The Intellectual Corruption That You Should Have Observed in Ed Graff and Other Academic Decision-Makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS); the Degradation of Your Fellow MPS Board of Education Members; the Lightweight Intellects of Which You Should Be Aware at the National and State Levels--- and the Role That the Two of You Must Play in Addressing the Core Dilemmas of K-12 Education in the United States, with MPS as Salient Example
Adriana and
Sharon---
In this
fifth letter to the two of you since you began your tenure on the Minneapolis
(MPS) Board of Education in January 2021, I stress the critical role that that
you two must play in advocating for the changes actually necessary at the
school district.
I have been
entering on my blog for these last many days a multi-article series that
details all of the most vexing dilemmas facing preK-12 education in the United
States, in Minnesota, and at the Minneapolis Public Schools specifically,
representative as MPS is as a wretched locally centralized school district of
the type so prevalent in the United States.
Recently I
have also detailed the academic advancement of my own students as we move
forward with the college preparatory experiences that I provide to them, in
contrast to the debased curriculum and teaching that they receive not only in
the Minneapolis Pubic Schools but also at Ascension, Cooper High School in
Robbinsdale, and Armstrong in Plymouth.
Intimate
knowledge of the wretched curriculum and teaching that describes the experience
of my students in the Minneapolis Public Schools, together with the exhaustive
research that I have done on MPS and presented in Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect makes
me as an abiding matter
>>>>> the guy that officials at the
Minneapolis Public Schools will never fool, because
>>>>> I know clearly the abominable level
of curriculum and teaching with which they cheat the precious beings of their
responsibility every day that their feet hit the ground.
In addition
to the articles entered recently on my blog and in my book on MPS, the
forthcoming June issue of my Journal of
the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research
from Minneapolis, Minnesota is revelatory of the intellectual corruption
and ineptitude of particular MPS officials.
……………………………………………………………….
Thus are your important roles
apparent:
If the needed overhaul at the
Minneapolis Public Schools is going to gain contribution from MPS Board of
Education members, that contrition must come via the advocacy of the two of
you.
Be reminded of the following >>>>>
>>>>> I have detailed the needed change in
my 562 page book, Understanding the
Minneapolis Public Schools: Current
Condition, Future Prospect. The book
is currently in the hands of Federal Reserve Minneapolis President & CEO
Neel Kashkari and many others who have opined on matters pertinent to equity
and excellence in public education, as well many of those responsible for
sustaining the current abominable system.
The two of you should have read and
studied the facts, analysis, and philosophical and historical context that I
provide in this book, resolved then to act accordingly.
None of the usual bromides, such as
“transparency” or “accountability,” will get very far in advocating for the
needed overhaul.
We must be precise in identifying the
problems, as follows >>>>>
>>>>> The
education establishment is pervaded by a degraded philosophy that dates to the
1920s at Teachers College of Columbia University. By the 1970s this philosophy had taken hold
and now corrupts everyone who has trained under those campus low-lifers know as
education professors. The intellectual
corruption runs deep, so that from national through state through local public
schools systems we have academic lightweights making academic decisions that
result in knowledge-deficient curriculum.
>>>>> Thus
from U. S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to Minnesota
Department of Education Commissioner Heather Mueller to MPS administrators Ed
Graff, Aimee Fearing, Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, and Brian
Zambreno you will find no one with a legitimate, substantive, academic master’s degree; this is true, too, of that 27-member (now,
having recently added two members) intellectual wasteland dubbed the MPS
Department of Teaching and Learning.
Not a single scholar.
Not one.
>>>>> The
Office of Black Student Achievement (OBSA) and the Department of Indian
Education are similarly devoid of scholars.
The OBSA should be nixed and Director Michael Walker should be moved to
a new Department of Resource Provision and Referral, staffed with people
comfortable on the ground and in the homes of students from families struggling
with dilemmas of finances and functionality.
We are stuck with the legislatively mandated Department of Indian
Education but this bureaucratic entity should be overhauled so as to be staffed
by academicians.
>>>>> You
have supreme talents in Finance Senior Officer Ibrahima Diop, Information
Technology Senior Officer Justin Hennes, Operations Senior Officer Karen Devet,
and Associate Superintendent for Special Education Rochelle Cox.
Just let those staff members alone and
let them do what they do so very well.
But the time has come to investigate
the particular roles played by
>>>>> Senior
Executive Officer, Office of the Superintendent Suzanne Kelly; Accountability, Research, and Equity Senior
Officer Eric Moore; and Senior Human
Resources Officer Maggie Sullivan.
>>>>> These staff members are all paid
well in excess of $150,000 (almost $200,000 in the case of Kelly) but have not
acted forcefully or courageously in breaking through the impediments that they
know exist for the delivery of a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education
to the students of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
>>>>> And
in Eric Moore’s case, he has reached far beyond his considerable expertise in
data collection and analysis to participate in academic program decision-making
for which he is not qualified.
………………………………………………………………………
Focus, then, my sisters,
>>>>> on
the overhaul needed to bring knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum and
teacher training so as to produce professionals capable of imparting such a
curriculum to all of our precious children, of all demographic descriptors.
Mine is a hard message, delivered
after 49 years as a teacher in tough urban environments and after seven years
of painstaking research into the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public
Schools.
Heed my message---
Go to work---
The lives of our babies, and thus our
own future, is at stake---
Love & Peace---
Gary
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
No comments:
Post a Comment