An Analysis of >Star Tribune< Staff Writer Anthony Lonetree’s Expletive Punctuated Reply to My Incisive Email of 24 July 2021 >>>>>
The Ego-Based Nature of His Reply as
Evidence That This Education Beat Writer Cares Nothing About Education or Young
People
On Sunday, 24 July, I received the
following coarse reply to an email that I had sent him earlier that day >>>>>
Received from Star Tribune Staff Writer Anthony Lonetree, 24 July, 2021
Don't give me your bull[expletive]. I held back the first time. I seriously don't
need to hear from you.
Tony
Anthony Lonetree
Staff Writer
612-673-4109 (office)
612-875-0041 (cell)
Follow now this analysis of the correspondence that engendered the
email from Anthony Lonetree.
I include here the complete text of my email, interspersed with
comments indicating the important aspects of a correspondence that constituted
a compact presentation of the issues serving as the greatest impediments to the
design of an excellent system of preK-12 education >>>>>
The Email from Me
That Engendered Anthony’s Reply--- with
Comments as to the Vital Impediments to K-12 Excellent That Were of No Apparent
Interest to This Star Tribune St.Paul
Public Schools Education Beat Writer
Text of Email
July 24, 2021
Anthony---
Your article, “2 St. Paul School Board
Candidates Come Up Short of DFL Endorsement,” in yesterday’s 23 July 2021
edition of the Star Tribune is
another serviceable mediocrity, informational but requiring no courage to
write.
With regard to school boards, remember
that occupants are overwhelmingly agents of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL)
Party/Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) cohort that will always oppose
the necessary overhaul to
design and implement knowledge-intensive
curriculum and elevate teacher quality.
…………………………………………………………………………..
My Comment
Was
this observation what Anthony considered “bull[expletive]?
If
that be the case he fails to realize, or does not care, that the DFL/Education
Minnesota (including the union affiliates Minneapolis Federation of Teachers
[MFT] and St. Paul Federation of Teacher [SPFT]) cohort is among the greatest impediments
to public school excellence. DFLers can
always be counted on to provide more funding than Republicans but DFL party
members will never challenge the system that they are funding in ways that will
improve K-12 education. Democratic-Farmer-Labor
funding initiatives for early childhood education and for free community
college tution are worthy, but ignoring the structural impediments to excellence
of education at grades kindergarten through 12, which involve
knowledge-deficient curriculum and poor teacher quality at the median belies
ignorance, denial, or political cowardice.
……………………………………………………………………………
Text of Email
Even rare independent candidates fail
to comprehend the needed changes.
And
that is what an effective member of any school board should do: advocate for the the needed overhaul in
curriculum and teacher quality, upon an understanding that in doing so they
will have to oust many central office administrators. This means ousting current central office
leadership consisting of the superintendent and all academic program
decision-makers.
Such assertive action will require an
understanding of the needed changes, the depth of incompetence of central
administrators, the intellectual insubstantiality of all academic
decision-makers, the courage to serve as agents of change, and the political
independence of the MFT to challenge the inept education establishment.
…………………………………………………………………………..
My Comment
Was this also an observation what
Anthony considered “bull[expletive]?
Low
quality of school board members is another major vexation of K-12 education. Overwhelmingly, candidates backed by the
DFL/MFT cohort dominate school boards such as the Minneapolis Public Schools Board
of Education and the St. Paul Public Schools Board of Education. This means, similar to the variously
ignorant, in denial, or politically purchased Minnesota state legislators,
school board members will never act to make those structural changes necessary
to achieve educational excellence.
Very
likely, Anthony Lonetree is not willing to pursue this matter, depending as he
does for his stories on these and other members of the education establishment.
……………………………………………………………………………
Text of Email
Understand, then, that the DFL nominating process, which those of
us on the left will have to tolerate for positions such as mayor and
legislators, is corrupt with regard to public education issues: Members of the DFL are controlled by
Education Minnesota and local union affiliates.
Teacher unions will always oppose the installation of
knowledge-intensive curriculum that teachers at the median do not have the
academic training to impart, and they will oppose the needed teacher training
to prepare teachers able to deliver substantive knowledge and skill sets.
In this situation, the DFL-endorsed
candidacies of Halla Henderson, Uriah Ward, and Clayton Howatt should be viewed
with suspicion; and those of Jim Vue and
James Farnsworth considered more favorably, since if they are elected they will
not bear the moral weight of DFL/St. Paul Federation of Teacher sycophancy.
…………………………………………………………………………..
My Comment
Was this yet another observation what
Anthony considered “bull[expletive]?
The
sort of journalism that Anthony Lonetee (and that of his colleagues, Mara
Klecker [Minneapolis Pubic Schools beat] and Erin Golden [State of Minnesota
education beat] conduct is merely reportorial.
The above information provided by Anthony is useful to the immediate purpose
of notifying those few readers who really care about school board elections as
to the candidates who are running, endorsed or unendorsed. But these writers also frequently write
feel-good articles that highlight teachers and schools in some noble putative
endeavor, while the dominant reality is that our wretched public schools send
those student who manage to graduate across the stage to claim a piece of paper
that is a diploma in name only--- and
create citizens of such low knowledge bases that a Donald Trump becomes president
and a Covid-19 pandemic that should have been terminated by now is prolonged
because of science-denying, abominable behavior on the part of citizens.
Thus
do those who fail to investigate the impediments to excellence in an educational
system that produces such phenomena abet the prolongation and sustenance of
that system.
But
Anthony Lonetree must regard these truths as my “bull[expletive.”
As with so many others who sustain a corrupt system, Lonetree is variously
ignorant, in denial, or intellectually corrupt;
and, whatever the mix in his personal character that those qualities
constitute, Lonetree is likely just
trying to cling to his meager little job.
……………………………………………………………………………
Text of Email
You should at the very least be aware of the subtext of your
articles for anyone who comprehends the most vexatious issues of public
education.
And some day you should gather the
courage to shed your cover as a journalistic mediocrity and challenge the
curriculum, teacher quality, and institutional corruption that shortchanges our
precious young people in the public schools every day they go forth to another
day of academic abuse to which they are subjected by administrators and
teachers.
…………………………………………………………………………………
My Comment
Was
this also among the accumulating observations that constitute what Anthony
considered “bull[expletive]?
This
in all likelihood was one of those sections of my email that most offended
Antony Lonetree’s ego. But in that very
sentence I offered in the phrase, “curriculum, teacher quality, and
institutional corruption that shortchanges our precious young people in the
public schools,” a capsule reminder of the major impediments to public school
excellence.
Consistent,
though, with the other observations about which Lonetree demonstrates lack of
concern, he makes his reply to me with no reference to these truly vital
matters, instead reacting strictly from the posture of a wounded ego.
……………………………………………………………………………
Text of Email
I signed off at the completion of my
email of 24 July 2021 to Anthony Lonetree as follows >>>>>
With
the comprehension that comes with 50 years of teaching students at the urban
core---
Gary
Gary
Marvin Davison, Ph.D.
Director,
New Salem Education Initiative
http://www.newsalemeducation.blogspot.com
My Comment
A person truly interested in education and young people might find
such experience a matter of considerable note.
But Anthony Lonetree and such journalistic mediocrities who
prevail on the education beat are typically not truly interested in education.
They are variously ignorant, in denial,
or cowardly cooperative.
Anthony Lonetree, Mara Klecker, and
Erin Golden collect a meager paycheck while acting as agents of an education
establishment that denies our precious young people the knowledge and skills
that they need to go forth to lives of cultural enrichment, civic
participation, and professional satisfaction.
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