Reply to an inquirer---
I
hope that this note finds you well, that those in your personal universe are fully
vaccinated, and that you are poised to enjoy a careful but perhaps more relaxed
summer 2021 than was 2020.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
The
questions that you posed to me a few days back are interesting >>>>>
>>>>> Who
are the most anti-education groups and state legislators in Minnesota?
>>>>> What are your thoughts on the current budget
debate?
I take such questions very seriously, considering them upon
the basis of which they were posed, and from my vantage point as one who has
researched K-12 education more thoroughly than anyone of whom I am aware,
conceptualizing the issues very differently from the conventional formulation.
I will, then, comment upon the questions first from the
standpoint of what is truly important and then according to what I perceive to
be the spirit in which you made the inquiry
>>>>>
………………………………………………………………………………..
My Answers Based on The Actual Dilemmas of K-12 Education
>>>>> Who are the most anti-education groups and
state legislators in Minnesota?
College
and university based education professors are the most anti-education presences
on the scene. All of the most vexing
issues pertinent to K-12 education are traceable to these lightly regarded
campus gadflies who embrace an anti-knowledge creed and preside over
academically insubstantial teacher training programs, the creed of which is
derived from Teachers College of Columbia University during the 1920s.
Next
come the administrators and teachers whom education professors train, those
central office and site-based putative educators who provide such little
education that the great bulk of graduates stride across the stage to claim a
piece of paper that is a diploma in name only.
Then
we have board members such as those of the the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS)
Board of Education, most of whom are sycophants of local unions such as the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT).
The
MFT itself comes next, protecting as it does many teachers who are incompetent
and should have departed teaching a long time ago.
And
then among the worst of the remaining greatest offenders are those who are or
have been in a position to advocate for change but do not do so, either while
they have their position or after they have departed. This includes all former MPS Board of Education
members, reporters for the Star Tribune,
and DFL legislators who are bought and paid for by the unions. And it includes high-profile public figures
who have misrepresented themselves as education advocates, including R. T.
Rybak, Don Samuels, former Minneapolis Foundation President/CEO Sandy Vargas,
and all past governors, both Republican and Democrat.
Further,
local districts and staff operate in an intellectually corrupt cast of
characters and policies at the national and state levels: this includes Miguel Cardona at the U. S.
Department of Education; and Heather
Mueller at the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE); the MDE is an abomination (check out, for
example, my articles on the North Star Accountability System and the preposterously
named Regional Centers of Excellence (RCEs).
>>>>> What are your thoughts in the current
budget debate?
There
are many budget debates, none of which end very happily for students in the
classrooms of Minnesota. Republicans and
Democrats are both culpable, but not for the reasons usually cited. Year after year, budgets provided vehemently
debated funding but with no structural changes necessary to construct
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum imparted by teachers
knowledgeable to impart such a curriculum.
Special
education and English Language Learners (ELL) constitute categories for which
funding is
inadequate; but per pupil allotments and other general
student population categories receive adequate funding. Funding is actually generous for students on
free/reduced price lunch; impoverished
students are hurt the worst by the failure of those in many quarters to
advocate for and implement the needed structural changes pertinent to
curriculum and teacher quality.
At
MPS, Senior Financial Officer (SFO) Ibrahima Diop is one of the three best at
his position in the nation. Do not worry
about MPS finances with him as leader:
Budgets are structurally balanced and the reserve fund is being rebuilt
after years of irresponsible SFO predecessors.
My Answers Based on More Conventional Assumptions
>>>>> What are the most anti-education groups
and state legislators in Minnesota?
There
are those who would like to see public education become privatized. To identify these, look for advocates of
vouchers and even many of those who take public funding for launching charter
schools but really have little interest in advocating for the general student
population and who start and operate such schools for pecuniary reasons.
Republican
legislators are the most likely to favor privatization and the many varieties
of “school choice”; they also espouse
local control and family options in their guise as defenders of freedom and
liberty.
In
conventional terms, these are the most anti-education groups--- but I return you to the more serious culprits
detailed under my first bold heading.
>>>>> What are your thoughts in the current
budget debate?
Republicans
are not as generous at budget formulation time as are Democrats. They have been less enthusiastic about early
childhood education, tending to think that is a familial, by which in sexist
terms they mean a motherly, matter.
At
the state level, Governor Walz seems likely to prevail with his generous
education funding proposal, and COVID funding from the federal government has
been a windfall.
The
current debate over private fundraising efforts at schools in poorer versus
affluent communities is a distraction from the main issues of curriculum and
teacher quality. There are inequities,
but the real issues are insubstantial curriculum and poor teacher quality at
the median.
Otherwise,
at MPS, trust SFO Ibrahima Diop--- and
return to my comments under the first bold heading.
……………………………………………………………………….
Read
my book, Understanding the Minneapolis
Public Schools: Current Condition,
Future Prospect.
Read
my academic journal, Journal of the K-12
Revolution: Essays and Research from
Minneapolis Minnesota.
Read
the 1800 articles on my blog--- the
recent ones, at the very least.
Don’t
get distracted.
Stay
focused on the most vexing issues
pertinent to curriculum and teacher quality.
My
very best to you---
Gary
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph.D.
Director, New Salem Educational
Initiative
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