathematics MCA fails to capture the number of students enrolled.  But absences are high;  on any given day, a small percentage of enrolled students actually are in attendance.  There was also some formal opting out, as well as spontaneous refusal to take the tests.

 

Staff members at alternative schools do tend to build amicable relationships with students and to reach out to families with a persistence and compassion not prevailing in mainline MPS schools.  In that sense, the overwrought term, Social and Emotional Learning, could resonate with Kim Ellison’s experience at PYC High School.  That she would only mention this facet of the school, though, is telling:

 

I return to my abiding questions.  Are the members of this constituent composition of the MPS Board of Education

 

1) ignorant;

 

2) in denial;

 

or

 

3)  corrupt.

 

Accumulated evidence over five years of observation strongly suggests to me that the members of this board manifest all three qualities:

 

1)   They are ignorant as to the history and philosophy of education in the United States and have little understanding of the components of an excellent education.  

 

2)   Given their fascination with their ability to attain membership by winning elections with the strong support of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), they are in denial on matters of curriculum and teacher quality;

 

and

 

3)   They are corrupt political hacks who care more about maintaining their positions, in some cases for potential to spring from the school board to a legislative seat or other political position---  than they do about the academic sustenance of the precious students whose lives they disregard.

                                                                          

Kim Ellison is ignorant, in denial, and corrupt in making such comments as attend her advocacy of alternative schools as models for the Minneapolis Public Schools.  She has made such comments and failed to identify the problems pertinent to curriculum and teacher quality throughout  her near-decade of membership on the MPS Board of Education.

 

Ellison needs to catch sight of Jenny Arneson’s exit out the Davis Center door and follow with due haste. 

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