The
Intellectually Corrupt Academic Program of the Minneapolis Public
Schools >>>>>
Minneapolis Public Schools
Superintendent Ed Graff’s Academic Ineptitude Powerfully Demonstrated in His
Retention of Academic Lightweight Aimee Fearing as Interim Senior Academic
Officer for One and a Half Years
Aimee Fearing and the Entire Staff of MPS Teaching and Learning Should Be Dismissed
Over summer
2019, the position of Executive Director of the Department of
Teaching and Learning was bestowed upon Aimee Fearing. This was another
affront to Cecilia Saddler, who had assumed leadership of that department as
Deputy Chief of Academics, Leadership, and learning after being passed over for
Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning with Michael Thomas’s departure
for Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Fearing’s credentials
are as follows.
Academic Credentials for Aimee Fearing
Minneapolis Public Schools
Executive Director, Teaching and Learning
Degree
Conferred
Bachelor’s Degree
Field in Which Degree
Was Conferred
ESL Education
Institution at Which Degree Was Conferred
University of Northwestern
13 May 2000
Degree
Conferred
Master’s Degree
Education
Institution at Which Degree Was Conferred
Hamline University
23 May 2003
Degree
Conferred
Doctorate
Education
Institution at Which Degree Was Conferred
Hamline University
30 April 2015
Other Credentials
Professional Licensures
K-12 Principal Licensure
Expiration, 30 June 2023
K-12 ESL Licensure
Expiration, 30 June 2023
5-12 Communication Arts Licensure
Expiration, 30 June 2023
Thus, Fearing has the
typical profile for an academic decision-maker at the Minneapolis Public
Schools: Her training is entirely in education rather than in an
academic discipline (mathematics, natural science, history, government,
English) that should be at the core of the curriculum of a locally centralized
school district. Fearing is not a scholar. She is not a
subject area specialist. She should not be making decisions
pertinent to academics. And yet she leads a department that has the
official responsibility for the academic program of the Minneapolis Public
Schools.
The position of
Executive Director of Teaching and Learning was most ably filled by Mike
Lynch. Lynch served under Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson and was
fully behind her program of Focused Instruction, which had the potential for
imparting a Core Knowledge curriculum that Lynch also embraced. But
Lynch encountered a great amount of opposition for his support of
knowledge-intensive curriculum from staff members of the Department of Teaching
Learning. Although he and his immediate superior, Chief of Academics
Susanne Griffin, seemed to have a good relationship, Griffin herself made few
initiatives and leaned more to the prevailing anti-knowledge, education professor-espoused
view of her Department of Teaching and Learning staff. Lynch
departed for graduate study in Boston in 2015.
Griffin brought in Macarre Traynham, whose main expertise was in
Culturally Relevant Curriculum. I met with Traynham and did not find
her to have much enthusiasm for knowledge-intensive curriculum or what by then
was a Focused Instruction plank of the Bernadeia Johnson program that was being
sabotaged by Teaching and Learning staff members. A mid-level Teaching
and Learning official by the name of Tina Platt had responsibility for Focused
Instruction, without possessing impressive credentials or the requisite
knowledge base to oversee knowledge-intensive curriculum. I
advocated for the dismissal of Traynham and Platt; Traynham lasted
just a few months and Platt also departed the district.
There was no Executive
Director of Teaching and Learning during academic years 2017-2018 and
2018-2019. Mercifully, this bloated department was slimmed down from
53 staff members to a current 30. But the department is still
overstaffed and full of incompetent occupants of sinecures. The
department should be cleared of present occupants, all of whom are trained in
education rather than academic programs, at the graduate level and for most
even at the undergraduate level.
Again, we have the
phenomenon of non-academicians bearing the responsibility for the academic
program of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
If teachers were
properly trained in their subject areas, there would be little need for a
Department of Teaching and Learning. No such department exists on
college and university campuses to train professors, who are experts in the
subjects they teach. Such a department would be ludicrous.
The MPS Department of
Teaching and Learning should be disbanded. Interim Chief of
Academics, Leadership, and Learning should be reassigned to a position in her
English Language Learner specialty. My program for teacher training
would produce subject area specialists, so that the Department of Teaching and
Learning would pass into much deserved oblivion.
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