Article #2
Those
at the Davis Center
(Minneapolis
Public Schools [MPS] Central Offices, 1250 West Broadway)
Most
Culpable for the Wretched Level of MPS Education
The
Embarrassing Academic Credentials of Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent
Ed Graff
Superintendent Ed Graff is an academic
mediocrity and in that regard he is typical of his profession.
Soon after Superintendent Bernadeia
Johnson resigned (effective January 2015), I told the Minneapolis Public
Schools Board of Education that they should not conduct a nationwide search
because finding a superior candidate with conventional training is a near
impossibility. Although Michael Goar had
been brought in (Johnson says at her own behest) to serve strangely as Chief
Executive Officer (that title [unusual in the locally centralized school
district] would signal similar duties to a superintendent, and he did quickly
become a leading candidate for the post), I was myself thinking at the time of
Michael Thomas, then Chief of Schools with administrative oversight of the
associate superintendents.
“Go in-house,” I told members of the
board in one of my messages during Public Comments at a meeting in spring 2015
as preparations for the search began.
“You’re not going to find anyone more qualified than some of our own
administrators (I was not yet openly touting Thomas, thinking that Eric Moore
and others were also viable vehicles of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete
education); superintendent candidates
with the typical certifications have all been trained in the same way, and thus
all have been intellectually ruined by education professors.”
The board went ahead with the search,
botched that search in multiple ways, opted ultimately for Graff, who indeed
has a conventional profile, and who has been just as academically ineffective
in Minneapolis as he was in Anchorage.
Graff has proven himself to be an able
administrator, paring the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West
Broadway) from approximately 650 to 450 staff members and giving scope for
brilliant Chief of Finance Ibrahima Diop to work the district out of a
financial tangle and devise a structurally balanced budget. But Graff has no idea of how to design a
preK-12 curriculum toward the impartation of broad and deep knowledge to
students.
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.
Accordingly, four years into Graff’s
tenure at the Minneapolis Public Schools (his contract was renewed in spring
2019), student academic performance is essentially flat and for some key
demographic groups has gone down. As I
have repeatedly told Graff and members of the board, for academic performance
to advance for all demographic groups, 1) curriculum is going to have to be
overhauled to deliver carefully sequenced knowledge and skill sets throughout
the preK-12 years; 2) teachers must be
thoroughly retrained; 3) a Department of Resource Provision and
Referral must be created and staffed with people comfortable connecting with
students and families living at the urban core, right where they live; 4)
highly intentional academic development experiences must be provided to
all students, focused on basic skills or enrichment opportunities as necessary
and appropriate; and 5) the bureaucracy
must be pared. Only the last of the
five-point program has been in some measure realized.
We must transform locally centralized
school districts such as the Minneapolis Public Schools so as to impart to our
young people a knowledge-intensive curriculum, delivered by teachers who are
themselves bearers of knowledge.
To do that, citizens, including those who
claim an interest in the public schools, must become much more discerning in
their understanding of the system that fails so many of our precious young
people.
Ed Graff’s assumption of a second
three-year term (should he defy the odds and actually stay the full
three-year [academic years 2019-2020, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022] term of the
current contract, totaling six years for a tenure that began with his first
contract on 1 July 2016) came at the behest of the members of the MPS Board of
Education, who voted 8-0 (KerryJo Felder was absent) on 14 March 2019 to offer
the second contract.
Graff is a salient example
of the academically mediocre superintendent inflicted on our young people by
departments, schools, and colleges of education; and an example of the mediocrity witnessed
generally among academic decision-makers and teachers in our locally centralized
school systems.
In opting for a
lightweight master’s degree, from an institution of meager quality, while
serving as an administrator in the Anchorage School District, Graff exercised
the option typical of the locally centralized school district administrator,
who seeks not knowledge but rather enhanced professional remuneration in
ascending the bureaucratic ladder.
Graff spent ten years as a teacher in the Anchorage School District
(ASD) and then sixteen years as an administrator. As an administrator, these positions included
the following:
Professional Background
Anchorage School District,
2000-2016
Superintendent, 2013-2016
Chief Academic Officer,
2009-2013
Executive Director, Elementary Education, 2008-2009
Readers should notice that Graff spent five years in positions that
very directly gave him the opportunity to implement an effective academic
program; and another three years (for a
total of eight) as superintendent, whose driving goal should be to design an
organization that delivers knowledge-intensive curriculum, imparted by
knowledgeable teachers. But achievement
of students in the Anchorage School District was very low.
Elsewhere on Graff’s resume one finds evidence of success in
bureaucratic streamlining and fiscal management. Those are the areas in which Graff has acted
most adroitly as MPS superintendent. But
all of this will go for naught if student academic proficiency levels continue
to languish.
Graff has become an effective manager of the school district
bureaucracy as to finances, including the elimination of the most unnecessary
staff positions. He has, though, been a
failure as leader of the academic program, which is all that ultimately
matters, that which all other administrative maneuvers must serve.
………………………………………………………………………………..
Ed Graff’s program at the Minneapolis
Public Schools has focused on 1) Social
and Emotional Learning; 2) Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS); 3)
literacy; and 4) equity.
Of these four key programmatic areas
under Graff, literacy is a very basic skill that under previous administrations
nevertheless was not addressed in any coherent fashion. Graff and staff tout the new Benchmark
curriculum as addressing this fundamental skill, but objective results have not
been forthcoming. And equity can only be
achieved if teachers impart a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education to
students of all demographic descriptors.
In advancing Multi-Tiered System of
Support, the Graff administration seeks to address the needs of students by
identifying academic, psychological, and social needs of students and
addressing those needs with the appropriate professional assistance. This would be a promising initiative if
adroitly conceived and then implemented district-wide. Such conception and implementation have not
occurred.
This leaves Social and Emotional
Learning as defined by the organization CASEL, with which Graff was affiliated
as a failed administrator in Anchorage.
CASEL
(Cooperative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning), based in Chicago, was
founded in 1994. Both CASEL and the term
“social and emotional learning” were created at a meeting in 1994 hosted by the
Fetzer Institute. The meeting was meant
to address a perceived need for greater coherence in an array of programs
pertinent to drugs, violence, sex education, and civic and moral
responsibility. Social and Emotional
Learning is meant to bring coherence.
In 1997 CASEL and the Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) brought together writers and
researchers to produce Promoting Social
and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for
Educators. The Collaborative for
Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning claims to have made great advances in
serving the multiple needs of youth over the course of the last twenty and more
years, but the abiding ill-addressed academic, psychological, and social need
of students in urban school districts across the nation (including that of
Anchorage and of the Minneapolis Public Schools during the Ed Graff tenure)
belies those claims.
Social and Emotional Learning focuses
on five designated competencies: 1) self-awareness; 2)
self- management; 3) responsible decision-making; 4)
social awareness; and 5) relationship building skills. This is the kind of facile thinking frequently
witnessed in the utterances of education professors and pop psychologists, the
kind of goals that should be assumed but not touted for any transformative
power.
For when all of these admirable
competencies have been achieved, there will still be the matter of academic
curriculum that should be at the core of any public school system.portion
Ed Graff is not capable of devising
such a program, nor is anyone on staff at the Davis Center or elsewhere in the
school district capable of creating such a program. My analysis of the academic portion of the Minneapolis
Public Schools Comprehensive District Design will make this incapability
abundantly clear.
Ed Graff is the typically ineffective
superintendent of the locally centralized school district.
The locally centralized school
district should be the best conduit of an excellent education to students of
all demographic descriptors. To realize
the potential of the locally centralized school district, Ed Graff and all academic
decision-makers must be replaced by true academicians, scholars whose
credentials feature advanced training in rigorous academic disciplines, not in lightweight
education programs.
Accordingly, we must sweep the halls
of the Davis Center clean of Ed Graff and academic decision-makers currently on
staff and replace them with those who have respect for knowledge and are themselves
knowledgeable. In addition to Ed Graff,
those who must be swept away include Aimee Fearing, Michael Walker and the
staff of the Office of Black Male Achievement, Jennifer Simon and staff of the
Department of Indian Education, and Associate Superintendents Shawn
Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, and Brian Zambreno.
Note the absence of academic substance
in Ed Graff’s training:
Ed
Graff (Superintendent)
Degrees Conferred Institution at Which
Degree Was Conferred
M. A., Education Administration University of Southern Mississippi
(online degree)
B. A., Elementary Education University of Alaska, Anchorage
Other Credentials
Professional Licensures
District Professional Administrator, District Superintendent
District Professional Administrator, Principal K-12
…………………………………………………………………………………………………....
The
Embarrassing Academic Credentials of Interim Senior Academic Officer Aimee
Fearing and the Minneapolis Public Schools Staff in the Department of Teaching
and Learning
The Minneapolis Public Schools Department
of Teaching is an embarrassment featuring not a single scholar on a staff that
should in any case be superfluous.
The existence of a Department of Teaching
and Learning demonstrates a number of key abominations in the organization of
the locally centralized school district.
Because there is so much incompetence throughout the system, bandaids
are always being sought. Since academic
results for African American students at the Minneapolis Public schools are so
wretched, the system responds by creating the Office of Black Student Achievement. Because the system educates American Indian
students so abominably, the Minnesota State Legislature dictates that a
Department of Indian Education must be installed. Because building principals are so abominably
trained, four (in the past, as many as eight) associate superintendents preside
over certain sites, with the expressed duty of mentoring principals; but this is merely laughable, because
associate superintendents are also incompetent intellectual lightweights,
including among them failed building principals.
And because teachers are so poorly prepared
in departments, schools, and colleges of education, the system generates a
Department of Teaching and Learning to create curriculum that should already be
embedded in the brains of scholar teachers
>>>>>
>>>>> What college or
university would have a Department of Teaching and Learning?
This would be laughable, since college and
university professors carry curriculum for mathematics, biology, chemistry,
physics, history, political science, economics, literature, music, and art in
their cerebral cortices by the nature of their scholarly training.
But since this is not so for preK-12
teachers, the system applies another ineffective bandaid, another
laugher--- were the matter not so deadly
serious--- in the form of a Department of Teaching and Learning comprised of
former teachers, many of them failed classroom embarrassments, who are as
poorly trained as the teachers over whom they have bureaucratic responsibility.
Notice that not a single staff member of
the MPS Teaching and Learning has a graduate degree in a key academic
field.
Do not be fooled by degrees in education
with appellations such as Masters of Teaching English, Science, or Social
Studies--- or any degree in a department, school, or college of education. Such degrees are campus jokes, derided by
field specialists in the legitimate academic departments. Education degrees have none of the academic
legitimacy of degrees in English, biology, or history conferred by departments
devoted to study of those fields.
Perpend:
Department of Teaching and
Learning Staff
Consider the embarrassment
constituted by the lack of scholars in the Minneapolis Public Schools
Department of Teaching and Learning:
Aimee Fearing (Executive Director, Teaching and Learning)
Degrees
Earned Field in Which
Institution at
Which
Degree
Was Earned Degree Was Conferred
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
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
…………………………………………………………………………………
Aneesa Parks
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
B.A., Education Buena Vista University
Licensures:
Elementary Education
Ashley Krohn
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education Hamline
University
B.S., Film and Television Boston
University
Licensures:
Communication
Arts/Literature
Christopher Jones
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education Chapman
University
B.S., Education Central Michigan University
Licensures:
Physical Education
Mathematics
Christen Lish
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Science
Education University
of Minnesota – Twin Cities
B.S., Education University
of Minnesota – Twin Cities
Licensures:
Life Sciences
Earth and Space
Science
Science 5-8
Christina Ramsey
Degrees Earned Institution at Which Degree Was Conferred
Education Specialist University of St. Thomas
M.A., Education
Hamline University
B.S., Education University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
Licensures:
Pre-Kindergarten
Elementary Education
Principal K-12
Christopher
Wernimont
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A.,
Mathematics University of
Minnesota – Twin Cities
B.A., Economics Grinnell
College
Licensures:
Mathematics
Hamdi Ahmed
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
B.A., Education Eastern
Michigan University
Licensures:
Communication
Arts/Literature
Hibaq Mohamed
Degrees Earned Institution at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education Augsburg University
B.S., English Teaching Metropolitan State University
Licensures:
English as a Second
Language
Communication
Arts/Literature
Jennifer Rose
Degrees Earned Institution at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Science
Education University of Iowa
B.S., Biology Drake University
Licensures:
Life Sciences
Science 5-8
Julie Tangeman
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education
St. Mary’s University of Minnesota
B.A., Education University of St. Thomas
Licensures:
Elementary Education
Katharine Stephens
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Language Arts University of Minnesota
B.S., English Macalester
College
Licensures:
Communication Arts/Literature
Kelly McQuillan
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education University of St. Thomas
Licensures:
Social Studies
Lisa Purcell
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education University of
Utah
M.A., Education Harvard
University
B.S., Social Sciences Hope College
and History
Licensures:
Social Studies
English as a Second
Language
Principal K-12
Marium Toure’
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education
St. Mary’s University of Minnesota
B.S., Education University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
Licensures:
Elementary Education
Mary Lambrecht
Degrees Earned Institution at Which Degree Was
Earned
M.A., Mathematics Education University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
B.A., Education
University of Minnesota – Morris
Licensures:
Elementary Education
Communication
Arts/Literature
Spanish
Natasha Parker
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
B.A., English Hampton
University
Licensures:
Early Childhood
Education
Nora Schull
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
B.S., Dance and Theatre Arts Minnesota State University - Mankato
Licensures:
Dance and Theatre
Paula Kilian
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
B.S., Education St. Cloud State University
B.A., Psychology University of St. Thomas
Licensures:
Elementary Education
Sara Naegeli
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education Concordia University, St. Paul
B.S., Education
Minnesota State University - Moorhead
Licensures:
Elementary Education
Pre-Primary
Sarah Wehrenberg
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education Concordia University, Portland
Oregon
B.A., Science Education Bethel
University
Licensures:
Life Sciences
Science 5-8
Sarah Loch
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Education
University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
B.A., Physical Education and Coaching Concordia
University, St. Paul
Licensures:
Physical Education
Health Education
Tommie Casey
Degrees Earned Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
Education Specialist University of St. Thomas
M.A., Education
University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
B.A., English Missouri Valley College
Licensures:
English/Language Arts
…………………………………………………………………………..
The
Embarrassing Academic Credentials of Minneapolis Public Schools Associate
Superintendents Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, and Brian Zambreno
One of the most tragi-comic spectacles at
the Minneapolis Public Schools, in accord with the tattered bandaid approach to
the manifold flaws in the system, is the existence of the associate
superintendent position, for the purpose of mentoring principals. Principals are as poorly prepared in
departments, schools, and colleges of education as are teachers and other
administrators; but associate
superintendents have endured the same
level of training from those campus embarrassments with ridiculous generosity
dubbed education “professors,” and thus are in no better position to mentor
principals than principals are capable of mentoring teachers or performing any
function pertinent to the delivery of a knowledge-intensive education.
There were back in 2014, when I began my
investigation into the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools, eight
associate superintendents, all knocking down well over $100,000 per annum. Blessedly, we now have only four such
positions, but these yield $148,500 per occupant, which is to say a total of
$594,000 for central office burdens whose qualifications are academically slim
in the extreme. The same phenomenon that
we witness throughout the system, whereby not a single person making academic
decisions for the district, is a scholar, pertains to the associate
superintendents:
Examine the academic preparation below,
noticing that all advanced degrees are in education rather than a key academic
discipline at the core of the curriculum.
Know also that none of these associate superintendents was a
particularly effective building principal, and that Shawn Harris-Berry was a
wrenching failure as principal of North High School.
Peruse the following academic credentials,
once again knowing that you should not be fooled into thinking that a doctorate
in education is any credential of substance;
rather, acquisition of an Ed. D. is merely undertaken to abet a climb in
the education bureaucracy.
Embarrassing Credentials of Associate
Superintendents at the Minneapolis Public Schools
Shawn Harris-Berry (Associate Superintendent)
Degrees Earned
Field in Which
Institution at Which
Degree Was Conferred
Degree Was Conferred
Bachelors Degree
(1985) Business
Education
University of Wisconsin---
Eau
Claire
Masters (1995)
Secondary School
University of St. Thomas
Administration
Doctorate Degree
(2005) Educational
Leadership St. Mary’s University
Other Credentials
Teaching License – Business
Education (7-12) expires 6/30/2020
Administrative License –
District Superintendent expires 6/30/2020
Administrative License – K-12
Principal expires 6/30/2020
Administrative License –
Secondary School Principal expires 6/30/2020
LaShawn Ray (Associate Superintendent)
Degrees Earned
Field in Which
Institution at Which
Degree Was Conferred
Degree Was Conferred
Bachelors Degree
(1994) Social
Sciences University
of Wisconsin – River Falls
Master’s Degree (year
2006) Education St.
Cloud State University
Superintendent’s
(2018) Minnesota
State Mankato
Other Credentials
Teaching License – EBD (K-12)
expires 6/30/2023
Administrative License – K-12
Principal expires 6/30/2023
Superintendent –
6/30/2023
Ron Wagner (Associate Superintendent)
Degrees Conferred Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
Education Specialist Degree University of St. Thomas
M.A., Education Ball State University
B.A. or B.S., Education Ball State
University
Licensures:
Elementary Education
English/ Language Arts
Mathematics
District Superintendent
K-12 Principal
Brian Zambreno (Associate Superintendent)
Degrees Conferred Institution
at Which Degree Was Conferred
Doctorate (PhD),
Education St. Mary’s University of
Minnesota
Education Specialist
Degree University of St. Thomas
M.A., Education Hamline University
B.A. or B.S., Liberal
Arts University of Minnesota – Twin
Cities
Licensures:
District
Superintendent
K-12 Principal
English as Second Language
……………………………………………………………………
The Travesty That
Is the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education
Jenny
Arneson’s Astoundingly Stupid Statements and Multi-Year Ineffectiveness
Obligates Her to Resign from the Board of Education
District 1 (Northeast and Southeast
Minneapolis Jenny Arneson is an enigma:
Arneson is the hardest working of the
members on the current Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education.
Arneson is a masterful accumulator of
factual detail on many aspects of the inner working of the district, notably
information pertinent to her Northeast Minneapolis stomping grounds and items
relevant to current district finances. She also was an adept chair during her term
of service in that position, a knowledgeable manager of meetings per Robert’s
Rules of Order, a skill that stood her in good stead during fall 2020, when she
was chair of the finance committee.
But Arneson has no philosophy of education,
she is beholden to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, and she is capable
of astoundingly stupid statements:
>>>>> At an MPS Board of Education meeting in
late spring 2019, Jenny Arneson noted, as part of her final report at a meeting
of the MPS Board of Education (of the sort with which board members conclude
each of their meetings) that her son had been accepted by his first choice for
college attendance, Grinnell College in Iowa.
She then opined that “This proves that every student at MPS is College
and Career Ready.”
That statement was astonishingly stupid,
given that fewer than thirty percent (30%) of students on Free and Reduced
Price Lunch and those of several ethnicities who tend to fall in the
Free/Reduced category are not proficient in mathematics, reading, or
science; and that one-third (33%) of MPS
students who matriculate on college and university campuses need remedial
courses.
>>>>> At the Committee of the Whole meeting of
Tuesday, 22 October, Arneson conveyed the essence of a conversation that she
had had with a student who liked the idea of ethnic studies courses offered as
alternatives to a United States history course, because the high school course
is just a repetition of what students learned in a course focused on the same
subject in grade seven. Arneson accepted
the student’s view uncritically, thereby revealing appalling ignorance for a
graduate of St. Olaf College, albeit in the academically undemanding field of
social work.
The pertinent truth is two-fold >>>>>
1)
The grade 7 course is typically taught via videos and through packets
that students fill out in the absence of teacher-imparted information or comment
and without class discussion. And unless
students take Advanced Placement (AP) United States History in high school, the
mode of teacher disinterested, unengaging instruction evident at grade 7 abides
also in the high school course--- and
lamentably even in some AP courses, taught as they often are by
knowledge-deficient teachers.
2)
Limiting the number of United States history or any other courses in
core subject areas should be determined only as a practical matter, since the
number of such courses would be multiple if the amount of information to be
conveyed were the determinant. The
problem is not repetition but rather that students learn nothing of great
substance in either course because of the approach to curriculum and
pedagogy; and on the basis of amount of
information important for conveyance, even multiple courses could not impart
all that there is to learn concerning American and United States
history--- so that the decision as to
how many courses to offer is a matter of temporal practicality: Repetition except as a matter of review as
foundation for new learning is a matter of teacher inadequacy, not intrinsic to
the abundant knowledge sets for mastery of American and United States history.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
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.
District #4
Member Bob Walser
>>>>> The Silliest
and Most Offensive of a Motley Crew
Bob Walser is the silliest, most offensive
member on this and any school board that I have witnessed during my
half-century of observation. This
iteration of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education is by far
the worst that I have witnessed during my particularly close five-year scrutiny
of this motley assemblage.
Walser is a disaster.
Walser was among the group recruited by
Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison, and Rebecca Gagnon to run for the MPS Board of
Education in 2016. Gagnon eventually got
caught in her political manipulations and was ousted in 2018. Inz remains as District #5 (South
Minneapolis, east of I-35) representative;
he was for a time board chair;
Ellison as one of three At-Large members. Inz, Ellison, and Gagnon recruited candidates
friendly to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) to run against the
independent voices of Josh Reimnitz and Tracine Asberry (the most assertive
actor for better academic results); and
for the At-Large seat vacated by Carla Bates.
Walser, who represents the toney areas of
Bryn Mawr, Lowry Hill, and Linden Hills, is a salient example of that creature
who assigns to himself the appellation of “progressive” on matters pertinent to
preK-12 education, thus a participant in a sordid history traceable to Teachers
College at Columbia University.
Consistent with the various strands of this ideology, Walser rails
against objective assessment of student performance and spouts the jargon of
putatively child-centered education.
The most stupid verbal fodder spills from
Walser’s mouth:
Two recent whoppers demonstrate the facile,
grating nature of this lamentable school board creature:
>>>>> At one meeting that involved the fate of
middle schools versus preK-8 schools in the district, Walser wondered why we
have middle schools and asserted that we have only had this type of student
grouping since the 1950s. In making this
comment, Walser demonstrated the typically shallow nature of his reading and
research. He had apparently come across
a reference to the advent of the middle school (grades 6-8), which did from the
1950s mostly replace junior high (grades 7-9).
But Walser’s reference maintained that grouping at the level of the
middle grades did not begin until the 1950s.
In fact, the first junior highs appeared in 1909.
>>>>> At the September meeting of the MPS Board of
Education, Walser mentioned during the final, tortuous comments that members
make on the cusp of each meeting’s adjournment that he had attended a number of
community meetings lately and found the comment of one African American mother
especially moving. Walser said that she
identified the problems of the Minneapolis Public Schools as grounded in the
northern European approach to education taken by the district.
I have been deeply embedded in the African
American community for forty-eight years:
African Americans do in public forums
occasionally have recourse to the same jargon of “cultural relevance” and
“cultural competence” with assertions of Western bias as do hippy-dippy white
liberals of the sort that my radical leftist inclinations find abhorrent. But face to face, I never hear such
jargon. When African American parents,
the largest familial contingent in the New Salem Educational Initiative, come
to me in behalf of their children, their plea is in essence,
“Please impart to my baby the mathematical
and reading skills that the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools fails to
render, along with strong college preparatory knowledge sets that MPS does not
deliver.”
They trust and know that I have a strong
grasp of European-based culture and history and also the traditions of Asia,
Africa, African America, and a bevy of other ethnicities. What they want for their children is the best
education that can be had, so that those precious young people can be the
vanguard that leads the family forth from cyclical poverty and centuries of
abusive history.
Armchair white liberals of the Walser type
are offensive to most African Americans.
They sense that those who shout adoring phrases from afar are frauds,
full of condescension and paternalism.
Bob Walser has offended most African Americans in positions of
leadership at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
They know a fake and a patronizer when they encounter one.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
In any case, the approach taken by the
Minneapolis Public Schools is not northern European, except inasmuch as it is
through British conveyance that a curriculum consisting of knowledge gathered
from the entire globe was delivered to American colonists and thence to the
fledgling United States of America. The
knowledge thus conveyed came prominently from southern (not northern) Europe,
China, India, and from the Muslim empires of the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman
dynasties. The best contemporary masters
of modern curricula are students of South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Note the absence in any of those references
from the last two sentences of anything identifiable as northern European.
Bob Walser is the silliest, most intellectually
trivial board member I have witnessed on the MPS or any other board of
education.
Walser needs to excuse himself for forging
ahead of Jenny Arneson and Kim Ellison as he leads them with all appropriate
haste out the Davis Center door. He has
mercifully opted not to run in the 2020 election.
District #5
Member Nelson Inz
>>>>> The Specter
of the Political Hack as School Board Member
Nelson Inz was elected to the Minneapolis
Public Schools Board of Education in November 2014 and reelected without
opposition in November 2018. Lack of
opposition to call Inz on his corrupt ineptitude demonstrates public disinterest
in, and misunderstanding of, the chronic deficiencies of preK-12 education.
Inz is a former bartender turned teacher
who has located professionally in several different school systems during his
five years on the MPS Board of Education.
After Rebecca Gagnon quickly offended enough of her fellow offenders to
turn the majority on the board against her as chair, Inz began his stint as
chair in January 2017.
By that time, Inz had joined Kim Ellison
and Rebecca Gagnon in recruiting Ira Jourdain and Bob Walser to run against
Tracine Asberry and Josh Reimnitz for the District 6 and District 4 seats
respectively. Asberry was a particularly
effective advocate for academic progress who would closely question Research,
Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Chief Eric Moore when he would deliver
the latest bad news on student academic achievement; Reimnitz, a former Teach for America
participant, was also an independent voice.
Jourdain and Walser were recruited to do the bidding of the Minneapolis
Federation of Teachers (MFT). Gagnon
specifically endorsed Jourdain; Inz
endorsed Walser.
Endorsement of Walser, the silliest, most
offensive school board member I have ever witnessed on this or any other board,
conveys much about Inz’s personal judgment.
He is a political hack who harbors the same ambitions as do Ellison and
Gagnon, neither of whom has been able to realize goals for exalted political
futures. Inz describes his endorsement
of Walser over Reimnitz as the action of a “team player.” There were many of those in the regimes of
Hitler and Stalin; they abide in the
administration of Donald Trump today.
Before the Public Comments phase of every
meeting of the MPS Board of Education during his stint as chair, Inz read the
following protocol:
>>>>>
The
MPS Board of Education values public comment
and
input at board meetings to inform our decision
making
and provide information and insight into
what
is happening throughout the district.
If
you did not sign-up ahead of time, there are sign
up
sheets on the table where you entered, near the
meeting
agendas. We will close sign-ups 15 minutes
after
public comment begins. Each person wishing to
address
the board will be given 3 minutes and the
clerk
will let you know when your time has expired.
Individuals
will be called up in the order in which they
signed
up to speak. Please approach the podium, if
able,
and state your name, area of the city you live in,
and
connection to Minneapolis Public Schools.
To
ensure we are modeling constructive public
engagement
for our students, we ask that if you wish
to
address the board, you observe the following:
- Address your comments to the Board Chairand not to individual Board directors, staff,or the audience.
- Refrain from personal attacks, swearing,abusive or threatening language, or otherdisruptive behavior.
- Respect those around you and do not holdup signs that block the view of others—please do not bring signage to the podium.
- Do not discuss employee or employmentrelated issues, as public comment is not theappropriate venue to raise such issues.
- Refrain from referring to a person by nameor position.
- Making accusations and derogatorystatements about employees is notappropriate.
This
is a time for the Board to listen so we will not be
responding
to comments or questions posed. If you
have
a question that requires a response, please
submit
it to the Board’s Executive Assistant in the
back
of the room. Thank you.
<<<<<
This protocol was appropriately read by the
political hack that Inz is but was not of his authorship. The protocol was written by Ed Graff and
Rebecca Gagnon (when the latter was briefly chair), because I was regularly
citing specific Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) staff
members who were not doing their jobs and also taking to task particular board
members. The protocol is written as a
shield from criticism of central office bureaucrats and MPS Board of Education
members
and makes mockery of the opening claim to
value public comment. Board members now
know that I have so many venues for issuing my views that the Graff-Gagnon ploy was an exercise in futility; but the protocol does have an inhibiting
effect on some speakers.
The current iteration of the MPS Board of
Education is composed of politicos heavily indebted to the MFT for electoral
backing.
These corrupt board members are cowards who
hide behind metaphorical embankments that they have devised to shield them from
criticism.
That they have opted for Nelson Inz as Hack
in Chief is telling.
If Inz should search within himself and
find a soul, Nelson Inz should resign immediately from the MPS Board of
Education.
At-Large
Member Kim Caprini
>>>>> The Case of
a Corrupt and ignorant Board Member in Deep Denial
Joining the contingent of most objectionable
members of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education--- thus far conveyed as Bob Walser, Nelson Inz,
Kim Ellison, and Jenny Arneson--- are
Kim Caprini and KerryJo Felder.
Caprini ran against Felder for the District
2 (North Minneapolis) seat in 2016, losing narrowly; she then ran successfully for an At-Large
seat, with heavy Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) backing, in 2018.
Caprini grew up in North Minneapolis but
mostly attended non-MPS schools, graduating from high school at Benilde/St.
Margaret’s. She has taken scattered
post-secondary courses but does not hold a college degree; she has a background in culinary arts but now
works in social service. Caprini has two
daughters who have attended Henry High School.
Caprini has proven herself to be a corrupt
politico that most typically describes members on this iteration of the MPS
Board of Education, and she frequently betrays a woeful knowledge base,
generally and particularly pertaining to the history and philosophy of
education. But her most frequent mode
gives appearance of a person in deep denial.
She has proclaimed that her daughters got a
“first-rate education” at Henry, by factual counterpoint demonstrating that she
has no understanding of the constituents of an excellent education.
At board meetings during November
2019-January 2020, a contingent of Hispanic parents have cited woeful
conditions at what they describe as “low-performing” schools attended by their
children, calling for “priority enrollment” that would give their children
better educations at “higher performing” schools. Public commentators have voiced other
complaints, such as the turmoil frequently witnessed at and outside Harrison
school attended by students with severe emotional disorders.
Board members by protocol do not respond in
the moment to Public Comments but have ample opportunity to do so in the course
of regular and Committee of the Whole meetings.
Caprini’s response is impulsively reactive: She reflexively defends schools where
wretched academic quality is most obvious, and she is in seemingly deep denial
over conditions at Harrison. Concerning
Harrison, Caprini correctly countered criticism with citations of good
programs, such as those pertaining to
culinary arts and music; but Caprini never concerns herself with the
palpable and chronic turmoil at Harrison, and she has never addressed the
abundant deficiencies in curriculum and teacher quality that describe not only
“low-performing” schools but the classrooms of the Minneapolis Public Schools
as a whole.
At-Large member Kim Caprini is a political
hack and gravely ignorant as to the history and philosophy of preK-12
education.
Her most prevalent and manifest mode is
that of the MFT sycophant in deep denial.
She should be shown the Davis Center door,
following closely behind Bob Walser, Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison, and Jenny
Arneson.
District #2
Member KerryJo Felder
>>>>> Fraudulent
Claimant to North Minneapolis Leadership
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of
Education member KerryJo Felder represents District #2, encompassing North
Minneapolis. She was endorsed by the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) for her winning candidacy in November
2016. She also has firm ties to the
Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party that looms behind the MFT front powerfully to
influence the outcomes of school board elections.
Thus, Felder is a political hack doing the
bidding fo the MFT/DFL cohort, as is the case for all nine members on this
unfortunate current assemblage of the MPS Board of Education.
Felder has children in Northside schools
and was active at MPS sites and at board meetings many years before she ran for
a seat. She had an unsettled childhood
and adolescence, mostly growing up in South Minneapolis. Her personal accounts allude incoherently to
an academician father who held a doctorate---
and to a life of poverty as a youth.
Also in her shadowy background is a young adulthood spent for many
desultory years in a lifestyle lacking firm vocational articulation in
California.
Those South Minneapolis and California
sojourns do not denote a firmly rooted Northsider.
Felder has little connection to the North
Minneapolis of the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House,
W.
Gertrude Brown, Harry Davis, Bertha Smith, Marion McElroy, Larry Brown,
the Edmund Cohen Community Center, old Sixth Avenue, North High School in its
academic heyday of Jewish and African American composition and friendship, or even
to the more recent influence of the Way and Opportunities Unlimited (where Syl
Davis, Gwen Davis, and Spike Moss held sway) and the City, Inc., as a successor to the Way.
And yet Felder projects an image of herself
as a Northsider out to claim resources for MPS schools that have been
previously denied investment for buildings, athletic fields, and academic
programs by comparison to sites and programs in other areas of the city.
But Felder is a fraud, as a claimant to
firm Northsider status, and as an advocate for the schools of North
Minneapolis.
She is a corrupt politico with very little
knowledge of the history and philosophy of education.
Felder is a particularly objectionable
member of the MPS Board of Education for pretending that she is an advocate for
academic quality in what she abidingly refers to as “my schools” for “my
Northsiders.”
When confronted with student reading,
mathematics, and science proficiency rates at North High School that are less
than seven percent (7%) and ACT scores averaging 15.7, Felder has no
comment. When she is told that there are
classes at North that are so out of order that teachers have quit teaching, she
utters not a word. When Felder is told
that an English teacher pretending to teach The
Autobiography of Malcom X has absolutely no knowledge of that towering
personage, she sits silently and never thenceforth addresses the problem. When told by Hispanic parents that the
pre-K-5 and preK-8 schools of North Minneapolis are failing, she gives
appearance of the denial that is her wont.
KerryJo Felder is a fraud as pretender to
firm Northsider status.
She is a corrupt political hack typical for
a group that to a member is beholden to the MFT/DFL cohort.
Felder has no grasp of the history or
philosophy of pre-K-12 public education.
And she is in immoral, neglectful denial of
the rampant deficiencies of curriculum and teacher quality in the Minneapolis
Public Schools.
Felder projects the image of a fighter.
She should fight her way among Bob Walser,
Nelson Inz, Kim Caprini, Kim Ellison, and Jenny Arneson off the MPS Board of
Education and out the door of the Davis Center.
District #6
Member Ira Jourdain
>>>>> Error-Prone,
Philosophically Bereft, and Politically Tainted
Ira Jourdain was suspect from the beginning
of his tenure on the Minneapolis Public Schools(MPS) Board of Education for running against
Tracine Asberry in November 2016. Asberry
was the best participant that I have witnessed on this or any other school
board. She did not have a clearly
expressed dedication to the knowledge-intensive preK-12 education that I
advocate, but she did manifestly care about fundamental skills in mathematics
and reading. Whenever Chief of Research,
Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore would deliver the latest
round of bad news regarding MPS student academic performance, Asberry would ask
detailed questions pertinent to plans for improvement. When Moore or others would offer double talk
or pleasing promises, Asberry would ask why we inevitably get the same vows for
future progress that we’ve gotten before but little of substance to warrant confidence.
Asberry made a nuisance of herself by not
walking the party line of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers
(MFT)/Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL), calling failure as she did by that name, and
implying that better instruction was needed.
As detailed above, board members Kim Ellison, Rebecca Gagnon, and Nelson Inz acted at the
behest of the MFT/DFL cohort to recruit opponents to run against Asberry and
Josh Reimnitz. Inz endorsed Bob Walser
against Reimnitz; Gagnon endorsed Ira
Jourdain against Asberry. Both endorsees
won narrowly.
Thus Jourdain is politically tainted.
He also is philosophically bereft, giving
no evidence of any knowledge of the history of education or any coherent views
of his own.
As a matter of particularly great
irritation to me, Jourdain has stated that he signed waiver forms for his
children (he has two, one in elementary and one in middle school, enrolled in
the Minneapolis Public Schools) to opt out of taking the Minnesota
Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs);
moreover, when he did this at a regular meeting of the MPS Board of
Education, Jourdain looked out at the audience and advocated letting other
parents know that they had the right to allow their children to opt out.
The MCAs are linked to the Minnesota State
Academic Standards and are the most objective way of assessing student mastery
of the standards. When students opt out
in significant numbers, as they have done at Henry, South, and Southwest high
schools, this vitiates the pool of students assessed and skews the accuracy of
the results. Allowing and encouraging
students to opt out is irresponsible.
Jourdain bears the political taint of
MFT/DFL backing, he is philosophically bereft, and he is error-prone. Urging students to opt of the MCAs went
beyond error to indication of political taint (the MFT rails against
standardized testing) and philosophical waywardness.
Jourdain voted with a 5-4 majority led by
Rebecca Gagnon to restore $6.4 million dollars in funding that had been cut in
a well-crafted budget emanating from Chief Ibrahima Diop’s Finance Division in
spring 2018. Gagnon was putting herself
in the service of her affluent constituency in Southwest Minneapolis (she
occupied an At-Large position but counted voters in that area as key
supporters); Jourdain voted with the
slim majority roused by his campaign endorser and mentor Gagnon.
Lamentably, Jourdain is unopposed for the
District 6 seat in the 3 November 2020 election; this makes even more paramount that we defeat
Kim Ellison and KerryJo Felder, whose seats are contested; and that we elect Adriana Cerrillo for the
seat that Walser mercifully abdicated.
District #3
Member Siad Ali
>>>>> Hail Fellow,
Well Met Needs to Develop Diligence and Philosophy While Stiffening His
Spine
Siad Ali represents Minneapolis Public
Schools (MPS) Board of Education District #3.
Ali is originally from Somalia, studied in India (where he obtained a
master’s degree in business), and speaks Hindi, as well as Somali and English,
at a high level of fluency. Ali gained
election to the board in 2014 and was reelected without opposition in
2018. In his successful run, Ali
replaced fellow Somali Mohamud Noor, who had gained controversial appointment
when the previous District #3 representative died in
office.
District #3 is centered on the Cedar-Riverside area wherein a large
Somali population resides. The district
will for the foreseeable future most likely be represented by a member of the
Somali community, with much discussion therein as to who will run for the
position.
As is the case with all members of the
current iteration of the MPS Board of Education, Ali has firm ties to the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)/Democrat-Farmer-Labor cohort that
determines most elections to school boards in Minnesota. Ali in fact works for Amy Klobuchar. He gives no evidence as yet of finding fault
with either group in the cohort. Like so
many, he appreciates the greater propensity of DFL politicians to provide
generous funding for education, by comparison with Republicans, and to assume
that more funding in the absence of meaningful change is a good thing. He does not understand or does not want to
think about the deleterious effect that DFL administrations (e. g., Mark Dayton
with his Minnesota Department of Education [MDE] Commissioner Brenda
Cassellius; Tim Walz with his MDE
Commissioner Mary Cathryn Ricker) have on enforcement of state academic
standards and objective measurement via the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments
(MCAs).
Thus, Siad Ali bears the same taint of
political corruption that is true of all members of this board. And he gives no indication of having any more
knowledge of the history and philosophy of education in the United States than
do the others. But he is an amicable,
proverbial “Hail Fellow, Well Met” who professes love for everybody and seems
to mean it. He does not do his homework
very well to apprise himself of policy details, but neither does he make
clearly lamentable judgements. In
support of the work of Ed Graff and especially Chief of Finance Ibrahima Diop,
Ali voted with the minority to uphold the budget as presented in spring 2018,
losing in the 5-4 vote to the contingent led by Rebecca Gagnon to restore $6.4
million that upon budget trimming had engendered opposition by affluent parents
whose students’ high schools had been affected.
Although he has as yet to take meaningful
action, Ali listens more empathetically than do most other board members to
public commentators such as the Hispanic parents who have appealed for
“priority enrollment” giving their children the option of attending schools
perceived as “higher performing.” He
also listens to my Public Comments and is the only member of the MPS Board of
Education who still approaches me personally (and only one of two whose approach
I would welcome). But in private
conversation, Ali is a terrible listener who, despite understanding the main
thrust of my advocacy for a knowledge-intensive curriculum and the paramount
importance of academics, cannot get far enough beyond the MFT/DFL party line to
digest cognitively my comments.
Ali must do more homework, read tracts on
the history and philosophy of education in the United States, stiffen his
spine, and lend a more careful ear in assessing words of dissent and advocacy.
At-Large Member
Josh Pauly >>>>> Some 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, Makram
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.
Pauly 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.
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