Article #3
An Open Letter to >Star Tribune< Reporter Anthony Lonetree Regarding the First of Two Articles Written on Saturday, 23 July 2021 >>>>> “2 St. Paul School Board Candidates Come Up Short of DFL Endorsement”
>>>>> An Initial Very Big Biog Hint to My Readers
With regard to school boards, remember that the Minneapolis Public Schools edition features seven hopeless members and two that seem likely to prove disappointing.
Jenny Arneson (District 1), Siad Ali (District 3), Nelson Inz (District 5), Ira Jourdain (District 6), Josh Pauly (At-large) and Kim Ellison (At-Large) are all agents of the Democratic-Farmer-Labot (DFL)/Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) cohort that will always oppose the necessary overhaul to desing and implement knowledge-intensive curriculum and elevated teacher quality.
Ariana Cerrillo (District 4) will continue to be an improvement over former occupant Bob Walser and Sharon El Amin (District 2) much better than KerryJo Felder but neither of these members who were elected in November 2020 seems poised to advocate for the needed changes.
And that is what an effective member of any school board should do: advocate for the needed overhaul in curriculum and teacher quality, upon an understanding that in doing so they will have to oust many central officer administrators. At the Minneapolis Pubic Schools (MPS), this would mean facilitating the exit of MPS Superintendent Ed Graff; Interim Senior Academic Offficer Aimee Fearing; Associate Superintendents Shawn Harris-Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner, and Brian Zambreno; and the entire 27-member MPS Department of Teaching and Learning.
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.
With that very big hint in view, now read Anthony Lonetree’s shorter of two articles in the Saturday, 23 2021 edition of the Star Tribune >>>>>
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“2 St. Paul School Board Candidates Come Up Short of DFL Endorsement”
(Anthony Lonetree, Star Tribune, 23 July 2021)
St. Paul’s all- virtual DFL city convention wrapped up Friday with no endorsement being given to two candidates seeking a four-year school board seat.
Jim Vue, the board’s vice-chairman, and James Farnsworth, a member of the Unversity of Minnesota Board of Regents, fell short of the 60% delegate support needed for the party nod.
Earlier, DFLers endorsed three school board candidates, leaving Vue and Farnsworth to compete for support in the second round of balloting that ended Thursday. The field tally had Vue at 58.7%, Farnsworth at 35.6%, and “no endorsement” at 5.7%.
The filing period for the city’s mayoral and school board elections opens Tuesday.
The final slate of DFL-endorsed candidates includes Mayor Melvin Carter, who is seeking a second term in office; Halla Henderson and Uriah Wood, who aim to fill two fo the three four-year school board seats up for election; and Clayton Howatt, who wants to complete the remaining two years of the seat vacated by former member Steve Marchese.
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>>>>> A Moment for Readers to Ruminate
Readers now take a moment to think about the subtext of the Lonetree article, the actual issues of importance versus the surface issues always covered by the cowardly reporers of the Star Tribune.
Then read my opn letter to Anthony Lonetree pertinent to the article of
note >>>>>
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July 24, 2021
Anthony---
You 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. 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 officer 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.
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.
You should at the very least be aware of the subtext of your articles for anone 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.
With the comprehension that comes with 50 years of teaching students at the urban core---
Gary
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