We Must Be Clear
in Calling Out Those Responsible for the Abysmal Education at the Minneapolis Public
Schools as We Examine
the Corrupt
Context in Which the Superintendent Ed Graff;
Interim Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Senior Academic Officer Aimee
Fearing; Associate Superintendents Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner,
Brian Zambreno; the 22 Staff Members of
the Department of Teaching and Learning; Michael Walker and the Office of Black
Student Achievement; and Jennifer Simon and the Department of Indian Education Academically
Abuse MPS Students
………………………………………………………………………………
However
bad you may think education is in the Minneapolis Public Schools, the situation
is much worse than your perception, and the dilemmas that have gotten the most
attention do not represent the gravest vexations of the district.
The
problems have little to do with the Comprehensive District Design (CDD),
transparency, culturally responsive curriculum, lack of community input, or any
of the other shibboleths mumbled by ill-informed critics.
The
actual problems center on curriculum and teaching.
Students
at grades preK-5 (elementary schools) learn a modicum of reading and arithmetic
but little else. Substantive and comprehensive
instruction in natural science, the social sciences, quality literature, and
English usage is absent. Knowledge imparted
as to multiple genres and world traditions in music and visual art is slight. Students graduate from grade 5 having little
grasp of economics, government, American history, world history, or quality
literature across ethnicity and world traditions. They have gained little introduction to the
natural sciences of biology, chemistry, or physics--- with no sense of the origin of the universe,
the evolution of plant and animal life on earth, human origin and
dispersal, the formation and diversity of ecosystems, the defining qualities
and importance of natural elements, and the fundamentals of velocity, mass,
energy, Newtonian laws of motion, and Einsteinian theories of the physics of
the cosmos.
Substantive
education is little better at the middle school (grades 6-8) level. Students progress a bit in mathematics, gaining
some knowledge of algebra and geometry, but if they ever gained fundamental
arithmetic skills, these atrophy; lack
of knowledge of multiplication tables is the rule, not the exception. Students advance little in other academic
subjects. They may dabble in a foreign
language and gain some vocational skills, but they move on to high school almost
as ignorant of biology, chemistry, physics, government, American history, world
history, economics, quality world and ethnic literature, and the fine arts as
when they entered middle school.
Instruction
at high schools is mediocre at the median, rarely excellent, and frequently
abominable. Substantive education is
lacking, except in Advanced Placement courses, and only a few teachers possess
the knowledge base necessary to render quality college preparatory instruction,
so that students scoring the 4 or 5 demanded by most colleges and universities
are very few. Administrators at the
Minneapolis Public Schools and the other schools of Minnesota make a big show of
administering the ACT to all students, but they do not prepare them for the
test. Across the high schools of the
district, the typical ACT median is 16, which barely indicates middle school
much less college readiness. Ask a young
person from an impoverished and challenged familial situation what she or he
scored on the ACT, and the reply is typically “13”--- or worse.
Administrators and teachers at the Minneapolis Public Schools deliver an
acceptable education to no student, of any demographic descriptor; the education rendered to students
experiencing multiple life challenges of historical and current societal abuse
is morally negligent and vulnerable to litigious action.
One-third
of the less than seventy percent of students managing to graduate and go forth
to college matriculation require remedial courses. No student is truly well-prepared by the
schools of the district. Any acceptable
level of college preparation occurs due to the human rarity of herculean
personal interest and self-education through extracurricular reading and
study; or, as in the case of many students
from affluent families, through private tutorial instruction.
Teachers
in the Minneapolis Public Schools have slim knowledge bases. Elementary school teachers have little
subject area knowledge; many are
math-phobic and do little substantive reading on their own time. Middle and high school teachers tend to have
majors in a specific academic discipline, but few have master’s degrees in the
key academic fields of mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, political
science, history, economics, or literature:
They are not scholars and their academic interest is typically limited
in the extreme. In class they show too
many videos, give too many “free days,” assign too many frivolous and
inefficient projects, and relegate too much student activity to group rather than
individual academic endeavor.
You
are not likely to have known education at the Minneapolis Public Schools is
this bad until you read the above account;
even now, you may have a hard time grasping that education at MPS
schools is this abominable--- but ponder
the facts of the matter until you internalize the extremity of the dilemma,
because the situation is just this abysmal.
And never forget that in terms of even basic skills, the following are the facts >>>>>
>>>>> MPS Student Academic Proficiency as Indicated by MCAs for years ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017m 2018, and 2019
And never forget that in terms of even basic skills, the following are the facts >>>>>
>>>>> MPS Student Academic Proficiency as Indicated by MCAs for years ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017m 2018, and 2019
Math
2014
2015 2016
2017 2018
2019
African 23%
19%
19% 16% 17%
18%
American
American
23%
19%
19% 16%
17%
18%
Indian
Hispanic
31% 32%
31% 29%
26%
25%
Asian
48% 50%
50% 44%
46%
47%
White
77% 78%
78% 77%
77%
75%
Free/
26% 26%
25% 24%
22%
20%
Reduced
All
44% 44%
44% 42%
42%
42%
Reading
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019
African 22%
21%
21% 21%
21% 23%
American
American
21%
20%
21% 22% 23%
25%
Indian
Hispanic
23% 25%
26% 26%
27%
29%
Asian
41% 40%
45% 38%
44%
50%
White
78% 77%
77% 78%
80%
78%
Free/
23% 23%
23% 25%
25%
25%
Reduced
All
42% 42%
43% 43%
45%
47%
Science 2014
2015
2016 2017 2018 2019
African 11%
15%
13% 11% 10%
11%
American
American
14%
16%
13% 16% 13% 17%
Indian
Hispanic
17% 18%
21% 19% 17% 16%
Asian
31% 35%
42% 31% 34% 40%
White
71% 75%
71% 70%
71% 70%
Free/
14% 15%
17% 16%
15% 14%
Reduced
All
33% 36%
35%
34% 34% 36%
Percentage of Students Graduating
2013 2014 2015
2016 2017 2018
Student
Category
African 44.8% 47.8% 52.8% 59.5% 56.9% 61.7%
American
American 38.1%
25.6% 36.3% 37.4% 29.8% 37.8.%
Indian
Asian 69.7% 78.8% 83.3% 85.6% 82.5% 87.1%
Hispanic 42.8% 44.5% 57.6% 50.6% 56.7% 57.1%
White 75.8% 77.4% 82.5% 85.1% 86.0% 86.7%
Free/ 47.4% 49.7% 56.8% 56.9% 56.7% 61.4%
Reduced
Lunch
Homeless/ 26.1%
26.1% 37.3% 35.7% 40.1% 37.8%
Highly
Mobile
Advanced 85.6%
86.7% 90.4% 89.3% 83.3% 90.8%
Learner
Female 60.3%
62.1% 69.0% 71.7% 69.3% 71.8%
Male 51.9%
55.6% 61.3% 63.0% 63.1% 66.6%
All 56.1%
58.8% 65.1% 67.3% 66.0% 69.2%
Students
………………………………………………………………………………….
Excellent education is a
matter of excellent teachers imparting broad and deep knowledge and skill sets
in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts to students of all
demographic descriptors; such curriculum
is so comprehensive as to be seamlessly and necessarily culturally responsive.
An excellent teacher is a
professional of broad and deep knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart
that knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.
Until we redesign curriculum for
knowledge intensity and train teachers capable of imparting such a curriculum,
utterance of the typical buzz words and activity of that erratic and episodic
sort generated by such distractions as the Comprehensive District Design constitute
silly sound and futile fury.
So as you assess your own lack
of productive attention and activity, make yourself feel soothed by knowing
that the following are even more culpable that are you:
Superintendent Ed Graff
Interim Senior Academic Officer Aimee
Fearing
Associate Superintnedent Shawn
Harris-Berry
Associate Superintendent LaShawn Ray
Associate Superintendent Ron Wagner
Associate Superintendent Brian
Zambreno
The 22 staff members of the Department
of Teaching and Learning
Office of Black Male Student Director
Michael Walker and his staff members
Department of Indian Education
Director Jennifer Simon and her staff members
On the MPS Board of Education, in
order of offensiveness there are
District 4 Member Bob Walser
District 5 Member Nelson Inz
District 2 Member KerryJo Felder
At-Large Member Kim Ellison
District 1 Member Jenny Arneson
At-Large Member Kim Caprini
District 4 Member ira Jourdain
District 3 Member Siad Ali
At-Large Member Josh Pauly
MFT President Michelle Wiess and the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers
At the Minnesota Department of
Education there have been and are those responsible for such corrupt
pretensions as the North Star Accountability System and World’s Best Workforce,
including
Former Commissioner Brenda Cassellius
Current Commissioner Mary Cathryn
Richter
All MDE staff members who have
colluded with these intellectually corrupt officials, including prominently
Michael Dietrich
Decision makers and implementers dwell
at institutions such as the University of Minnesota (UM), Hamline, Augsburg,
St. Thomas, and UM Mankato, including
University of Minnesota President Joan
Gabel
The presidents and administrative
decision-makers at the other given institutions
Staff Members and Education professors in the UM College of Education and Human Development
(CEHD)
Key Members of the Private and Public
Sectors in Minneapolis, including
Sandy Vargas, erstwhile head of the
Minneapolis Foundation, she who was going to RESET education
R. T. Rybak, who was going to atone
for 12 yers of neglect of public education as mayor by leading Generation Next
toward solutions for the public education quandary but departed for a better
paying job at the Minneapolis Foundation.
Former members of the MPS Board of
Education, who showed great promise in driving to the core of the vexations at
the Minneapolis Public Schools--- but
are now nowhere to be seen
Carla Bates
Josh Reimnitz
Tracine Asberry
Former member of the MPS Board of
Education who issues bombastic proclamations but has no program and no
sustained commitment in any positon he assumes:
Don Samuels
Members of the public and press who
neglect the responsibilities of citizenship or give evidence of ntellectual and
moral corruption, including
Star
Tribune Editorial
Board Scott Gillespie
Star
Tribune Commentary
Pages Editor Doug Tice
That segment of the general public
that got all worked up about the Comp[rensive District Design (CDD) but has now disappeared into the woodwork
Ineffective putative activists and
incompetent heads of key organizations, including
Minneapolis Urban League President/CEO
Steve Belton
Erstwhile law professor, NAACP
President, and ineffective gadfly Nekima Levey-Armstrong
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