The meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education this past Tuesday, 13 December, is the last for members Siad Ali, Nelson Inz, Kim Caprini, and Jenny Arneson.
These four members were given time at meeting’s end this past Tuesday, 13 December, to make statements recording their thoughts pertinent to their time on the board and departure therefrom.
In assessing the statements as I heard them and observed the attending visuals, the three questions on my mental screen were those that I generally have at the forefront in evaluating the morality behind actions taken by so many actors whom I have observed in waging the K-12 Revolution >>>>>
1 >>>>> Are they
ignorant?
2 >>>>> Are they
in denial?
or
3 >>>>> Are they outright corrupt?
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
Recall that this is a group that made not one but three
major errors of judgment in the superintendent search of academic year 2015-2016
upon the resignation of Bernadeia Johnson, announced in autumn 2014 and
effective on 1 January 2015.
During the first round, the board hired the firm Hazard,
Young, Attea, and Associates led by Ted Blaesing at a projected cost of $85,000
to conduct a search that culminated in the selection of Sergio Paez, an
administrator out of Holyoke, Massachusetts.
In making this selection, the board made a calamitous
mistake by not offering the contract to charismatic young school turn-around
specialist Charles Foust, who had made demonstrable progress in raising
academic achievement rates in several middle schools in the Houston Independent
School District.
Instead, the board overlooked Foust and narrowed the
candidates to MPS Interim Superintendent Michael Goar versus Sergio Paez, with
the latter winning on a 6-3 vote. News
reports then appeared citing physical abuse of special education students at a
Holyoke school under Paez’s central office oversight. In fact, Paez had conducted an investigation
and addressed the issues to the satisfaction of officials in the Massachusetts
state government. But the MPS Board of
Education ended contract discussions with Paez and was about to vote to install
Michael Goar as long-term superintendent when a protest led by Nekima
Levy-Pounds (now Levy-Armstrong) shut the meeting down and led to a
second-round search.
For this first search, the Minneapolis Public Schools was
able to cut the fee by $44,565 from the
original $85,000 fee to Hazard, Young, Attea, and Associates; so that the botched search, though, still
cost $40,435.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
The board then hired the
search firm DHR International at the same $85,000 rate to conduct a search that
produced two very questionable candidates, Brenda Cassellius and Ed Graff; the poor quality of these candidates, even in
the context of a generally mediocre superintendent candidate pool nationwide,
was indicative of very uncreative and inept search methods on the part of DHR
International.
Brenda Cassellius at the time
was serving as Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education. I had authored several articles in opposition
to her policies as part of the Mark Dayton administration, especially the move
to secure a waiver from No Child Left Behind and ending the graduation
requirements as based on a Grade 9 Writing Test and the Minnesota Comprehensive
Assessments (MCAs) for Grade 10 Reading and Grade 11 Mathematics. But in conversations with Cassellius I
became convinced that she could be better as head of a locally centralized
school district than she had been as education commissioner and was definitely
a superior candidate to Ed Graff, whose contract as superintendent had not been
renewed by the school board in Anchorage, Alaska.
But the MPS Board of Education
hired Ed Graff not once but twice, voting 8-0 (with one member absent) to grant
Graff a second three-year contract that was in effect when he resigned to the
delight of his own administrative staff and students throughout the district in
May 2022, just a few months ago. I
compare giving Graff a second contract to giving Ronald Reagan and George W.
Bush not just one but two terms as president.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
I told the board many times
that a program that depended primarily on social/emotional learning, literacy,
multi-tiered system of support, and equity never could be successful.
And thus the academic abuse
that has existed for at least four decades continued, as indicated in the
proficiency rates of African American, Hispanic, and American students for the
academic years ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021 >>>>>
Academic Proficiency as Indicated
by 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%
Hispanic
2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
23% 25% 26% 26%
27%
27% 20%
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%
Hispanic
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
31% 32% 31% 29% 26%
25% 12%
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%
Hispanic
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021
17% 18% 21% 19% 17% 16% 10%
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
But there was no contrition when Siad Ali, Nelson Inz, Kim Caprini, and Jenny Arneson said their goodbyes. They thanked their communities and constituents, and they said how much they have grown and learned; they also thanked their families and specific MPS Davis Center staff for helping them in their journeys as board members.
The two student representatives (Edison High School senior Wakan Austin and Washburn sophomore Jake Wesson) and interim at-large member Cynthia Booker (who replaced Josh Pauly when he resigned last February) also made comments, but these were rather predictable and not of the interest to me as are those of Ali, Inz, Caprini, and Arneson.
The essence of the remarks by each departing school
board member, followed by my comments, are give thusly >>>>>
>>>>>
Siad Ali >>>>>
Ali vowed that he had always done his best, that he always cast his votes based on what was best for the students of the Minneapolis Public Schools, and that he was proud for having served his Somali community so well. He thanked that community, his wife, his children, and Davis Center staff members, especially Senior Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop. He also thanked God and wished everyone well, adding, “God bless everyone, and God bless the United States of America” (then added that despite that well-known citation, he did not intend to run for another political office).
My comment >>>>>
Ali is a hail fellow, well met guy who genuinely seems to love everybody. But he was the laziest of the board members, hardly ever did his homework, and tended to ask irrelevant questions or questions that had already been implicitly answered, indicating that he had not been listening carefully or did not understand.
Ali voted to offer Ed Graff a second contract and is implicated in those policies that yielded the abysmal proficiency rates noted above.
……………………………………………………………………
Nelson Inz >>>>>
Inz thanked his twin boys, who are now (as I recall) eleven years old. He said that when he first ran for a seat on the MPS Board of Education, people asked him why he would do such a thing and that there were times in the aftermath that he wondered the same thing. But he indicated pride in his service and a commitment to public education as one our most vital institutions.
My comment >>>>>
Inz is the most objectionable board member now departing.
He endorsed Bob Walser (the silliest, most trivial MPS Board of Education member I have ever witnessed) in the latter’s 2016 campaign, against independent and promising young District 4 member Josh Reimnitz; and he connived along with Kim Ellison and Jenny Arneson to oust Reimnitz and District 6 member Tracine Asberry (the most incisive inquisitor and advocate for raising academic proficiency rates I have to date witnessed on the board).
These actions on the part of Inz indicate the level of his intellectual corruption and his hypocrisy in claiming a commitment to public education.
Kim Caprini >>>>>
Caprini thanked her husband and children, two of whom have graduated from the Minneapolis Pubic Schools. She cited the many school and community involvements that led to her running for a seat on the MPS Board of Education, vowing to continue such involvement.
Caprini had already made a weepy statement at the last meeting of the MPS Finance Committee, profusely thanking Senior Finance Officer Diop for his patience in explaining the details of public school finance to a person who had always been told that she was not good in math. At this meeting she got very teary when she thanked Administrator to the Board Ryan Strack and Administrative Assistant to the Board Jennifer Lindquist for all of the help that they had given her.
My comment >>>>>
Caprini has over the course of a lifetime had to overcome many insecurities and views her experience on the MPS Board of Education as a time when she grew as a person and exorcized certain personal ghosts.
Caprini came on the board in 2018 and thus was not involved in the noted superintendent searches. But she voted to renew Graff’s contact, and she is implicated in the results.
Caprini was especially influenced by Jenny Arneson and in general was part of what I dub the “Terrible Foursome” >>>>> Jenny Arneson, Kim Ellison, Nelson Inz, and Kim Caprini.
Jenny Arneson >>>>>
Arneson thanked her husband, sister, parents, and her twin sons, both now graduated from the Minneapolis Public Schools, and her younger child, still an MPS student. She had compiled, and she cited, the figures for all of the hours of meetings that she had attended since she was elected in 2010.
Arneson made two rather strange comments, of the sort she is wont to make >>>>>
She took issue with those who call for the need to make “tough decisions,” saying that so saying is just trite; she offered another way, though, of expressing the same idea, something to the effect of coming to thoughtful decisions after careful contemplation.
Then she seemed to take aim at me, Gary Marvin
Davison, by saying that courage is not bullying behavior or always trying to
prove that one is the smartest person in the room; she implored people to seek change instead
through collaborative efforts with those with decision-making
responsibility.
My comment >>>>>
Arneson was a mercurial presence on the board. She has very detailed knowledge of many aspects of the Minneapolis Public Schools and of the political and legislative aspects of public education. Through most of her tenure she was firmly connected to the DFL/MFT cohort but gave her support to Sonya Emerick over DFL-endorsed Collin Beachy in the November 2022 election. Arneson used her knowledge of district matters mainly to garner resources for Northeast Minneapolis.
Arneson’s comments are revelatory.
The “tough decisions” comment was odd. As one who cannot abide trite expressions, especially those in the current conversational ether (witness “at the end of the day,” “sorta” before such adjectives as “terrible” or “victorious”, “think outside the box”), I declare that the notion that “tough” is one of those trite expressions is nonsense. I’m not absolutely sure what engendered that comment, although District 6 member Ira Jourdain had, not very long before the departing members made their comments, given an unusually (for him) eloquent call for community communication in the course of tough decision-making that may involve closing of schools in view of declining enrollment and inefficient usage of school space.
The comments that Arneson seemed to be directing toward Gary Marvin Davison reflect Arneson’s desire to dominate all proceedings and her feelings of intellectual inadequacy in my presence.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
As I once told my friend and former MPS official Michael Thomas, with regard to colleagues of his at the Minneapolis Public Schools, I wish all people well in their personal lives and hope that their children thrive--- but if a public figure is not doing what she or he should to advance the life prospects of my babies, well then, “when something is wrong with my [babies], something is wrong with me.” I want that person gone and will work behind and on the scenes to expedite her or his departure.
So I am so glad that these ne’er do wells are gone, but
>>>>> I wish them all a very
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and lives of happiness.
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