Article #1
The Gravity of
the Dilemma
That Is the
Abomination of PreK-12 Education
at the
Minneapolis Public Schools
Fully grasp as you read this edition
of Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis,
Minnesota the ineptitude revealed in student proficiency rates for academic
years ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 >>>>>
MPS Student Academic Proficiency Rates as
Measured by Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) Results for 2014, 2015,
2016, 2017, 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%
Also hold firm to the incompetence
demonstrated by graduation rates:
>>>>>
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
4
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
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, biology, 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.
………………………………………………………………………………….
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.
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