Electing Sharon El-Amin, Adriana Cerrillo, and Michael Dueñes for Seats on the MPS Board of Education Is Vital for Making the Needed Changes
Electing Sharon El-Amin (District 2 seat, currently held by opponent KerryJo Felder), Adriana Cerrillo (District 4 seat, vacated by Bob Walser, now contested also by Christa Mims), and Michael Dueñes (at-large seat, currently held by opponent Kim Ellison) to the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education is vital for making the changes needed at the district.
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.
The Comprehensive District Design (CDD) that was passed amidst such controversy in May 2020 admirably induces attendance at community schools, rationally redesigns transportation routes, and centrally locates reevaluated magnet programs. But the CDD does nothing to address the academic issues that lie at the core of the mission of any locally centralized school district.
To address the vexing dilemmas that send forth graduates (that less than 70% of MPS students who manage to graduate in four years) so unprepared that one-third must take remedial courses once matriculating of college and university campuses, courageous new members willing to challenge the system as it is must be elected for seats on the board.
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).
In its recommendations of 24 October 2020, the editorial board of the Star Tribune endorsed El-Amin but unfortunately also lent its support to DFL establishment candidates Mims and Ellison. Readers should indeed vote for El-Amin but cast their ballots for Cerrillo and Dueñes over Mims and Ellison respectively.
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.
The locally centralized school district of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) has been a chronically ineffective school district since the mid-1970s--- over forty years. Demographic changes in both North and South Minneapolis posed challenges to a district that at the time had no more than five African American teachers; the mostly white middle class MPS teaching and administrative staff was overwhelmed, possessing little understanding of the needs of young people from families facing grave challenges of finances and functionality. To this day, decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools have never articulated or implemented a program designed to meet the needs of these students.
The time for articulating and implementing such a program is long overdue.
Electing fresh leadership willing to challenge the system long denying quality education to MPS students is an imperative for all citizens who want the district to thrive in the years to come.
In that spirit, readers, please vote, depending on MPS Board of Education candidacies pertinent to your particular district, for Sharon El-Amin, Adriana Cerrillo, and Michael Dueñes on or before 3 November.
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