Thomas Jefferson, as a slave owner who among other founders established a nation the electorate of which was comprised mainly of substantially propertied white men, his notion of “the people” seems limited. But as he sat at his desk penning his majestic works, he wrote in the context of Enlightenment ideas that projected a vision of government controlled by human beings in the abstract. And intellectual colleague James Madison took the lead in generating a United States Constitution that had the same limitations in immediate application but established the principle of citizen rule and through provision for amendments in time enabled people of all ethnicities and gender identifications to vote and to participate fully in the political life of the nation, or to demand the right to do so.
Thus a couple of slave holders ironically provided a route to genuine democracy and were great articulators of a vision for the people as the ultimate source of governmental power. Thus did Jefferson write,
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society
but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened
enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the
remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion
by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional
power.
In the course of the 19th century, Horace Mann was the greatest spokesperson for the establishment of “common schools” for the attainment of the Jeffersonian vision as reality. But inasmuch as these schools were supposed to provide a common knowledge base upon which citizens could make informed decisions, they never realized their potential. Today, in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), students among those 70% who manage to graduate in four years walk across the stage to receive a diploma in name only. One-third of those graduates who go on to matriculate at colleges and universities need remedial courses. All MPS graduates are knowledge-deficient in mathematics, natural science, history, government, economics, literature, fine arts, and the technological and vocational arts.
The impediments to the impartation of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education to the students of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) are knowledge deficient curriculum, ill-trained teachers and principals, the absence of any scholars among those making academic decisions at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway), a central office bureaucracy incapable of addressing these dilemmas, and a corrupting context created by the public education establishment that extends from college and university based teacher training programs through the Minnesota Department of Education MDE), with many tentacles reaching into a community of complicit enablers.
To address the vexing dilemmas that send forth graduates (that less than 70% of MPS students who manage to graduate in four years) of the kind who now make up a fact-denying, ignorant citizenry capable of bring forth the Trump disaster, we must set about overhauling public education at the level of the locally centralized school district. To overhaul our local iteration, we must clean house at the Davis Center, bring in scholars to overhaul curriculum and to design a system of teacher training for delivery by the school district, and elect members of the MPS Board of Education that will recognize and act upon the imperative to oversee the needed transformation.
The current composition of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education presents nine members who are firmly connected to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)/Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) cohort that always blocks any needed change; the cohort is in turn deeply indebted to Education Minnesota, the pro-DFL lobbying entity of which the MFT is a local affiliate. To break through these impediments, ousting current board members KerryJo Felder (District 2) and Kim Ellison (At-Large) and bringing leadership unconnected to the MFT/DFL cohort to the District 4 seat is imperative for bringing knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum to MPS students.
Thus, voters who comprehend the nature of the needed transformation should cast their ballots for Sharon El-Amin in District 2 (so at to oust Felder), Adriana Cerrillo in District 4 (so as to defeat DFL-endorsed Christa Mims for the seat abdicated by Bob Walser), and Michael Dueñes for the At-Large seat (so as to oust Ellison).
Current District 2 Member Felder is an erratic presence on the Board, often making errors in citing statistics that she compiles but insufficiently understands; she is deeply indebted politically to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party and has little understanding of or inclination toward the overhaul needed in curriculum and teacher quality in the district. Current At-Large Member Ellison is also tied to the MFT/DFL cohort that always impedes reform efforts. Mercifully, District 4 Member Bob Walser opted not to run again, opening the way for Dueñes.
Sharon El-Amin has served as head of the North Polar (North High School) parent group and is a community activist who twice a month prepares 100 meals for those in need; for many years, El-Amin owned and ran the El-Amin Fish Shop on West Broadway Avenue.
Adriana Cerrillo is an activist who has made many appearances at the state capitol in St. Paul as an advocate for immigrants’ rights. She is guardian for her 11-year-old nephew, who attends Emerson Spanish Immersion Learning Center in the Loring Park neighborhood, where Cerrillo is on the site council and has agitated for improved quality.
Michael Dueñes is a former dean of liberal arts and global education at North Hennepin Community College. Since 2018 he has been self-employed as a policy analyst focused on education and racial disparities.
Electing Sharon El-Amin and Adriana Cerrillo will rid the MPS Board of Education of MFT/DFL sycophants KerryJo Felder and Kim Ellison; electing Dueñes will bring to the Board a member willing to question district approaches and policies that have produced such terrible academic results.
Other than ridding the nation of the menace that is Donald Trump and gaining politically progressive control of the Senate and retaining such in the House of Representatives, transforming K-12 education is the most important task for addressing the ills now besetting the United States of America. Electing school board members across the nation willing to challenge the political and ideological forces that impede the needed transformation is vital to the production of a more knowledgeable, fact-led citizenry.
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