Know that the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) is Among the Greatest Offenders in Sustaining the Wretched Quality of Education in the Minneapolis Public Schools--- Put Michelle Wiess and the MFT High on the List in Reading This Seventh Article in a Series

Know that the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers  (MFT) is Among the Greatest Offenders in Sustaining the Wretched Quality of Education in the Minneapolis Public Schools---  Put Michelle Wiess and the MFT High on the List in Reading This Seventh Article in a Series

 

Excellent education is the provision of a knowledge intensive, skill-replete curriculum in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts by excellent teachers, delivered in grade by grade sequence throughout the preK-12 years.  As a group, members of MFT59 do not believe in such a knowledge-focused education, and the nature of their training does not prepare them to deliver such an education.

 

Teacher training is the root of the teacher quality problem at the Minneapolis Public Schools

 

Teachers at the K-5 level typically receive a B. A. in Elementary Education, the weakest degree on any any college or university campus.  They are then encouraged by the step and lane system to secure an M. A. in Elementary Education, for which they take very similar courses, also the least challenging of any master’s degree program.  Only a few teachers at the K-5 level receive doctorates;  all of those doctorates received by K-5 teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) are in education.

 

Teachers at the grades 6-8 and 9-12 levels do often receive a B. A. or B. S. in fields other than education, but they almost always receive master’s degrees in education rather than in subject areas pertinent to the fields in which they teach.  Only a few teachers at grades 6-8 and 9-12 receive doctorates.  Among teachers at grades 6-8 in the Minneapolis Public Schools, none hold a Ph. D in a field other than education.  Among MPS teachers at grades 9-12, only three hold a Ph. D in a field other than education. 

 

One of the two reasons that students graduate from the Minneapolis Public Schools with so little knowledge in mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, economics, psychology, literature, English composition, music, and visual art is because curriculum is mostly absent at the K-5 level and is weak at grades 6-8 and 9-12, except for Advanced Placement courses at the 9-12 level (typically taken at grades 11 and 12).

 

The other reason for the knowledge deficiency of students and graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools is that very few teachers at grades K-5 have much subject area knowledge at all.  At grades 6-8 and 9-12, very few teachers are genuine masters of their fields.  Very few teachers at these levels have the ability to teach Advanced Placement courses.

 

Consider the following data:

 

Degrees Held by Teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools

 

Number of Teachers Who Hold Each of the Following as Their Most Advanced Degree

 

Grade        Bachelor’s     Master’s   Ed. D.     Ph. D.

Level

Taught

 

K-5                  515                872            22                   6

 

6-8                  172                 235              3                    5

 

9-12               289                 388                 5               11

 

Number of Teachers Who Hold a Master’s Degree or Ph. D. in a Field Other Than Education

 

Grade        Master’s   Ph. D.

Level

Taught

 

K-5                 56              -----

 

6-8                  23              -----

               

9-12               48                3

 

Percentage of Teachers with Master’s Degree in Education

vs. Teachers with Master’s Degree in Other Fields

 

Grade         Master’s Degree        Master’s Degrees

Level           in Education                 in Other Fields

Taught

 

K-5                    93.58%                             6.42%

 

6-8                     90.21%                             9.78%

               

9-12                  87.62%                         12.37%

 

 

Percentage of Teachers with Ph. D. in Education

vs. Teachers with Ph. D. Other Fields

 

Grade         Ph. D                               Ph. D.

Level           in Education                 in Other Fields

Taught

 

K-5                   100.00%                           0.00%

 

6-8                    100.00%                           0.00%

               

9-12                    81.25%                       18.37%

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Teachers are thus philosophically corrupted by professors of education, and their potential as scholars is thwarted by the phenomenon of degrees in education having since the 1990s supplanted those in academic subject areas.

 

Teachers enter classrooms unprepared to impart the logically sequenced preK-12 knowledge and skill sets that comprise an excellent education.  They seek the comfort of schools with student populations that are wealthy and unscarred by history.  Any given teacher is likely to have very little understanding, despite all the buzz about culturally relevant curriculum and cultural competency, of students of African American, Latino-Latina, Somali, or Hmong provenance.

 

Teachers at the Minneapolis Public Schools are incompetent across an astonishing array of indicators.

 

The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers protects and promotes such incompetence.

 

Thus, the MFT is the major obstacle to the impartation of excellent education to students of the Minneapolis Public Schools. 

 

Note, then the addition of the MFT Presdient Michelle Wiess and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers to the List of Culprits in Maintaining the Abysmal level of K-12 Education at the Minneapolis Public Schools  >>>>>

 

>>>>> 

 

Article #7 in a Series  >>>>>  However Bad You May Think Things Are at the Minneapolis Public Schools, They Are Much Worse---  And Thus I Am in the Process of Taking the Offending Systems and Staff Apart Piece by Piece

 

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 Academically Abuse MPS Students

 

As readers scroll on down to the previous articles in this series, you should be clear as to the culprits in sustaining the lamentable state of public education at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).

 

As a leftist revolutionary, I have almost as disregard for hypocritical hippy-dippy liberals as I do intellectually bankrupt conservatives and reactionaries.  Rather than focusing on ripping down statues, trashing community businesses, and cowardly casting aspersions at those who lived two centuries ago, those thimbleful who are sincerely interested in the overhaul of K-12 education would do well to face off with this motley crew:

 

 In the MPS central offices at the Davis Center (1250 West Broadway), the culprits are

 

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 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 members 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 Intellectual 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 n ow disappeared into the woodwork

 

Ineffective Putative Activists and Incompetent Heads of Key Organizations

 

Minneapolis Urban League President/CEO Steve Belton

 

Erstwhile law professor, NAACP President, and ineffective gadfly Nekima Levey-Armstrong

 

……………………………………………………………………………………….

 

Be clear.

 

Do your homework.

 

Stop with the bromides and mass ignorance.

 

Identify the true culprits and root them out.

 

Or go find you own place in the woodwork.