Promulgating an intellectually corrupt approach to curriculum and teacher training that was incubated at Teachers College of Columbia University in the 1920s, those campus degradations known as ”education professors” ultimately succeeded in advancing a knowledge-aversive approach to curriculum and an image of classroom presences as “guides,” rather than teachers in the true sense of scholars and imparters of strong subject area information.
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Ed Graff and Interim Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing; Associate Superintendents Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, Brian Zambreno; Staff in the Department of Teaching and Learning; and principals, and teaching staff at all 70-plus MPS school sites have been ruined by those intellectually corrupt education professors.
The halls of the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) are devoid of any scholars.
Let me repeat that.
Comprehend the implication:
The halls of the Davis Center are devoid of any scholars.
Not a single person responsible for curriculum knows what she or he is doing. Not a single person has advanced training in mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, economics, or world and ethnic-specific literature.
From the Davis Center Academic Division to site principals and on through the classroom teacher corps, there are very few scholars:
People in these positions train in the same way, under the same intellectually lightweight education professors, in the absence of any preparation that would give them the wherewithal to impart a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete to the precious young people of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Remember that at the Davis Center, these staff members are most responsible for curricular degradation and low teacher quality >>>>>
Academic Lightweights Responsible for the Knowledge-Deficient,
Skill-Deplete Curriculum and Low Teacher Quality in the Minneapolis Public Schools
Superintendent of Schools
EDWARD J GRAFF $230,000
Graff has proved an able administrator who has given talented Ibrahima Diop, Karen Devet, Rochelle Cox, and Justin Hennes scope to promote effective policies and programs in finance, operations, information technology, and special education respectively; but Graff is an intellectual lightweight, with no degree in a key subject area: Graff himself can never be the progenitor of knowledge-intensive curriculum and substantive teacher training at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Interim Senior Academic Officer
AIMEE Y FEARING $159,580
Fearing has irritatingly borne the given title for a year, effectively taking over from the hapless, failed outgoing Deputy an of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Cecilia Sadler; Fearing has an undergraduate degree in English as a Second Language (ESL) and graduate degrees in education; she has no subject area training, has the intellectually lightweight descriptors recalling those of Graff, and has no understanding of, or ability to, design knowledge-intensive curriculum or to oversee the needed teacher training.
Associate Superintendent
Ron Wagner $154,669
Associate Superintendent
Lashawn Ray $154,669
Associate Superintendent
Brian Zambreno $154,669
Associate Superintendent
Shawn Harris-Berry $154,669
These four academically insubstantial staff members have the tragicomic role of mentoring principals. Wagner, Ray, Zambreno, and Berry have no substantial graduate training in any key subject area. Wagner’s degrees, both undergraduate and graduate, are all in education. Ray and Zambreno have undergraduate training in the social sciences but otherwise have matriculated only in education programs. Berry has an undergraduate degree in business but graduate degrees only in education; she was bumped up in Peter Principle fashion from a failed tenure as principal at North High School, where fewer than 10% of students were proficient in reading, math, and science, and where many classes were so out of order that teachers had given up teaching. These four associate superintendents constitute a burden on the district; they can never be of any help in generating knowledge-intensive curriculum, and they cannot be effective as mentors of principals:
Also remember that these staff members must find a way through the impediments that currently diminish their ability to act in favor of the students of the Minneapolis Public Schools:
Staff Members Whose Effectiveness is Constrained by the Political Ether
Senior Human Resources Officer
Maggie Sullivan $158,496
An enormously bright staff member who must careful navigate contentious matters such as teacher and other staff contracts, she also has an understanding of the need to upgrade teacher quality; Sullivan, though, is constrained by a firmly entrenched education establishment and must find ways to break through daunting impediments to produce the requisite quality of teaching and academic staff excellence.
Executive Officer, Superintendent Office
Suzanne Kelly $190,038
Kelly was a key go-to person in the initial stages of the generation of the MPS Comprehensive District Design (CDD) and she sincerely wants to bring knowledge-intensive curriculum to MPS students; but the academic component of the CDD became a jargon-infested document that cannot be the basis for the needed changes: To be effective, Kelly will have to find a way to break through the bureaucratic impediments posed by the Department of Teaching and Learning and other forces of the education establishment, so as to advance the needed overhaul of the academic program.
Senior Accountability, Research & Equity Officer
Eric Moore $158,496
Moore is a curious case, an enormously articulate communicator and a supreme master of data. But Superintendent Graff has given Moore responsibilities pertinent to the generation of an academic program at which this gifted staff member has failed. Moore has not done the reading necessary to gain comprehension of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum, and he is given to espousing noble values while acting in a careerist manner. Moore should stick to his strength in data analysis and demur on matters pertinent to the academic program.
Executive Director,
Engagement and External Relations
CELINA S MARTINA $118,631
Martina is a personable staff member who acts with considerable skill in public forums; but she served as an Ed Graff flunky in the way that she oversaw public meetings pertinent to the MPS Comprehensive Design, maneuvering to jettison any tough questions relevant to the academic program; she must find a way to handle bureaucratic pressures or forever bear the stain of sycophantic careerism.
And consider that these members of the district dwell in positions that should not exist or, given legislative mandate, must be transformed:
Director,
Office of Black Student Achievement
Michael Walker $137,148
Walker was an effective dean of students at Roosevelt High School and has enormous communication skills; but during the six years of his tenure at the helm of the Office of Black (formerly Male, now Student Achievement, academic proficiency for students in the designated demographic has continued to lag; Walker’s position and the department should be eliminated, giving way to experts with genuine academic credentials in African American and African history and culture contributing to the design of knowledge-intensive curriculum. Walker’s skill could then be utilized in a new Department of Resource Provision and Referral, staffed with people comfortable on the streets and in the homes of students and families struggling with issues of finance and functionality.
Director, Indian Education
Jennifer Rose Simon $112,565
Simon came to her position after the long tenure of Anna Ross; she is no more an academician than the latter. The Department of Indian Education is legislatively mandated; inasmuch as this is so, the department must be staffed with scholars knowledgeable of Native American history and able to integrate pertinent subject matter into knowledge-intensive curriculum.
…………………………………………………………………………..
The emperor has no clothes.
No cat or cradle in the cat’n-the-cradle.
Exposed.
On the run.
Years of research.
Increasing pressure.
A district that must be taken apart piece by piece and reassembled for the impartation of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education by teacher-scholars.
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