Introductory Comments
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 scholar 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 a superintendent possessing 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 opposition, 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 9-12 to ensure that all students are prepared to benefit from the new academically substantive curriculum.
Great thoughtfulness should be applied to administrative reorganization 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.
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 be regarded as suspect;
>>> District members Adriana Cerrillo and Sharon El-Amin, who are independent voices willing to critically examine 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 have been erratic in their votes and comments
but should be encouraged to move toward the positions of Cerrillo and El-Amin.
The
Inz/Caprini/Ellison/Arneson contingent maneuvered to secure the appointment of
Minnesota Deputy Commissioner of Education Stephanie Burrage to be the Interim
Superintendent of the Minneapolis Pubic Schools, to the point of seeking to go
public in asserting the desirability of selecting Burrage without properly
consulting other board members; this
engendered fervent opposition from those thus not consulted and led the
foursome to a fallback position promoting Burrage and former Minnesota
Commissioner of Education Brenda Cassellius as the two candidates for
consideration. This maneuver, too, faced
opposition, inducing the quest for a candidate upon whom a consensus could be
reached. The consensus candidate who
emerged was Associate Superintendent Rochelle Cox, who for many years led the MPS
Department of Special Education and in so doing made many improvements in a
chronically troubled special education program.
Cox has been with the Minneapolis Public Schools for almost 25 years; in addition to her accomplishment in making favorable changes in special education, Cox is atypically inclined for a person who has risen in the education establishment toward academically substantive education and is imbued with a deep love of the young people to whom knowledge-intensive curriculum will be imparted.
>>>>> At the Tuesday, 14 June, meeting the members
of the MPS Board of Education will explain the process for seeking a new
superintendent. The hope will be that
the board conveys that the process will not involve a search firm and the fee
of $60,000 to $120,000 that such firms typically command for coming up with the
inevitably inadequate list of candidates.
Listen carefully, keeping in view the qualities needed in a new superintendent and senior academic officer as discussed above, as the process for seeking a new superintendent is explained. Be ready to oppose the hiring of a search firm and to assert the advantages of hiring an in-house candidate inclined toward the needed changes.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment