Current Initiatives and Discussion in Minnesota Indicate Rampant Confusion Concerning PreK12 Education

Confusion as to the nature of the preK-12 dilemma and the needed overhaul is evident in current initiatives and discussion among those endeavoring to induce change and those responding to the proposed changes.

So as to comprehend the debased verbiage now being spouted by most of the participants in the initiatives and the conversation, first be aware that excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting specified  knowledge and skill sets in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts in grade by grade sequence across the preK-12 years.  An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.  The purpose of public education is to send forth citizens to lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.

Know also that the actual problems in preK12 education abide at the level of the locally centralized school district.  Using the Minneapolis Public Schools as salient example, understand that the failure to provide an acceptable education to students is explained by weak curriculum, inept teaching, lack of skill remediation for students lagging academically, absence of staff capable of connecting with struggling families, and the existence of many superfluous offices and departments.  Understand also that there is no one at the Davis Center central offices making decisions as to the academic program or involved in implementation who knows what she or he is doing.  This includes Superintendent Ed Graff;  Interim Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing, Associate Superintendents Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, and Brian Zambreno;  Office of Black Student Achievement Director Michael Walker;  and Department of Indian Education Director Jennifer Rose Simon.  Also bearing blame for the condition of the Minneapolis Public Schools are Eric Moore, an expert data analyst who appears to be ranging beyond his expertise by involving himself in academic programming;  Maggie Sullivan, Senior Human Resources Officer who has not devised a critically needed program for teacher training;  and Senior Executive Officer Suzanne Kelly, who has not been effective in her efforts to make the changes that she knows need to  be made. 

This is a level of detail that readers never get unless they read them in my own articles.  Instead the inane discussion focuses on constitutional amendments to guaranteed an undefined “quality education”;  inept gubernatorial initiatives that cannot work because the governor is indebted to the very education establishment that is culpable for the PreK-12 dilemma;  would be education reformers who do nothing more than call for the same essential knowledge-averse approaches espoused by the education professors who are most responsible for the vacuity of preK-12 education.        

We are now paying dearly for the lack of knowledge-intensive public education.  The paramount responsibility of any school district is to impart to students the information that they need in history, government, economics, biology, chemistry, and physics that they need to make informed judgments as citizens;  to enrich their lives with quality experiences in literature and the fine arts;  and to provide them with the skills necessary to be successful in their postsecondary education.

The United States now lacks a generally informed citizenry.  Too many people make judgments on the basis of emotion and belief, rather than fact.  Quality education should produce citizens with an abundant, shared body of knowledge of the kind that will both ensure more satisfying individual lives and better decisions for the common good.  

Examine the debased verbiage currently making the rounds in the public ether, and you’ll get a sense of why wretched preK-12 education continues.

Consider carefully my detailed analysis and explanations of the needed overhaul and you’ll have powerful indication of how we will address the preK-12 dilemma.

If once considering my analysis you somehow arrive at the level of comprehension that very few possess, you will grasp the revolutionary measures that must be taken in preK-12 education so as to replace the abominably ignorant American populace with culturally enriched, civically engaged, and vocationally satisfied citizens.