Article #1
Internally Sustaining Nature of
Our Wretched System of PreK-12 Education
Of the many articles and opinion
pieces to appear in the Star Tribune during the last weeks and
months, not a single one focuses on the key vexations of our wretched system of
public education in Minnesota.
Those vexations are
knowledge-deficient curriculum and abysmal teacher training.
But one of the many consequences
of our abysmal system of public education is the development of certain
features that serve to sustain that very system while distracting journalists
and the public from the brutal reality of the key vexations.
Coverage in the Star
Tribune has focused on the challenges posed by the resurgence of
Covid-19 in the forms of delta and omicron variants, including the struggles
with online learning; exacerbation of the bus driver shortage; and
angry standoffs between those supportive of Covid mitigation policies and those
against masks or vaccinations.
The proposed new social studies
standards have induced negative comment from guest writers for being too
focused on the abuses perpetrated by populations of European provenance upon
those of African and American Indian ancestry, inducing in turn rebuttals from
those who tout those standards for telling truths that have often been absent
from curricula.
We have also had paeans to
teachers from writers Sarah Haugen and Tracy Lysne, who urge us to be
empathetic to those who feel burned out due to Covid-19 exigencies, which have
worsened a situation already grave due to abiding systemic pressures (“Teacher
burnout isn’t new, only worse,” Star Tribune, January 23,
2022); and Al Zdon, who tells us to discuss the standards from both sides
vigorously but ultimately have faith in “highly qualified teachers” in local
schools to implement the standards (“Debate the standards, but trust the
teachers,” Star Tribune, February 7, 2022).
We have Jeffrey Aaron Snyder
(“Conservatives are the new ‘discomfort’ police,” Star Tribune,
February 1, 2022) cautioning us that bans on books and speakers have been urged
by those of the left as well as the right on the political spectrum, so that
both sides threaten intellectual freedom. Others have advocated for
state and federal funding for early childhood as key to assuring that young
people of all economic classes prosper academically.
None of the above, though,
whatever one may think of their virtue in addressing social issues, is
pertinent to the core vexations of preK-12 education. Most likely the
failure to confront the brutal truths concerning public education in Minnesota
is because the reality is either recondite to the writers or too daunting to
face.
Here is the truth:
None of the key figures in public
education at the federal, state, or local levels are well-educated enough to
make the needed changes. Inspect the academic preparation of United
States Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Minnesota Commissioner of
Education Heather Mueller, St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Joe Gothard,
and Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Ed Graff and you’ll find that not
one has received a graduate degree in a key subject area discipline;
overwhelmingly, their degrees have been bestowed by education programs that
feature the most academically insubstantial courses on any college campus
(aforementioned writers Haugen, Lysne, and Snyder are among the guilty
professorial sustainers of such courses) .
Investigate further and you’ll
find that the same grim reality is mostly true for central office
administrators, building principals, and teaching staffs; while those
trained to teach secondary subject areas may have undergraduate degrees in
legitimate fields (mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, political
science, economics, literature, fine arts), they have since the 1990s been
induced to seek advancement on the “step and lane” system via lightweight
graduate programs in education.
The Minnesota Department of
Education (MDE) North Star Accountability System and the federal Every Student
Succeeds Act (ESSA) offer no hope for providing our precious young people with
the knowledge and analytical skills that they need to go forth as informed
citizens. Thus do we get the abominably ignorant body politic that our
incompetent public education establishment produces.
We have no hope of healing our
suffering society until we address the knowledge-deficiency and woeful teaching
in our preK-12 system of education.
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