Article #3
The Corrupt
Context in Which
Superintendent Ed
Graff;
Interim 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
Ed Graff, Aimee Fearing, Shawn
Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, Brian Zambreno, the 22 staff members of
the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Department of Teaching and Learning,
Office of Black Male Student Director Michael Walker, and Department of Indian
Education Director Jennifer Simon, and the members of the MPS Board of
Education academically abuse the district’s students every day their feet hit
the ground.
I have detailed the specific
culpability of this intellectually corrupt group in my 595-page book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public
Schools: Current Condition, Future
Prospect, now in circulation physically and available to readers of my blog
who scroll back to blog entries for March 2019-2020.
I have explained the corrupt national
and state context in which officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools
dwell. The demise of No Child Left
Behind (NCLB), the ineffective bromides of the Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA), and the cynical ruse that is the Minnesota State Department of
Education’s North Star Accountability System indicate that change in
pre-kindergarten and K-12 education will never in the United States, with
citizen mantras of local control, emanate from government at the national and
state levels. Change at the local level
then becomes the paramount goal for proponents of change, making imperative
that we jettison inept staff members now embodied by Graff, Fearing,
Harris-Berry, Ray, Wagner, Zambreno, Walker, Simon, staff members at MPS Department
of Teaching and Learning; and that we
oust the current members of the MPS Board of Education.
Further corrupting the context in
which these errant decision makers and implementers dwell are corrupt officials
at institutions such as the University of Minnesota (UM), Hamline, Augsburg,
St. Thomas, and UM Mankato. Teacher
training mills at these institutions are cash cows that generously fill the
coffers of the ever-financially needy institutions of post-secondary education
in the United States.
Are these and the other academic
abusers of our children clueless, in denial, or outright corrupt?
They live their lives in one or more
of those conditions, yielding the same result whatever the combination: an abysmally educated citizenry and ongoing
suffering for families living at the urban core.
Given the inefficacy of national and
state officials, the intellectually corrupt ideology and vacuous pedagogy
inflicted upon prospective public school teachers and administrators by
education professors becomes the chief culprit in the system that denies a
knowledge-intensive education to our students and the citizens they
become. University of Minnesota
President Joan Gabel, her predecessors, and all decision-makers at UM either
look the other way or are ignorant of the abuse heaped on those who train under
education professors in the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD). And since this is the case, post-secondary
administrators and the education professors that they tolerate become the core
culprits responsible for the abysmal level of education inflicted on our
students by the Minneapolis Public Schools and other locally centralized school
districts.
The corrupt national, state, and
post-secondary institutional context in which locally centralized school systems
dwell make imperative that we end the tenures of Ed Graff, Aimee Fearing, Shawn
Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, Brian Zambreno, Michael Walker, Jennifer
Simon, staff at Teaching and Learning, and the current members of the
Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.
We must be strategic in working to
oust such inept officials.
This, though, will require the
persistent attention of a public that tends toward ephemeral commitments and
errant judgment as to the nature of the dilemma in public education. Limited attention spans have been notable
even in the cases of those who have flashed on the scene and then withdrawn
into their private worlds or other endeavors:
Sandy Vargas, erstwhile head of the
Minneapolis Foundation, was going to RESET education; R. T. Rybak 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 Carla Bates, Josh Reimnitz, and---
especially--- Tracine Asberry showed great promise in driving to the
core of the vexations at the Minneapolis Public Schools--- but are now nowhere to be seen.
Many local media hosts and journalists
give evidence of being ignorant, in denial, or outright corrupt in their
failure to expose the abysmal level of education at the Minneapolis Public
Schools; this is true of Star Tribune editorial chief Scott
Gillespie and commentary editor Doug Tice.
Add also Minneapolis Urban League President/CEO
Steve Belton and gadfly activist at-large Nekima Levy-Armstrong to the list of
sell-outs and inept officials who sustain the wretched quality of education at
the Minneapolis Public Schools;
Steve Belton is a blow-hard who has
done nothing to address the most vexing dilemma of the North Minneapolis
African American Community in which he is embedded and earns a six-figure
salary:
The Minneapolis Urban League has
disbanded its failed schools and is never a presence at meetings of the
Minneapolis Public Schools. One of the
organization’s chief foci should be K-12 education, but under the particularly
bellicose but incompetent Belton the league remains silent.
Nekima Levy-Armstrong (formerly Levy-Pounds)
is an erratic putative activist who puts in short stints at professional posts
and organizations, her only consistent traits being those indicating
propensities to proclaim loudly and accomplish little. Levy-Armstrong is largely responsible for the
academically lightweight Ed Graff becoming superintendent of the Minneapolis
Public Schools. She led a group
protesting the likely dubbing of Michael Goar to be superintendent, inducing
the second-round of a lamentable two-phase process that led to a 6-3 vote for
Graff. After that dubious
accomplishment, Levy-Armstrong has been absent from most meetings of the MPS
Board of Education and other district congregations. And even if she had showed anything but her
typical erratic inconsistency, she has given little evidence of comprehending
the nature of excellent education so vital to young people living at the urban
core.
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
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.
Add MFT President Michelle Wiese 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 >>>>>
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
At the Minneapolis Federation of
Teachers (MFT) there are
MFT President Michelle Wiese
Rank and file members
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 Ricker
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 Comprensive 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 Levy-Armstrong
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