Voters Should Cast Their Ballots for Sonya Emerick, Lisa Skjefte, and Laurelle Myhra in the November 2022 Election for Seats on the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education

Voters who are attune to the dramatic changes taking place at the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) should work vigorously for Sonya Emerick and Lisa Skjefte in their quest for the two open seats on the MPS Board of Education in the November 2022 general election;  and work with like energy for Laurelle Myhra as she seeks the open seat in District 5. 

Understand that, astonishingly, a quiet revolution appears to be in progress at the Minneapolis Public Schools.  In just the first two and a half months of her tenure, Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox has created a substantially new cabinet that includes an entirely new contingent of associate superintendents who have been given a directive carefully to monitor academic programming and results at the specific schools for which each is responsible.  There is a new math curriculum (Bridges/Number Corner) that for the first time in recent memory will be implemented across all grade levels at all schools.  And for reading/language arts, a similar uniformity of implementation will be guided by the primary curriculum (Benchmark Advance), with students facing particular struggles at schools that have confronted such challenges for years receiving highly intentional skill development on the basis of programs known as Groves, PRESS (“Pathways to Reading Excellence”), and LETRS (“Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling”). 

Just as significant, Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing, Deputy Senior Academic Officer Maria Rollinger, and Director of Strategic Initiatives Sarah Hunter are leading an effort to bring subject area substance to grades pre-K through 5, so that student verbal skills will be developed, as they should be, in the context of logically sequenced readings in history, government, geography, multi-cultural literature, and the fine arts;  accordingly, students will develop vocabulary across a multiplicity of subjects that lie at the core of advanced reading development.

If Cox, her administrative staff, and teachers succeed with these highly promising initiatives, students at the Minneapolis Public Schools will be given the knowledge-intensive, skill-replete, logically sequenced subject area education necessary for lives of cultural enrichment, civic preparation, and professional satisfaction.  The district of the Minneapolis Public Schools will become a model for urban school districts across the nation.

Cox and staff need the support of independent thinkers as members of the Minneapolis Board of Education in order to continue their pathbreaking effort to bring excellent education to the city’s young people.  Those candidates are Sonya Emerick and Lisa Skjefte in the race for at-large seats and Laurelle Myhra in District 5. 

I am a leftist activist who typically holds his nose and votes for DFL candidates.  But the DFL (for readers in other nations or states other than Minnesota, know that DFL stands for Democratic-Farmer-Labor and is essentially the Democratic Party in Minnesota) has a close relationship with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), which as good unions do advocates effectively for teacher wages and working conditions but opposes changes that would result in improved curriculum and teacher quality. 

Thus, progressives must not think simplistically:

Rather than casting their votes for DFL-endorsed candidates KerryJo Felder and Collin Beachy in the at-large contest, they should vote instead for Sonya Emerick and Lisa Skjefte   Emerick is an MPS parent of a child with special needs and a passionate advocate for academically substantive education for young people of all demographic groups.  Skjefte, vice president of community engagement for the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center, has had multiple community involvements and manifests skill in uniting people of varying perspectives for mutually beneficial outcomes. 

And in the contest for District 5, those with truly progressive aspirations to bring knowledge-intensive education to students of all demographic descriptors will decline to vote for DFL-endorsee Lori Norvelle and give their vote instead to Laurelle Myhra, a member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe who holds a doctorate in Family Social Science and Marriage and Family Therapy and has training and personal experiences that give credence to her avowed mission to be an advocate for racial equity.

Sondra Emerick and Lisa Skjefte in the at-large contest and for Laurelle Myhra in the District 5 contest for seats on the MPS Board of Education are best positioned to give Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox and staff the support they need to bring a national model of educational excellence to the long-waiting students of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

Minneapolis Public Schools Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox and Staff Are Proceeding with a Quiet Revolution in PreK-12 Education, Unnoticed by >Star Tribune < Opinion and Editorial Writers

Stretching between August 27 and September 2, a spate of opinion pieces and editorials on pre-K through 12 and post-secondary education have appeared in the Star Tribune;  writers of each of these articles fail both with regard to analytical reasoning and as to central focus.

In the August 27 opinion pages, Kenneth Eban (“Protecting teacher diversity is key”) defended that part of a contract, the negotiation of which ended the teachers’ strike of the recent academic year in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), that relaxed the seniority principle so as to retain more teachers of color.  In the same edition, Michael Ciresi, Louis King, and Bernadeia Johnson (“Protecting the status quo is failing students”) mounted another argument, similar to those that we have read before, for a constitutional amendment to guarantee a “quality education” for all public students in Minnesota. 

The latter article is misguided in the extreme, focusing on the state level for the achievement of change in public education and on legalistic wording that will have no impact at the level of the locally centralized school district where formal academic programs are variously implemented or sabotaged.  Eban’s cause is worthy but misses as to central focus, which should be the delivery of knowledge-intensive curriculum and the training of teachers of all ethnicities capable of imparting such a curriculum.

On August 29, Katherine Kersten (“At Minnesota State, equity is in, learning is out”) asserted that the Minnesota State university system is lowering standards so as to achieve uniform graduation rates according to ethnicity;  on September 1, this brought a multi-author Minnesota State  counterpoint (“Quality education for all is not a lowering of learning standards”) arguing that improved graduation rates (rather than immediate uniformity) and better academic results for all students is the actual goal of the state system.  The reality at the postsecondary level is that all too many students arrive on campus ill-prepared for successful collegiate academic experiences because of wretched pre-K through 12 education---  and that for many years admissions offices have already been lowering standards, more for pecuniary than equity considerations.

And on September 2, the editorial board of the Star Tribune authored a piece (“More bad news on test scores”) reminiscent of those penned by the board annually, bemoaning recent results of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) pertinent to grade level student achievement and with typical nebulousness urging once again that educators “redouble efforts to use proven strategies and successful models.”

Not one of these articles addresses the most vexing issues pertinent to public education.  At their best, colleges and universities train field specialists who nevertheless graduate without the breadth of knowledge necessary for informed civic participation.  At the pre-K through 12 level, the quality of education is so knowledge-deficient and skill-deplete that students who manage to graduate walk across the stage to collect a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only. 

Aside from providing funding for the sustenance of these inadequate systems of public education and setting certain standards for equity across gender, ethnicity, and special learning needs, no policy or program that issues from the either United States Department of Education or state entities such as the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has any effect on academic quality.  Administrators and teachers at the level of the locally centralized school district take federal and state funding, complain about not receiving more, and otherwise find ways to meet the technicalities of the law while proceeding with the delivery of the same inadequate quality of education witnessed in Minnesota and the nation for at least four decades.

Astonishingly, though, a quiet revolution appears to be in progress at the Minneapolis Public Schools.  In just the first two and a half months of her tenure, Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox has created a substantially new cabinet that includes an entirely new contingent of associate superintendents who have been given a directive carefully to monitor academic programming and results at the specific schools for which each is responsible.  There is a new math curriculum (Bridges/Number Corner) that for the first time in recent memory will be implemented across all grade levels at all schools.  And for reading/language arts, a similar uniformity of implementation will be guided by the primary curriculum (Benchmark Advance), with students facing particular struggles at schools that have confronted such challenges for years receiving highly intentional skill development on the basis of programs known as Groves, PRESS (“Pathways to Reading Excellence”), and LETRS (“Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling”).

Just as significant, Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing, Deputy Senior Academic Officer Maria Rollinger, and Director of Strategic Initiatives Sarah Hunter are leading an effort to bring subject area substance to grades pre-K through 5, so that student verbal skills will be developed, as they should be, in the context of logically sequenced readings in history, government, geography, multi-cultural literature, and the fine arts;  accordingly, students will develop vocabulary across a multiplicity of subjects that lie at the core of advanced reading development. 

If Cox, her administrative staff, and teachers succeed with these highly promising initiatives, the worthy but peripheral objectives sought by the writers of the above-mentioned articles will be attained as students at the Minneapolis Public Schools are given the knowledge-intensive, skill-replete, logically sequenced subject area information necessary for lives of cultural enrichment, civic preparation, and professional satisfaction.  And the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools will become a model for urban school districts across the nation

Star Tribune readers and writers alike should rivet their attention on these dramatic developments at the Minneapolis Public Schools and elect school board candidates in November who seem most likely to support the work that Cox and staff are doing.     

Article #4 in a Series >>>>> Dramatic Changes at the Minneapolis Public Schools

Shift in Leadership at the Minneapolis Public Schools Office of Black Student Achievement

 

The Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Office of Black Student Achievement began as the MPS Office of Black Male Achievement at the beginning of academic year 2014-2015 during the tenure of Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson.  Until this academic year of 2022-2023, the department has been lead by Michael Walker, who came to the director position after having had great success as Dean of Students at Roosevelt High School. 

That success did not occur in the Office of Black Student Achievement under Walker’s tenure.  Walker has now moved to associate superintendent for high schools and now has a chance to succeed again in implementing the academically substantive program of Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox.

Dena Luna is now the interim director of the Office of Balck Male Achievement, with a like opportunity to shift this office’s focus clearly upon an academically substantive education for African American youth at the Minneapolis Public Schools.

Current staff of the MPS Office of Black Student Achievement is as follows >>>>>

>>>>> 

MPS Office of Black Student Achievement Staff Members

Dena Luna, J.D., Interim Director

Nneka N. Abdullah, Queens Program Manager

Umar Rashid, MPA, Kings Program Manager

Brandon Royce-Diop, M. Ed., B.L.A.C.K.™ Curriculum Coach

Zander Tsadwa, Graduate Coach

Jamil Jackson, Classroom Coach

Richard Mgembe, Classroom Coach

Marques Walker, Classroom Coach

Article #3 in a Series >>>>> Dramatic Changes at the Minneapolis Public Schools

Reduction of Staff at the Minneapolis Public Schools Department of Indian Education 

As is the case with the Department of Teaching and Learning and the Office of Black Student Achievement, the Department of Indian Education is chronically ineffective.  But unlike those two other bureaucratic entities, the Department of Indian Education is mandated by the Minnesota Legislature. 

Thus, the hope is that the remaining members of a staff that has now been drastically reduced will adeptly follow the lead offered by the academically substantive educational program of Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox and impart to MPS American Indian/Native American students the knowledge and skill sets that they need to overcome the challenges brought by a brutal history, reverse decades of cyclical familial poverty, and give indigenous students the chance to thrive on their own cultural terms and in contemporary American society.

This department consisted of 15 staff members at the end of academic year 2021-2022;  now reduced to eight members focused on the new academically substantive curriculum of Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox, current staff membership is as follows  >>>>>

>>>>> 

Jennifer Simon (Cheyenne River Lakota), Director

Diana Leaskas, Account Specialist

Christina Wilson (White Earth), Family Engagement Specialist

Alexis Dauenhauer (Standing Rock), School Success Program Assistant

Patrick Engrav (Bois Forte), School Success Program Assistant

Braden Canfield, Social Worker

Matthew LaFAve (Fond Du Lac), Ojibwe Language Teacher

Shiela Zephier (Oglala Sioux, Turtle Mountain), Dakota Language Teacher