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.