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
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
University 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 American
22%
23% 21% 18%
18% 18%
American Indian
23%
19%
19% 17%
17% 18%
Hispanic
31%
32%
31% 29%
26% 25%
Asian
48%
50%
50% 47%
50% 47%
White
77%
78%
78% 77%
77% 75%
Free/ Reduced Lunch
26%
26%
25% 24%
22% 20%
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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