The
following fourteen articles go to the core of the K-12 dilemma, at the
Minneapolis Public Schools, and--- by
extension--- the locally centralized
systems of public education in the United States.
This is
among the most important series of articles that you will ever read, calling
out as the articles do the most culpable parties responsible for the wretched
level of education at the Minneapolis Public Schools, explaining how we got in
this mess, and indicating the overhaul of
curriculum and teacher quality that will bring to our precious young people
the education that they must have to be culturally enriched, civically prepared,
and professionally satisfied citizens.
As you read these articles, be
especially attentive to the list of parties most culpable for the abomination
that is the 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:
Aimee Fearing
Aneesa Parks
Ashley Krohn
Christopher Jones
Christen Lish
Christina Ramsey
Christopher Wernimont
Hibaq Mohamed
Jennifer Rose
Julie Tangeman
Katharine Stephens
Kelly McQuillan
Lisa Purcell
Marium Toure’
Mary Lambrecht
Natasha Parker
Nora Schull
Paula Kilian
Sara Naegeli
Sarah Wehrenberg
Sarah Loch
Tommie Casey
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 Wiess
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 now
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
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Understand the depth of the dilemma >>>>>
>>>>>
Fully grasp 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
And
focus relentlessly 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.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Then read carefully the explanations as to how
we got in this mess and--- most
importantly--- how we will get out.
Read thoughtfully, ponder incisively, then act
with determination and commitment.
There are lives in the balance.
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