Article #3
The Consequences of Academically Inept
Administrators and
Teachers for African American Families Living
at the Urban Core
Ed Graff is the Superintendent of the
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS); his salary is $230,000 per
annum.
Aimee Fearing is MPS Senior Academic
Officer; her salary is $174,971.
Maria Rollinger is MPS Deputy Senior
Academic Officer; her salary is $146,813.
Jennifer Rose is Executive Director of
the K-12 program; her salary is $126,874.
These four officials and the 31 staff
members of MPS Department of Teaching and Learning are most responsible for the
abysmal academic program of the district.
But to address the particularly
troubling academic proficiency levels of African American males in the
Minneapolis Public Schools, an Office of Black Male Student Achievement was
opened in 2014; by the 2020-2021 academic year, the office had been
renamed as the Office of Black Student Achievement. This office also
bears responsibility for low academic proficiency levels of African America
youth.
Michael Walker, a former Dean of
Students at Roosevelt High School, is Director of the MPS Office of Black
Student Achievement. He was a very effective Dean of Students
and has enormous skills in connecting with young people and their
families. But he has no degree in a key academic subject area, and
he has failed miserably in his current position. When he took the
position, Walker said that he would know that he had been successful when he
had worked himself out of a job; seven and a half years on, Walker
has still not worked himself out of a job, but with a starting salary of
$114,000 and a current salary of $140,577, Walker is $26,000 per year richer in
2022 than he was is 2014.
Walker’s staff includes the
following >>>>>
Office of Black Male Student
Achievement Staff, Minneapolis Pubic Schools
Michael Walker, Director
Dena Luna, Educational Equity
Coordinator
Nneka N. Abdullah., Queens Program
Umar Rashid, MPA Kings Program
Qiana Surrell, Program Coordinator
Jamil Jackson, Classroom Coach
Richard Magembe, Classroom Coach
Marquez Walker, Classroom Coach
Isa Kibira, Classroom Coach
Graff, Fearing, Rollinger, and Rose all have
weak academic training; none holds a masters or doctorate in a key
subject area. Among the many catastrophic consequences of the
anti-knowledge ideology of education professors having become dominant from the
1970s forward is witnessed in the low academic quality of central office administrators,
which also pertains to staff through the bureaucracy and at the building level.
And the paramount consequence of
having such low-quality administrators and classroom teachers is witnessed in
the abysmal academic record of the district. With regard to African
American youth at the Minneapolis Public Schools, most of whom live in
low-income families, the record that follows offers little hope for breaking
cycles of multigenerational familial poverty; for many, the chances
for lives lived on mean streets leading to early death or incarceration will be
high.
Consider the following dismal record >>>>>
>>>>>
Academic Proficiency Rates for African
American Students at the Minneapolis Public Schools
Results of Minnesota Comprehensive
Assessments (MCAs)
Academic Years Ending in 2014, 2015,
2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021
(Note >>>>> The
MCAs were not administered for the academic year ending in 2020.)
Reading
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
22% 21% 21% 21% 22% 23% 19%
Mathematics
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
22% 23% 21%
18% 18% 18% 9%
Science
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
11% 15% 13% 12% 11% 11% 11%
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