Aug 20, 2020

Minneapolis Public Schools Interim Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing Should Return to Teaching English Language Learners and Superintendent Ed Graff Must Hire a Scholar to Design a Knowledge-Intensive Curriculum for MPS Students of All Demographic Descriptors


Superintendent Ed Graff is an academic mediocrity and in that regard he is typical of his profession.
 
Graff has a degree in elementary education from the University of Alaska, Anchorage;  and an online master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Southern Mississippi.  Elementary education, while constituting the requisite training for one of the nation’s most important jobs, features the weakest academic training on any college or university campus.  The online degree from a lower-tier university is suspect and in any case whatever of value is learned in the pertinent courses is not focused on any subject area (mathematics, natural science, history, government, or English) that should be at the core of any preK-12 curriculum.
 
Graff is not capable of fulfilling the role of academic Leadership at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
 
This is true of current Interim Senior Academic officer Aimee Fearing.
 
               
Fearing’s credentials are as follows.
 
Academic Credentials for Aimee Fearing
Minneapolis Public Schools
 
Executive Director, Teaching and Learning
 
Degrees Earned          Field in Which                Institution at Which             
                                          Degree Was Earned      Degree Was Earned
 
Bachelors Degree       ESL Education                University of Northwestern
 
13 May 2000
 
Masters Degree          Education                       Hamline University
 
23 May 2003
 
Doctorate Degree       Education                       Hamline University
 
30 April 2015
 
Other Credentials
 
Professional Licensures
 
K-12 Principal Licensure
 
Expiration, 30 June 2023
 
K-12 ESL Licensure
 
Expiration, 30 June 2023
 
5-12 Communication Arts Licensure
 
Expiration, 30 June 2023
 
Thus, Fearing has the typical profile for an academic decision-maker at the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Her training is entirely in education rather than in an academic discipline (mathematics, natural science, history, government, English) that should be at the core of the curriculum of a locally centralized school district.  Fearing is not a scholar.  She is not a subject area specialist.  She should not be making decisions pertinent to academics.  And yet she leads a department that has the official responsibility for the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
 
No one currently in the Academic Division at the Minneapolis Public Schools is capable of exerting the leadership necessary to design knowledge-intensive curriculum.  The Department of Teaching and Learning is a disaster.  Graff should return Fearing to her field of expertise teaching English Language Learners and hire the scholar that he is not to design a carefully sequenced curriculum that imparts to students of all demographic descriptors the full academic program that they should have in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts.

No comments:

Post a Comment