Presentations made by the MPS Academic Division at Minneapolis Public School Board of Education meetings on 24 May 2022 and 14 June 2022 demonstrated clearly the stark ineptitude of those making academic decisions at the district.
The first meeting was a meeting of the
Committee of the Whole, at which Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing took the
lead in presenting the Academic Division’s Committee of the Whole Mid-Year Data Review
and Academic Updates.
The presentation cites data that indicates
no major progress in a situation depicted by my own updated figures, as
follows >>>>>
Academic Proficiency as Indicated
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
African American
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
22% 21% 21%
21% 22%
23% 19%
American Indian
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
21% 20% 21%
23% 24% 25% 20%
Asian/Pacific Islander
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
41% 40% 45% 41%
48% 50% 54%
Hispanic
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
23% 25% 26% 26%
27% 27% 20%
White
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
78% 77% 77% 78% 80% 78% 74%
All
Students
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
42% 42% 43% 43% 45% 47% 46%
Mathematics
(Note >>>>> The
MCAs were not administered for the academic year ending in 2020.)
African American
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
22% 23% 21% 18% 18% 18% 9%
American Indian
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
23% 19% 19% 17% 17% 18% 9%
Asian/Islander
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
48% 50% 50% 47%
50% 47% 46%
Hispanic
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
31% 32% 31% 29%
26% 25% 12%
White
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
71% 75% 71% 70%
71% 70% 61%
All
Students
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
44% 44% 44% 42% 42%
42% 35%
Science
(Note >>>>> The
MCAs were not administered for the academic year ending in 2020.)
African American
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
11% 15% 13% 12% 11%
11% 11%
American
Indian
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
14% 16% 13% 17% 14% 17% 9%
Asian/Pacific
Islander
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
31% 35% 42% 35% 37% 40% 43%
Hispanic
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
17% 18% 21% 19% 17%
16% 10%
White
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
71%
75% 71% 70%
71% 70% 61%
All
Students
33% 36% 35% 34% 34% 36% 36%
……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Thus, clearly, inasmuch as the midyear
2021-2022 figures provided by the Academic Division at the Committee of the
Whole meeting indicate no major progress has been made in raising academic proficiency
rates, the program that prevailed this academic year has been the typical
failure.
And nothing presented by the Academic
Division as a corrective to this dismal record inspires confidence.
In terms of literacy, Aimee Fearing and
staff mainly will be relying on a Groves Literary Partnership and the pedagogical
approach of PRESS (Pathway to Reading Excellence) to improve student
reading.
The PRESS program was developed by the Minnesota Center for Reading Research at the University of Minnesota. The Groves Literary Partnership was developed at the University of St. Thomas. Programs developed by education professors at these universities should come under immediate doubt. Education professors at both of these institutions have been the very most culpable for promoting ill-conceived approaches to reading over the last several decades.
During these decades, education professors touted the “Whole Language” approach to reading which deemphasized phonics and phonemic awareness, thus contributing heavily to the unconscionable reading proficiency levels such as we have witnessed at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Both of these programs now do embrace
phonics and phonemic awareness, along
with fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary, as key components of reading; but there is nothing dramatically different in
either the Groves or the PRESS approaches that is likely to make much
difference in advancing student reading proficiency levels.
Nevertheless, Fearing and staff assembled
teachers and administrators mostly from Jenny Lind Elementary School to attest
to the progress that they see their students making in the trial stage for the
Groves program; other participating elementary
schools are Nellie Stone Johnson, Bethune, Northop, Burroughs, and Barton. Staff at Jenny Lind conceded that they have
little firm data on which to base their comments on student progress--- but they can just see favorable student
response to the Groves program.
We have witnessed this before, this
claim for the benefits of new curriculum that never materialize.
There is so much excess verbiage and
jargon that always attends these presentations.
I chafe at nonsensical claims and the
inevitable shibboleths that cloud these meetings and the incompetence in the
Academic Division is on display.
Because I know that teaching students
to read at grade level and beyond is easy.
Doing so is a matter of
>>>>> teaching the alphabet, multiple letter word
combinations, and beginning words with attention to phonics and phonemic awareness;
while
>>>>> from prekindergarten and kindergarten
forward through grades 1-12 introducing quality literature and subject area
readings that expand vocabulary and comprehension.
Reading is thus a matter of carefully
teaching the fundamentals of word sounds and then reading abundantly across
many subject areas.
But this requires teachers who are in
love with the world of knowledge and want to instill such enthusiasm for gaining
knowledge and inspiration from reading.
Such teachers should be avid and adept readers themselves. But such teachers are scarce at preK-5 and on
through the system. Such educators are
absent also in the Academic Division comprising Senior Academic Officer Aimee
Fearing, Deputy Senior Academic Officer
Maria Rollinger, Executive Director of the MPS Department of Teaching and
Learning Jenn Rose, and the 30-member staff at the MPS Department of Teaching
and Learning.
This is why such canned programs as Groves
and PRESS are doomed to failure.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The presentation at the 14 June 2022
meeting was just as embarrassing for the Academic Division of the Minneapolis
Public Schools.
This presentation, for which Jenn Rose
took the lead, featured mainly survey data indicating community, teacher, and
student favorable response to a new mathematics curriculum dubbed Bridges/Number
Corner.
There was very little presented as to
the substance of the Bridges/Number Corner curriculum.
The entire presentation emphasized the
enthusiasm for Bridges/Number Corner as revealed in survey data across ethnic
group, year in school, and professional position (teacher or administrator)
within the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Again, as is the case for reading, most mathematics curricula are adequate for the purposes of the adroit teacher, who merely utilizes any particular curriculum to get across the concepts that preK-5 students and then their middle school counterparts should master. But tor the adept teacher, much needs to be disregarded in the wasteful games, group exercises, and manipulatives touted by mathematics education professors (not to be confused with typically brilliant mathematics professors) for grades preK-5. Mathematics education professors have made an industry out of a field that should be very straightforward but which they obscure by pretending to be grand philosophers asking students to engage in “metacognition” and such persiflage.
Mathematics education professors typically
have very much less to say as mathematics becomes more complex in the ascent
through Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Trigonometry, Statistics, and Calculus
because mathematics education professors are not particularly skilled in middle
range and certainly higher-level mathematics.
They, therefore, exercise their harmful pretensions on elementary age
students, contributing heavily to the wretched proficiency rates that we
witness year after year.
The
truth is that before the mid-range difficultly of courses at the late middle
school and high school levels, fundamental mathematics consists of
>>>>> the
four basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division;
>>>>> fractions,
decimals, and percentages;
>>>>> ratios,
proportions, and simple probability;
>>>>> fundamental
tables, charts, and graphs.
That’s
all.
Straightforward
teaching of those concepts, including applications to life circumstances is all
that is necessary.
But
many elementary school teachers are math phobic.
Not
many mathematics teachers at the middle school or high school level are excellent
teachers or adroit mathematicians.
Such
teachers have been trained by the same ilk of education professors as train
those in the Academic Division.
Only
improvement in teaching quality will result in higher proficiency rates for the
long-suffering students of the Minneapolis Public Schools and other locally centralized
school districts.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Presentations
such as those made by the Academic Division at the 24 May 2022 Committee of the
Whole and the 14 June regular meeting of the MPS Board of Education are
embarrassments demonstrating just how inept is the Academic Division and members
of the Board, who very seldom ask any incisive question of the miserable Academic
Division staff.
Thus, overhaul of the Academic Division, the MPS Board of Education, and the entire academic program of the Minneapolis Public
Education is a paramount task if we hope that graduates forth to lives of
knowledge and skill, living lives as culturally enriched, civically prepared,
and professionally satisfied citizens on this one earthly sojourn.
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