May 2, 2022

Seizing the Unprecedented Opportunity Presented in the Selection of a New Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools

Ed Graff’s resignation as Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) presents an unprecedented opportunity to overhaul curriculum and teacher quality at a locally centralized school district that can serve as model for other districts throughout the nation.

To achieve the needed overhaul we must move logically from a vision of excellence in education, toward the succession of steps that must be taken as the search process ensues.  Accordingly, the categorical considerations are as follows:

 

Understanding the Meaning of Excellent Education

Excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete, logically sequenced curriculum in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the preK-12 years.

An excellent teacher is a professional academician of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete, logically sequenced curriculum in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

Understanding the Needed Qualities in a Superintendent---  and in the Senior Academic Officer

Because certain certifications and licensures are required by the state of Minnesota for the position of superintendent, and because institutional credits leading to those certifications and licensures must be acquired through matriculation in academically insubstantial programs taught by education professors who are not subject area specialists, any candidate for superintendent will be unsatisfactory.

The challenge, then, will be to select the least objectionable candidate for Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools. 

The position would ideally be occupied by a scholar in a key academic area, but given the formal requirements set by the education establishment, the chance of getting such a scholar is slim in the extreme.  The next best alternative, therefore, is to select a superintendent who is atypically receptive to the momentous changes needed for instituting knowledge-intensive, skill-replete, logically sequenced curriculum and training the teachers needed to impart such a curriculum. 

Since the superintendent capable of gaining education establishment credentials will almost certainly not possess the scholarly credentials necessary to oversee the needed overhaul, a new senior academic officer will be needed.  A senior academic officer does not need any administrative certifications and can thus be a university-based or independent scholar possessing a Ph.D. in a key subject area.

These two elements of the superintendent search, then are critical to the needed overhaul for the attainment of academic excellence:

>>>>>   selecting a superintendent willing to take the steps necessary to achieve the needed overhaul in curriculum and teacher quality, including;

>>>>>     bringing on staff a scholar possessing a Ph.D. in a key subject area (mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, political science, economics, English or world literature) to serve as senior academic officer.

 

The Need for an Unconventional Superintendent Search

The Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education is likely to turn to an expensive search firm in seeking candidates.  This is a waste of money.  Such firms can never find suitable candidates, because they focus on those with the formalistic but unsatisfactory credentials put in place by the education establishment.  There are at least two staff members at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) who have the formal credentials but who would be willing to seek the necessary senior academic officer for overseeing the requisite overhaul in curriculum and teacher quality.

Ideally, the MPS Board of Education would decide not to hire a professional research firm but, rather, select from the in-house candidates, in consultation with the MPS Department of Human Resources.

The Board may not have the courage to bypass the engagement of the conventional search firm, though, opting for reasons of public posture to hire such a firm.

In that case, enormous activist pressure will need to be exerted on the firm and the board to select a superintendent with the inclinations stipulated above, including the willingness to engage the services of a scholarly senior academic officer.

 

The Need for Fierce Resolve in Bucking the Enormous Opposition that Will Ensue from the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Many Central Office Staff Members with Vested Interests in the Existing System

The steps recommended above for the superintendent search will engender fierce opposition from the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and from many MPS central office staff members.  Further, for reasons that will be detailed in subsequent articles, the specific changes needed to implement the overhauled program designed by the new senior academic officer will also be vehemently opposed by the MFT and others with vested interests in the current system.

As the overhaul ensues and the new program for knowledge-intensive curriculum and excellent teacher quality is moving toward implementation, the Department of Teaching and Learning and the ineffective Office of Black Student Achievement will be jettisoned and staff members of the legislatively mandated Department of Indian Education will be replaced with academicians dedicated to the impartation of academically substantive education to Native American students.  Those staff members affected by these moves will rise in heated oppositions, as will many in the leadership and rank and file of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers.

Community activists will need to be vigilant in their insistence on the needed transformation, willing to meet the opposition of those with vested interests with superior energy and commitment.

 

Other Considerations   

Considerations for the New Superintendent and Senior Academic Officer

In achieving the transformation indicated above, the new superintendent and senior academic officer will need to make certain other initiatives in support of the overhauled curriculum and teacher quality.

At the preK-5 level, an hour a day should be devoted to academic enrichment, giving those few students operating at grade level the opportunity to explore driving interests---  and those in the majority functioning below grade level the opportunity to acquire grade-level skills in mathematics and reading.  Similar opportunities and assistance should be provided to students in grades 6-8 and 9-to ensure that all students are prepared to benefit from the new academically substantive curriculum.

Great thoughtfulness should be applied to administrative reorganizations at the Davis Center.  Those now serving in positions as senior finance, operations, and information technology officers are highly adroit at their positions;  and many others outside the academic division are quite competent.  But, with newly retrained principals and teachers obviating the excuse for many existing positions, academic division staff should be mostly dismissed, along with the position of associate superintendent.

And, though the overwhelming inclination should be toward bureaucratic diminution, one new department, a Department of Resource Provision and Referral should be established, staffed with those comfortable on the streets and in the homes of students from families struggling with issues of finances and functionality.

Considerations for the Public

To seize the opportunity afforded by Ed Graff’s resignation and move forward along the course indicated above, the public will have to become informed and engaged.

An activist contingent will need to embrace and agitate for the overhaul indicated above.

And the activist members of the public will need to be aware of looming important decisions by the MPS Board of Education.

At the regular meeting of the MPS Board of Education, three important decisions will be made >>>>>

>>>>>   The board will vote, supposedly after discussion among all board members of applications for the at-large board position from which Josh Pauly resigned, on the candidate put forward to fill that position.

The current board consists of

>>>    District members Nelson Inz (District 5), Kim Caprini (at-large), Jenny Arneson (District 1), and board chair Kim Ellison (at-large), who as a group are resistant to change, heavily connected to the MFT, and concerned primarily with controlling board decisions for maintenance of the current system;  all of their manipulations should regarded as suspect;

>>>    District members Adriana Cerrillo and Sharon El-Amin, who are independent voices inclined toward the existing system;  their actions and comments should be taken with utmost seriousness;

>>>    District members Siad Ali (District 3) and Ira Jourdain (District 6), who may be ready to move toward the positions of Cerrillo and El-Amin.  

Thus, the selection of a board member to replace Josh Paul is highly important, inasmuch as the current board can be regarded as consisting potentially of a 4-4 alignment that could move either way, according the stance of the new member.

 

>>>>>   The board will also vote on the interim superintendent position, which will be critical to the search for a new, long-term superintendent.  This candidate should not be a member of the intellectually corrupt Minnesota Department of Education (MDE);  rather, as with the long-term position, the interim superintendent position should go to a current staff member at the Davis Center, a person who understands the current financial and academic condition of the district and is prepared to seek the qualities needed in the long-term superintendent and senior academic officer positions.

Watch for and be ready to rise in opposition if the Inz/Caprini/Arneson/Ellison contingent maneuvers to install and MDE or other outside candidate.

 

>>>>>   Also at the meeting of 10 May 2022, the board will vote on the interim superintendent position, which will be critical to the search for a new, long-term superintendent. 

Even as I tap out this article, I am getting reports that the likely candidates put forward, especially by the Inz/Arneson duo of the Inz/Caprini/Ellison/Arneson contingent are in fact candidates outside the current Davis Center administration of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

Neither of the proposed candidates for whom Inz and Arneson are lobbying heavily are ideal.

One is better than the other.

An in-house candidate, as discussed above, would be much better.

But be alert to my recommendations as to the better of the two candidates if Inz and Arneson succeed with their maneuvers--- 

and be attentive to all of my comments along the way as we seek to bring knowledge-intensive, skill-replete, logically sequenced curriculum and elevated teacher quality to the long-suffering students of the Minneapolis Public Schools.  

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