>Star Tribune< Columnist Myron Medcalf Offers Another Mediocre Paean Consonant with Liberal Ineffectiveness, As Opposed to the Radical Action Needed to Address the Dilemma Identified--- And the Real Dilemma is That Revealed by the Heavy Toll Taken on Native American Students at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Due to the Abysmal Quality of MPS Curriculum and Teaching

Myron Medcalf returned with a column in today’s edition of the Star Tribune, after quite a few weeks giving readers a break from his uncreative, cowardly journalistic fare.  He delivered the typical liberal’s identification of an important societal dilemma (as opposed to the radical call for action needed) that presumably makes his meager following and himself feel oh so very noble but offers nothing that can actually impel the needed on-the-ground activism needed for change.

Only when we address a wretched system of public education that shortchanges those historically abused populations most catastrophically will we actually arm those populations with the knowledge and skills needed for advocacy and systemic overhaul.

Medcalf and other liberal do-gooders should give full focus to the following brutal realities concerning academic proficiency rates, abysmal performance of schools that serve Native American populations, and the staff members culpable for their particular ineptitude while gaining remuneration within a system that abuses American Indian student populations so immorally.

Perpend  >>>>>

>>>>> 

The Department of Indian Education at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is legislatively mandated, so that unlike the MPS Office of Black Male Achievement, this academically hopeless entity cannot be disbanded.  But the 15-member department should be overhauled for focus on academic achievement, so that most of the current staff is dismissed, to be replaced by scholarly academicians whose unrelenting mission is to provide the knowledge and skills sets that American Indian students need to go forth in the world as culturally enriched, civically engaged, and professionally satisfied citizens.

A retrained MPS teaching staff, including those at schools such as Anishinabe Academy and South High School with high percentages of Native American students, should be especially attentive to the literature and history of American Indians while imparting the knowledge and skills sets to be received by all MPS students in the overhaul of curriculum at the district.

Remember that the 31-member staff of Teaching and Learning and the following staff members at the Minneapolis Public Schools are most culpable for the knowledge-deficient, skill-deplete curriculum that academically abuses MPS students  >>>>>

>>>>> 

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.

But Department of Indian Education Director Jennifer Rose Simon, who receives an annual salary of $115,379, and the department’s other staff members, whose salaries total approximately $1,300,000, are also deeply culpable for the academic abuse specifically heaped on Native American students.

Proficiency rates for American Indian students for years ending in 2014-2021 are given as follows, succeeded by a list of staff members of the MPS Department of Teaching and Learning   >>>>>

>>>>> 

Minneapolis Public Schools Department of Indian Education

Academic Proficiency for American Students,

as Indicated by Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs)

Academic Years Ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021

(Note   >>>>>     No MCAs were administered during the academic year ending in 2020.)

Reading

2014   2015   2016   2017   2018   2019   2021    

  21%   20%   21%   23%   24%   25%   20%

Mathematics                      

2014   2015   2016   2017   2018   2019   2021             

 23%   19%    19%   17%  17%   18%    9%

Science

2014   2015   2016   2017   2018   2019   2021                          

 14%   16%    13%  17%    14%   17%   9%

Department of Indian Education Staff, Minneapolis Public Schools

Jennifer Simon, Director

(Cheyenne River Dakota) 

Diane Leaskas, Account Specialist

Christina Wilson, Family Engagement Specialist

(White Earth)

Alexis Dauenhauer, School Success Program Assistant

(Standing Rock)

Patrick Engrav, School Success Program Assistant

(Bois Forte)

David Stier, School Success Program Assistant

Leo Baker, School Success Program Assistant/ Senior Graduation Coach

(Upper Sioux Community)

Jodi Burke, Counselor on Special Assignment

Tracy Burke, Counselor on Special Assignment

Branden Canfield, Social Worker

Jennifer Weber, Special Education District Program Facilitator

(Oklahoma Choctaw)

Anjanette Parisien, District Program Facilitator

(Turtle Mountain)

Mathew La Fave, Ojibwe Language Teacher

(Fon Du Lac)

Shiela Zephler, Dakota Language Teacher

(Oglala Sioux, Turtle Mountain)

Tate Wilson, Social Studies Teacher

(Sisseton Wahpeton)

 

Tatanka Academy

Reading

2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

  17%     0%   -----    -----    -----     -----   -----  

(12)      (6)    (---)     (---)    (---)    (---)    (---) 

Math

2014   2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

 17%     0%   -----    -----    -----     -----   -----  

(12)     (6)     (---)    (---)    (---)     (---)    (---) 

Science

2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021                                                                                  

 -----   -----   -----    -----    ------    -----    -----

 (---)   (---)    (---)     (---)    (---)    (---)    (---)  

American Indian AOC

Reading

2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

 14%   -----     -----     14%  -----     -----    ----- 

  (7)     (---)    (---)      (7)     (---)    (---)    (---)

Math

2014   2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

  0%       0%    -----     0%    -----     -----    ----- 

Science

2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021                                                                                  

 -----    -----     19%  -----    -----      11%  -----                    

Anishinabe

Reading

2014  2015  2016  2017 2018 2019  2021

  7%     9%     9%      6%    16%   12%   15%

(186) (175) (154) (157)  (99)  (111)   (54)

Math

2014   2015  2016  2017 2018  2019  2021

  6%    12%     8%       8%    8%     11%     5%

(186) (172) (156)   (156)   (98)   (109)  (53)

Science

2014  2015  2016  2017  2018 2019  2021

  1%      7%     2%     2%      14%    8%     5%

(69)    (59)   (45)     (44)    (21)   (36)    (19)

 

The Tuesday, 12 April 2022, Meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education Serves as a Metaphor for the Public Ignorance that Characterizes the United States at this Historical Juncture

The Tuesday, 12 April, meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education, ensued as metaphor for much of what ails the United States and public education at this juncture in the nation’s history.

 

The meeting was dominated again by students and parents (especially Hispanic) conveying their dissatisfaction with the additional 42 minutes to each school day and the additional two weeks necessary to meet state law regarding the total required 165 hours of time in class.

I alone among those making Public Comments spoke on another topic, opting not to go with Brutus’s exhortation to Cassius to “take the current when it serves” after all, having become convinced of how my knowledge of the life of Ella Baker could be used to challenge MPS officials and board members to meet her high standard for opposing the status quo.

Thus did I tell the members of the MPS Board of Education that Baker was an ardent activist who upon inspiration taken from the Montgomery Bus Boycott went to work for Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) then, finding the pace of that organization too slow, became one of the organizers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).  I told the crowd assembled that as she organized young people from that organization and from the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) in sit-ins, multiracial bus rides, and voter registration drives, she also assisted Fannie Lou Hamer in organizing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party when the Mississippi delegation sent an all-white slate to the 1964 Democratic Convention. 

I related Ella Baker’s participation in the agitation that eventually led to Angela Davis’s release on trumped-up murder charges in California, then how she made common cause on an array of issues with white leftists Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.  And I told the board and audience assembled that inasmuch as Ella Baker was a socialist working against the status quo for fundamental change, her spirit was much more of the kind animating my sister Adriana Cerrillo (I had already expressed my joy in seeing her and Sharon El-Amin ensconced in their places on the board) than in the status quo maintenance that characterizes most board members and many Davis Center (MPS central offices) staff members. 

And I very pointedly in my parting comment said that the Ella Baker spirit would take umbrage at the back-room maneuverings for maintaining the status quo exhibited by board members Nelson Inz, Kim Caprini, Kim Ellison, and Jenny Arneson.

My comments took as their point of departure the renaming of two schools, Jefferson (named for the Founder) and Sheridan (originally named for Union General Phillip Henry Sheridan, who after the war worked to create and protect Yellowstone National Park but also led removal campaigns against Native Americans).  The name of  Jefferson was to be replaced with that of Ella Baker;  the name of Sheridan was to be replaced by Las Estrellas (“the stars”).  Implied in my comments was the signal that I would be observing and calling particular board members out upon the probability that they would, as has been done in the case of Martin Luther King, use this moment to invoke feel-good themes of racial harmony and white do-goodism while avoiding mention of the revolutionary spirit that characterized Ella Baker’s life.  

I did not on this occasion take my limited Public Comment time to explain that, although our  admiration for the real Ella Baker should run deep and inspire us to make fundamental changes for knowledge-intensive education and high-quality teaching, Jefferson is among the greatest Americans who ever lived, the person who set forth the ideals in the Declaration of Independence and, during his tenures as Secretary of State and U.S. President and as leader of the Democratic Republican Party, set in motion the processes by which the nation could become an ever more democratic society, a person who articulated ideals that found their way into James Madison’s U.S. Constitution and inspired Frederick Douglass and anti-lynching leader Ida B. Wells-Barnett.  Thus we should not engage in simplistic thinking that fails to recognize that two and half centuries ago these men, whose lives did in fact feature the slaveholding abomination, nevertheless established the legal framework for the first nation in history to move toward ever greater equity and inclusive citizenship: 

Jefferson was among those who made the career of Ella Baker possible.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

I doubt seriously if more than five people in the packed assembly room had the historical knowledge to comprehend my comments.

That lack of comprehension assuredly pertains to the students who arose and spoke to argue against the extended time in school, an advocacy that was poignant and expressed very real pent-up anger but was full of very telling implications:

>>>>> Speaker after speaker said that the extended time was burdensome, to students who had to defer the start of summer jobs and internships, families whose plans would be disrupted, and lives that needed the recuperation of summer after an exhausting and fraught school year.  But I and the board members, including, Adriana Cerrillo and Sharon El-Amin, recognized the reality of needing the schedule extension to meet state laws---  so that every one of the speakers in opposition to the change was hopelessly naïve in thinking that they could change the inevitable board approval that came once the short post-Public Comments business meeting ensued.

 >>>>>           And, as is ever the case except in my own comments, not a single speaker recognized the real source of dissatisfaction in the drudgery that is the classroom experience of students in the Minneapolis Public Schools.  Further, the speakers assumed that their teachers deserved the negotiated pay raises, when (however much as a practical matter for now they would inevitably get their two percent raise and other concessions) the typical teacher does not deserve the median $75,000 remuneration currently received:  They are the ill-trained acolytes of education professors who provide such deficient subject area instruction and the basic skills that students move across the stage at graduation to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only.

 >>>>>           But the students were most definitely saying that they did not want to endure any more class time.  My students in the New Salem Educational Initiative clamor for more of my time in the summer and sit waiting on a list 25 deep.

Thus did we have revealed at this Tuesday, 12 April 2022, meeting of the MPS Board of Education historical ignorance, facile reasoning, political naivete, lack of understanding of the actual sources of frustration, and disgruntlement expressed in ways deleterious to the interests of those conveying their disgruntlement.

As Malcolm X would say, staring straight into a television camera as if he were going to break it,

“As you can see---  there’s a problem here.

Ever is there much for the actual agent of change to disentangle before and as the process of change is activated.

Understand the Importance of Selecting the Member of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education Who Will Replace Josh Pauly

Josh Pauly was one of the district-wide, at-large members of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education until he resigned in the midst of negotiations between the district and the unions of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Education Support Professionals.

 

At the meeting of the board last evening (Tuesday, 12 April 2022), many speakers---    especially middle and high school students---   arose to express their opposition to the 42 additional minutes each school day and the two extra weeks that were included in the agreement that ended the strike.

 

I find the district’s claim that the extra time and days needed to meet state requirements for time in class to be valid, but I understand that students and parents are frustrated.  But in my analytical framework, the source of the frustration, not well understood by those arising in opposition to the additional hours and days, lies in the academically insubstantial education received every day by students of the Minneapolis Public Schools, so that extra time enduring

knowledge-deficient, skill-deplete coursework and uncreative pedagogy heavy on videos and worksheets makes the extra time objectionable.

 

After the time period for public comment ended, the board proceeded with a short but very important regular meeting.  After overseeing pro forma votes on contracts and the like and approval to name changes for Sheridan (to Las Estrellas) and Jefferson (to Ella Baker) schools, MPS Board Chair Kim Ellison made two important announcements.

 

1)  Applications will be open for the seat vacated by Pauly beginning on Thursday, 14 April and extending through Thursday, 28 April;  the vote on Pauly’s replacement will take place at the Tuesday, 10 May, meeting of the board.

 

2)  At that same meeting, after purportedly considering and discussing in the course of the next four weeks candidates for the interim superintendent position necessary given that Ed Graff’s resignation will end his tenure on 30 June 2022, the board will also at that 10 May meeting take a vote to select the interim superintendent.

 

3)  And at that very 10 May meeting, the process for conducting the search for a permanent superintendent will also be announced.

 

These are critical decisions.  I have discussed the matter of the interim and permanent superintendent positions and will continue to provide much more analysis and commentary on these vital matters.

 

But those decisions will be greatly affected by the composition of the board, which in the aftermath of Pauly’s departure, consists of four political hacks devoted to the abysmal status quo---  Nelson Inz, Kim Caprini, Kim Ellison, and Jenny Arneson;  two forward looking, independent voices of great integrity---  Adriana Cerrillos and Sharon El-Amin;  and two members---  Siad Ali and Ira Jourdain---  who may be moving toward the values embraced by Cerrillos and El-Amin.  If the latter is true, the vote to replace Pauly becomes particularly critical, in ways that will affect many decisions, the initially most vital of which will be selection of the interim and long-term superintendent positions.

 

Examine, then, the following list, knowing that the four objectionable defenders of the status quo---  Inz, Caprini, Ellison, and Arneson---  are listed first;  followed by the very promising agents of critically needed change---  Cerrillos and El-Amin;  and then the two members---  Ali and Jourdain---  who seem to be encouragingly evolving toward the values of Cerrillos and El-Amin.

 

Be active.

 

Be alert.

 

Be in communication with the agents of change.

 

And be present at the meeting of Tuesday, 10 May 2022, of the MPS Board of Education.

 

Perpend  >>>>>

 

 

The Political Hack Defenders of the Abysmal Status Quo  >>>>>

Nelson Inz, Kim Caprini, Kim Ellison, and Jenny Arneson

 

>>>>> 

 

 

Kim Ellison

Board of Education, Chair
Kim.Ellison@mpls.k12.mn.us  |  612.668.0445
Term: 2021-2025  |  At-Large

 

Jenny Arneson

Board of Education, Vice-Chair
Jenny.Arneson@mpls.k12.mn.us  |  612.382.0734
Term: 2019-2023  |  District 1

 

Nelson Inz

Board of Education, Clerk
Nelson.Inz@mpls.k12.mn.us | 612.206.5284
Term: 2019-2023 | District 5

Kimberly Caprini

Board of Education, Treasurer
Kimberly.Caprini@mpls.k12.mn.us | 612.876.1838
Term: 2019-2023 | At-Large

 

High-Integrity Agents of Change  >>>>>

Adriana Cerrillos and Sharon El-Amin

 

>>>>> 

 

Adriana Cerrillo

Board of Education, Director
Adriana.Cerrillo@mpls.k12.mn.us | 612.986.1613
Term: 2021-2025 | District 4

Sharon El-Amin

Board of Education, Director
Sharon.El-Amin@mpls.k12.mn.us | 612.986.3281
Term: 2021-2025  |  District 2

 

Demonstrating Possibility of Evolution Toward Values Demonstrated by Cerrillos and El-Amin  >>>>>    Siad Ali and Ira Jourdain

 

>>>>> 

 

 

Siad Ali

Board of Education, Director
Siad.Ali@mpls.k12.mn.us | 612.206.5204
Term: 2019-2023 | District 3

 

Ira Jourdain

Board of Education, Director
Ira.Jourdain@mpls.k12.mn.us | 612.757.6469
Term: 2021-2025  |  District 6

In Seeking a New Superintendent, the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education Must Go Outside the Ill-Trained Education Establishment Saliently Represented by Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) Commissioner of Education Heather Mueller, Deputy Commissioner of Education Stephanie Burrage, and Program Manager Teresa M. Taylor; >>>>> And in Other Performances of the Education Establishment >>>>> The Abysmal Academic Proficiency Rates at Sheridan and Jefferson Schools (in need of much more than name changes)

In seeking a new superintendent, the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education must go outside the ill-trained education establishment saliently represented by Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) Commissioner of Education Heather Mueller, Deputy Commissioner of Education Stephanie Burrage, and Program Manager Teresa M. Taylor.

The abysmal state of public education in the United States generally, in the state of Minnesota, and in the Minneapolis Public Schools is traceable to the terrible training that prospective teachers and administrators receive under education professors in departments, schools, and colleges of education.   

Administrator and teacher training proceeds mostly in the absence of any subject area specificity, so that very few central office administrators, building principals, or teachers have much knowledge in the key subject areas of mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, economics, geography, or English or world literature.  Departments, schools, and colleges of education are degree mills and cash cows for colleges and universities that bestow graduate degrees that allow teachers to move up the step and lane system of increased remuneration while getting very slight subject area training. 

Those wishing to move into administration typically seek graduate degrees in educational administration that provide some instruction applicable to managing large organizations but offer no subject area education.  

Those in roles of leadership at the Minnesota Department of Education or positions as locally centralized school district superintendents are not scholarly academicians. 

Examine the training of Principal State Program Manager Terresa M. Taylor, Deputy Commissioner of Education Stephanie Burrage, and Commissioner of Education Heather Mueller to understand the vacuity of their academic training.  Note that Mueller is curiously not the highest paid member of the Minnesota Department of Education, only third, behind Taylor and Burrage.

Teresa M. Taylor ($89.30/ hour;  estimated $178,600/year)

Principal State Program Manager

 

Ed.D. (Educational Leadership)

Bethel University (St. Paul, Minnesota)

 

Masters of Education (M.Ed.)

St. Thomas University (St. Paul Minnesota)

 

B.S. (Business Administration)

Metropolitan State University

 

Stephanie Burrage ($76.66/ hour;  estimated $152,720/year)

Deputy Commissioner of Education

 

Ed.D. (Educational Policy and Administration)

University of Minnesota/Twin Cities

M.Ed.

St. Mary’s University

M.Ed. (Elementary Education)

University of Wisconsin/Madison

 

B.A. (Secondary Education)

Western Michigan University

  

Heather Mueller ($71.84/ hour;  estimated $143,680/year)

(Minnesota Commissioner of Education)

 

Ed. D. (Doctor of Education)                

St. Mary’s University of Minnesota

 

M. Ed. (Educational Leadership with Emphasis on Organizational Analysis and Change)            

Minnesota State University, Mankato           

 

Specialist Degree                                     

Minnesota State University, Mankato           

Educational Leadership and Administration, General

 

B. Ed. (Social Studies)                                                           

Minnesota State University, Mankato           

 

Associate Arts Degree                          

Arizona Western College       

General Studies

.................................................................................................................................................

Two Academically Wretched Schools   >>>>>

>>>>>

Jefferson Global Studies & Humanities School BM (PK-8)

Jefferson Global Studies & Humanities School BM (PK-8)

1200 West 26th Street 55405

668-2720;

Fax 668-2730

7:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Holly Kleppe, P

Sara Naegeli, AP

Cindy Hauser, Secretary

School                          District                                                 

Native American                               4%                                 5%

African American                          46%                                36%

Asian American                                3%                                 5%

Hispanic American                        37%                                14%

White American                            10%                                41%

English                                             43%                               17%

Language

Learner                

Free/                                               81%                                48%

Reduced Price

Lunch                               

Special                                            14%                               15%

Education

Jefferson Community

Reading

2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

18%   15%  17%  16%  19%  21%  17% 

(364) (363)  (385)  (362)  (343) (294) (113)

Math

2014   2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

 17%   17%  16%  14%  13%  13%  4% 

(380) (363)  (385)  (362)  (343) (294) (113)

Science

2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

 11%   10%  12%  11%  11%   11%  0% 

(114) (129)  (121)  (112)  (105) (93) (111)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Sheridan Dual Language Elementary (PK-5)

Sheridan Dual Language Elementary (PK-5) CV

1201 University Avenue NE 55413

668-1130; Fax

668-1140

7:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Yajaira Guzman Carrero, P

Amy Kennedy, AP

Patricia Gonzalez, Secretary

School                          District                                                 

Native American                               1%                                 5%

African American                            13%                               36%

Asian American                                 1%                                5%

Hispanic American                          65%                              14%

White American                              19%                              41%

English                                               52%                             17%

Language

Learner                

Free/                                                 51%                              48%

Reduced Price

Lunch                                

Special                                              9%                               15%

Education

Sheridan

Reading

2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

17%  18%   19%  16%  22%  26%  12% 

(190) (191)  (207)  (185) (164)  (90)   (69)

Math

2014   2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

31%    35%  24%  21%  23%   14%  11% 

(191) (195)  (209)  (179) (186)  (85)   (54)

Science

2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019  2021

 4%   19%   16%  13%   7%    21%  0%

(46)    (48)   (64)    (48)    (75)    (33)   (19)