Article #5
Characteristics Mandatory for the New Superintendent and
New Senior Academic Officer of
the Minneapolis Public Schools
Characteristics Mandatory for the New Superintendent
Ideally, a superintendent
of a locally centralized school district would be a scholar in a key academic
area: mathematics, biology, chemistry,
physics, history, government, economics, or literature.
But, given Minnesota state requirements for licensure, professional advancement for those seeking to ascend the school district bureaucracy is to be found in gaining certification and advanced degrees in departments, schools, and colleges of education that offer courses approved by the state for licensure. As readers observed in the previous article, none of these courses feature any training in key academic subject areas. Although there are some differences in requirements for licensure from state to state, teacher and administrator training programs are similar throughout the nation, still following the misguided creed originating at Teachers College/Columbia University during the 1920s; and superintendent and other licensures throughout the nation are similar for lack of academic substance.
Thus do we have throughout
the nation superintendents who are not scholars.
Any broad and deep
knowledge, of the kind that defines the excellent teacher and by extension
should undergird the leadership of an educational administrator, that they have
acquired would have to be through personal reading and study. Given the reading habits of the American
public, such people are rarities, for personal reading and study is not
cultivated in the typical family, in our public schools, or in most of our
institutions and organizations. So as a
matter of reality, finding someone with a scholarly propensity is highly
unlikely: paradoxically, those charged
with the responsibility of developing academic programs, the reason that public
schools exist, are almost never academicians, avid readers, or incisive
thinkers.
Hence, the best that we
can hope is to identify a candidate with the academically irrelevant but
formally necessary credentials who understands the need for the design and
delivery of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete, logically sequenced, grade-by
-grade curriculum across the liberal, vocational, and technological arts; and the need to train teachers capable of
imparting such as curriculum.
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Characteristics Mandatory for the New Senior Academic Officer
Unlike the position of superintendent, the position of senior
academic officer does not have to have superintendent licensure; neither does she or he need to evidence a
degree in educational administration.
PreK-12 teaching licensure is also no required, meaning that someone
with a Ph.D. in a key subject area but lacking such licensure could serve as
the scholar needed for the design of curriculum and for overseeing the training
of teachers with the knowledge base for the impartation of such a
curriculum.
Finding a person who holds a Ph.D. in a key subject area who also
had experience teaching in a preK-12 classroom would be ideal, but the chances
of finding such a person are just as low as finding a superintendent candidate
with scholarly merit. The system does
not reward scholarship. Rather,
particularly since at the mid-1990s, departments, schools, and colleges of
education have been the key dispensers of masters and doctoral degrees, with
emphasis not on subject area mastery but rather on teaching of mathematics,
science, English, and social studies.
All such degrees have none of the academic weight associated with
masters and Ph.D. programs in departments of mathematics, biology, chemistry,
physics, history, political science, economics, or English.
Programs that purport to train prospective teachers of science provide very little specific training in the key natural sciences of biology, chemistry, and physics; and programs pertinent to the amorphous field of social studies provide very little particular training in history, government, geography, or economics. Since the mid-1990s, departments, schools, and colleges of education have so dominated in providing graduate degrees to prospective teachers that terminal masters degrees, formerly sought mostly by teachers, have mostly been phased out in key academic departments such as mathematics, history, and political science; and prospective teachers who earn master’s or doctoral degrees in departments of English, biology, chemistry, and physics are very few.
Most senior academic officers (still known at many districts as chief academic officer) have begun their careers as classroom teachers, and many have been building principals. They, then overwhelmingly have the insubstantial academic training as do teachers, so that bearing a title focused on academics is a misnomer:
Senior academic officers operating in the prevailing system are not scholars or academicians.
This must change.
Having studied a key subject area in great depth and earned a
Ph.D. in a key academic field instills a respect for the world of knowledge and
a desire to pass that knowledge on to students, in the manner of a college or
university professor or the independent scholar who produces books that
contribute to the world of knowledge.
The typical senior academic officer does not have a deeply held of
manifested love of knowledge; her or his
degree has been received in academically insubstantial teacher training
programs. Not only do those whose
degrees have been dispensed by departments, colleges, and schools of education
have no substantive academic training;
they have sat through course after course taught by education professors
who devalue knowledge as the base for education.
Thus, we need to seek as senior academic officer who is herself or
himself a scholar of broad and deep knowledge, with the fervent desire that
students of all demographic descriptors shall also become people of knowledge; that high school graduates receive diplomas
signifying the acquisition of a strong knowledge bases across the liberal,
vocational, and technological arts; and
they go forth well prepared for postsecondary education and to lives as
culturally enriched, civically prepared, and professionally satisfied citizens.
In advancing the design of knowledge-intensive curriculum and producing
teacher-scholars needed to impart such a curriculum, we must eschew the
prevailing system and become a model for locally centralized school districts by
seeking for the position of Senior Academic Officer a scholar with a Ph.D. in a
key academic subject area.
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