Article #5
Minneapolis Public Schools As Saliently
Sustaining Wretched Public
Education with Typically
Academically Vacuous Leadership >>>>>
The Academic Hopelessness of the Ed Graff
Tenure
Ed Graff was doomed to failure as Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) from the beginning of his tenure on 1 July 2016.
Numerous
duties pertain to the role of superintendent of a locally centralized school
district; among those duties, academic leadership, toward creation of
knowledge-intensive curriculum and training of teachers capable of imparting
such curriculum, is paramount.
Graff
could never have been such a leader.
His
academic training is insubstantial.
Graff's
undergraduate degree (B. A, University of Alaska/Fairbanks) was in
elementary education, entailing the most academically unsubstantial course of
study on any university campus. His graduate degree (M.Ed., University of
Southern Mississippi) was in educational administration--- an online
professional degree involving no substantial academic training.
Thus,
despite Graff's commendable trust in superlative Senior Finance Officer
Ibrahima Diop to put MPS finances in
order with structurally balanced budgets, and reliance on the strengths of
Senior Operations Officer Karen Devet and Senior Information Technology Officer
Justin Hennes in their respective areas, Graff has not overseen the development
of the academic program that is at the core of the mission of any locally
centralized school district.
The
Unfortunate Decision to Install Aimee Fearing as Senior Academic Officer
No
one with the proper qualifications has occupied the post at the top of the
academic division during the tenure of Ed Graff. His early decision to
oust the incapable Susanne Griffin was correct, but Graff soon installed Eric
Moore in the position.
Opposition
to that move by inept staff in the wasteland known as the Department of
Teaching and Learning could be construed as a compliment, but for entirely
different reasons Moore was not the person for the role. Moore's gifts,
still utilized as Senior Accountability, Research, and Equity Officer, is in
data collection and analysis, not in matters of curriculum design and teacher
training.
Graff
retreated for many months to a state of affairs in which he acted as senior
academic leader, then he quixotically turned to former Wellstone International
High School Principal Aimee Fearing, who for many months held the title of
Interim Senior Academic Officer; just a few weeks ago, Graff removed the
interim designation.
Fearing
has no training in any key academic subject (mathematics, biology, chemistry,
physics, history, government, economics, geography, literature). Her
undergraduate training is in English as a Second Language (ESL); both her
master's and doctorate were conferred by education programs.
The
Academically Insubstantial Program of Ed Graff
The
four major components of Graff's academic program have been woefully inadequate
from the beginning.
The
components are social and emotional learning (endeavoring to ensure that students
are socially and emotionally prepared to receive academic instruction),
multi-tiered system of support (MTSS, seeking to remove all nonacademic
impediments to student learning and focusing instruction on each student's most
critical needs), literacy, and equity.
But
social and emotional learning, even if effectively implemented (which has not
been the case) is only preparatory to academic learning.
Multi-tiered
system of support has been hazy as to detail and ineffective as to
implementation.
Literacy
is an embarrassing low academic bar that has even more embarrassingly not been
achieved (only 46% of MPS students at grade level in reading [with only 35% at
grade level in mathematics]).
Equity
will only come by providing knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum to
students of all demographic descriptors.
And
while the MPS Comprehensive District Design (CDD) admirably rationalizes
transportation routes, centrally locates magnet programs, and induces
attendance at neighborhood schools, the academic section is full of education
professor jargon and bereft of specifics as to curriculum and teacher training.
Ed
Graff's failure is grievous and manifest.
He
must go.
The Qualifications Needed in the Next
Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools--- and
the Imperative Overhaul of Curriculum and Teacher Quality
No
one who possesses a superintendent's license is on the basis of that formal
requirement likely to be the needed academic leader of the district >>>>>
Her
or his graduate training will have emphasized educational administration, not a
key academic subject area.
Therefore,
the next superintendent must hire as
senior academic officer a university-based or independent scholar to
oversee
>>>>> the development of knowledge-intensive,
skill-replete curriculum for logically sequenced implementation across grades
preK though 12;
>>>>> and the training of teachers capable of
implementing such a curriculum.
The
central office bureaucracy should be slimmed and refocused on the impartation
of knowledge-intensive curriculum.
The
Department of Teaching and Learning should be disbanded, to be replaced by
scholars selected for design of knowledge intensive curriculum in the liberal,
technological, and vocational arts and for the training of teachers capable of
delivering such a curriculum.
Upon
the basis of curriculum in history and literature that necessarily includes all
cultures, the ineffective Office of Black Student Achievement should be
eliminated and the legislatively mandated Department of Indian Education
restaffed with academicians.
Included
in bureaucratic slimming should be the dismissal of associate superintendents
Shawn Harris-Berry, Ron Wagner, and Brian Zambreno, with the return of Rochelle
Cox to special education leadership.
The
position of administrator, office of the superintendent (currently designated
for annual remuneration in excess of $190,000), should be jettisoned, entailing
the dismissal or reassignment of Suzanne Kelly.
While
diminution of central office bureaucracy should proceed vigorously, a new
Department of Resource Provision and Referral should be established, staffed
with people comfortable on the streets and in the homes of students from
families struggling with dilemmas of finances and functionality. Current
Director of the Office of Black Student Achievement Michael Walker is qualified
to lead this new department.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Ed
Graff's tenure as Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools must end.
A
new program featuring knowledge-intensive curriculum and teacher-scholars must
be implemented.
The
recommendations that I have rendered for bringing excellent public education to
all of our precious children, of all demographic descriptors, in the
Minneapolis Public Schools, are also those that should be followed in locally
centralized school districts throughout the United States.
We
can afford wretched public education in this nation, with the resulting
ignorant citizenry, no longer.
There
are lives in the balance.
We
must act.
The time is now.
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