Christopher Wernimont, Erin Clarke, Jennifer Hanzak, and Marium Toure’ Are Academic Lightweights Who Have No Idea How to Generate Mathematics Curriculum or Teach Mathematics >>>>> Identification of Minneapolis Public Schools Davis Center Staff Responsible for Abominable Student Proficiency Rates in Mathematics
As the K-12 Revolution wrought by my book, understanding the Minneapolis Public
Schools: Current Condition, Future
Prospect, sweeps over the district, certain individuals are going to be
squirming.
For decades students of the Minneapolis Public
Schools have been academically abused with impunity.
No longer.
So be clear, among the highest paid staff at
the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway), Superintendent Ed
Graff and Interim Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing are the top
decision-makers with regard to the academic program.
Responsible for implementing the program are
Associate Superintendents Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, and
Brian Zambreno.
Not a single one of these individuals is a
scholar with any firm grasp of any academic field.
Among other Davis Center staff responsible for
the academic program are the woefully trained staff members at the MPS
Department of Teaching and Learning. Not
a single staff member in this department of twenty-four people is a scholar
with a master’s degree in a key subject area.
Thus, from the very top-paid staff at over
$150,000 per annum (Graff receives $230,000) to those in the MPS Department of
Teaching and Learning who knock down an average of $80,000 per year, there are
no scholars or anyone who knows what she or he is doing in generating
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum--- even if there was the inclination to do so.
As Malcolm X would say, staring straight into
a camera as if he were going to break it,
“As you can see, we have a problem here.”
………………………………………………………………………………
Student mathematics proficiency at the
Minneapolis Public Schools is an abomination.
The reason is rooted in the lack of
mathematicians among decision-makers and a faulty approach to the instruction
of mathematics derived from the exhortations of mathematics education
professors (those academic lightweights who themselves struggle with calculus
and differentials equations while waxing pseudo-philosophical in their
approaches to instruction in the basic operations (addition, subtraction,
multiplication, division), fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios,
fundamental proportions, and simple probability.
The result is an enormously time-wasting
approach utilized by math-phobic elementary school teachers and the spectacle
of grade 5 students poised to make the middle school transition without knowing
how to perform long division, lacking mastery of multiplication tables, lacking
facility in preforming basic operations with fractions, decimals, and
percentages; and having little idea as
to the principles behind and the relationships among those latter skills
comparing part to whole
Students then go on to middle school, at which
they continue to rely too heavily on calculators as they learn fundamental
pre-algebra, algebra, and geometry, so that they are at a loss to explain what
they are doing in utilizing the Pythagorean Theorem, solving linear equations,
and calculating and graphing slope. In
the absence of fundamental skill mastery, they then wander through high school
courses in algebra, geometry, pre-calculus (if they even take this latter
course in functions, statistics, and trigonometry), and they muddle through---
for those few who take calculus--- the
putatively highest course offered at the high school level.
Students thus wander through a murky forest of
inept and faulty mathematical instruction, many still thinking in their heart
of hearts that fractions constitute a higher mathematical skill--- true, too, of many teachers, especially those
presiding at grades preK-5.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
This is all sinful: There is not actually that much mathematics
to learn.
Properly rendered, instruction should make
clear the very basic skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division,
percentages, ratios, proportions, simple probability, graphing, and
construction of tables and charts. Then
students would be prepared to go forth properly prepared to comprehend algebra,
geometry, pre-calculus, and calculus.
But Graff and Fearing have little training in
mathematics.
None of the associate superintendents has
advanced very far in the study of mathematics.
What graduate training those in the MPS
Department of Teaching and Learning responsible for generating or implementing
mathematics curriculum or overseeing pedagogy have is all under mathematics
education professors, not under mathematicians--- between which there is an enormous
distinction (no one holding a flimsy mathematics education doctorate would ever
be accepted by colleagues in a college of university department of
mathematics).
Peruse the qualifications of these MPS
Department of Teaching and Learning staff members responsible for designing or
implementing mathematics curriculum at the Minneapolis Public Schools:
>>>>>
Math
Christopher
Wernimont
Degrees Conferred Institution at Which Degree Was Conferred
M.A., Mathematics
Education University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
B.A., Economics Grinnell
College
Licensures:
Mathematics
Erin Clarke, K-8 STEM
DPF
B.A., Geology (College of William &
Mary)
M.A., Geology (University of Wisconsin)
M.A. Education (Univeristy of Minnesota
Jennifer Hanzak, K-5 Math DPF
B. A. , Child Psychology (university of
Minnesota)
M.A., Education (University of Minnesota)
Licensure:
Elementary Education
Marium Toure’,
K-5 Math DPF
M.A., Education St. Mary’s University of Minnesota
B.S., Education University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
Licensures:
Elementary Education
Now consider student proficiency rates >>>>>
MPS Academic Proficiency Rates for 2014, 2015,
2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019
(as indicated by
Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment [MCA] results for spring of the given years)
Math
2014
2015 2016
2017 2018
2019
African 22%
23% 21% 18% 18% 18%
American
American
23%
19% 19%
17% 17% 18%
Indian
Hispanic
31% 32%
31% 29%
26%
25%
Asian
48% 50% 50%
47% 50% 47%
White
77% 78%
78% 77%
77%
75%
Free/
26% 26%
25% 24%
22%
20%
Reduced
All
44% 44%
44% 42%
42%
42%
Thus, be clear:
Christopher Wernimont,
Erin Clarke, Jennifer Hanzak, and Marium Toure’ are academic lightweights who
have no idea how to generate mathematics curriculum or teach mathematics, their
field of responsibility for which they are paid approximately $80,000.
Wonder no longer why
student mathematic proficiency rates are so abominably low for the ill-served
students of the Minneapolis Public Schools:
Those responsible are
academic lightweights who have no chance of developing knowledge-intensive,
skill-replete mathematics curriculum and have no grasp of how to render
instruction.
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