Introductory Comments
Governor Walz’s Vow to Address
Educational
Inequities Should Be Understood as a
Sham---
Considering the Phenomenon of Wagtail
Journalism
An article by Patrick Condon, “Walz plan aims
for equity in the schools” (Star Tribune,
January 26, 2021) parrots the claim by Minnesota Governor Time Walz that a key
priority of his administration will be to address educational inequity. This raises three questions pertinent also to
numerous other actors on the K-12 scene:
1) Is
the governor ignorant?
2) Is
he in denial?
3) Or
is he outright corrupt?
The reality is that the current program for
addressing issues at low-performing schools is a sham, and those who devised
the program--- key officials such as
former Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius and Minnesota
Department of Education staff member Michael Diedrich--- know that the program has no hope of success.
The North Star Accountability System (NSAS) is
the successor to the MDE’s Multiple Measurement Rating System (MMRS), retaining
many of the latter’s features with some augmentation. The MMRS moved away from singular reliance on
the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) for objectively determining
student academic performance to include a host of other factors, including
graduation rates, attendance, annual academic progress for English Learners,
and improved annual academic progress for all students at the school. The NSAS retains this multiple measurement
approach in determining which schools need particular assistance due to lack of
progress. To assist schools assessed as needing
outside help in addressing inequities by race and income, the NSAS offers eight
Regional Centers of Excellence (RCEs).
Among the many indicators that the RCEs are a
sham is the fact that the Minneapolis Public Schools and the St. Paul Public
Schools are charged with the responsibility of becoming their own Regional
Centers of Excellence. That is,
districts that year after year reveal low overall rates of student mathematics,
reading, and science proficiency--- with
particularly disastrous results for African American, Native American,
Latino/Latina and low-income students---
are now supposed to become, in some unspecified way, centers of
excellence for improving academic performance.
Then there is the nature of the six other
Regional Centers of Excellence, located in Rochester, Marshal, Sartell, Thief
River Falls, Mountain Iron, and Fergus Falls.
There is a total of 45 staff members at these
RCEs, for an average of approximately seven staff members per center. Of the approximately 2,000 schools in the
state of Minnesota, 485 of them have failed to make satisfactory progress
across the multiple measures. This means
that the MDE dwells in some fantasy world in which 45 people, all of whom have
been trained in the same way as have the educators who have gotten us into this
mess, are supposed to assist 485 schools (with each RCE staff therefore having
responsibility for over 10 schools) get onto a promising academic track.
The current Minnesota Education Commissioner
is Mary Cathryn Ricker, former head of the St. Paul Federation of
Teachers; she can always be counted on
to oppose objective measures of student performance and is endeavoring to
eliminate the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments and the current state
academic standards. If one examines item
samplers offering similar questions to those included on the MCAs, one finds
skills tested that should be in the mathematics, reading, and science
competency set for any student regardless of ethnicity; but there abides in the conversational ether
of the education establishment the unfounded assertion that such objective measures
are culturally biased.
Thus do we have the Walz administration
proposal that includes wording indicating that new academic standards will be
tailored to be “reflective of students of color and Indigenous students.” The proposal also establishes an MDE Equity,
Diversity and Inclusion Center (EDIC) and anti-bias training for all public
school employees. The Walz program also
aims to expand early childhood education and out-of-school learning
opportunities.
This program is a sham:
The establishment of the new EDIC is the
typical bureaucratic response in pretending to address a problem by creating a
new office or department: Witness the
ineffective Office for Black Student Achievement and the Department of Indian
Education at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Anti-bias training in the absence of very aggressive recruiting of
African American, Native American, and Latina/Latino staff is unlikely in the
extreme to improve cultural sensitivity markedly. Teachers unions always object to establishing
programs for skill remediation, so that after-school or out-of-school programs
will inevitably fail to address deficiencies in student mathematics, reading,
and science performance. And while early
childhood education for all students is a worthy goal, dependence on such an
initiative, even if containing school-readiness content, will not address the
problems of curriculum and teacher quality for grades two through twelve.
Thus, Governor Walz, a former teacher, is knowingly
or unwittingly foisting another terrible ruse on the long-suffering students of
Minnesota.
As with so many other actors in the education
establishment, we must ask Walz,
1) Are
you ignorant?
2) Are
you in denial?
3) Or
are you outright corrupt?
…………………………………………………………………………..
Very few people would have any reason to know
that Governor Walz’s program for addressing educational inequities is a
sham. The governor himself may have
fooled himself into believing that his program has a chance to work. He may be listening to advisers from the
educational establishment who have a powerful public profile and operate as an
aggressive political lobby, making expedient the professed belief in the advice
of such characters. Thus the question: Is the governor ignorant as to the ineptitude
and prevaricating nature of MDE staff and Education Minnesota; is he in denial; or is he as corrupt in making his claims as
an advocate for equity as those political actors are in all of their public
pretenses?
For various reasons, media operators, whether
from radio, television, cyberspace, or print journalism, generally follow the
events and programs of establishment organizations. In the sphere of public education, this means
state departments of education, teachers unions, locally centralized school
district officials, and teachers and other site level staff. Most all of these education establishment
actors have been trained in the same way, according to the same anti-knowledge
creed of education professors. They may
have differences, as with central office administrators and teachers union
representatives at contract negotiation time, but with regard to approach to
curriculum and pedagogy they are substantially in agreement. And depending on the given actor, each is
ignorant, in denial, or outright corrupt in maintaining a system that each
academic year robs our children of the substantive education that they
deserve.
Given the propensity of media reporters to
serve as the tails that merely reflexively wag from the body of education
establishment dogs, astute readers must learn to look far below the surface of
written articles and oral reportage.
As an ongoing matter, my blog (http://www.newsalemeducation.blogspot.com), my
new book (Understanding the
Minneapolis Public Schools: Current
Condition, Future Prospect), this academic journal (Journal of the K-12 Revolution:
Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota), and my public
appearances are powerful alternatives to mass media sources.
And the February 2021 (Part One) and March
2021 (Part Two) editions of the Journal give
multiple examples for which diving below the surface is imperative.
Consider again the paragraphs above, then turn
to the five articles to follow.
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