Article #2
Analysis of the Particularly Inept and Corrupt Minneapolis
Public Schools Board of Education When (Through the November 2020 Election) Comprised
of
District 1 Member
Jenny Arneson,
District 2 Member KerryJo Felder,
District 3 Member Siad Ali,
District 4 Member Bob Walser,
District 5m Member Nelson In,
District 6 Member Ira
Jourdain,
At Large Member Kim Ellison,
At-Large Member Josh Pauly,
At-Large
Member Kim Caprini
as to Specific Nature of Culpability, in Order of
Offensiveness
Ranked in order from most offensive to
least are the following members of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) that
served as a group from January 2019 through January 2021, the worst assemblage
of Board members that I have witnessed in my nine years of investigating the
inner workings of the district.:
#1 >>>>>
District 4 Member Bob Walser
>>>>> The Silliest
and Most Offensive of a Motley Crew
Bob Walser was the silliest, most offensive member on this and any
school board that I have witnessed during my half-century of observation. The iteration of the Minneapolis Public
Schools (MPS) Board of Education that included Walser was by far the worst that
I have witnessed during my particularly close six-year scrutiny of this motley
assemblage.
Walser was a disaster.
Walser was among the group recruited by Nelson Inz, Kim Ellison, and
Rebecca Gagnon to run for the MPS Board of Education in 2016. Gagnon eventually got caught in her political
manipulations and was ousted in 2018.
Inz remains as District #5 (South Minneapolis, east of I-35)
representative and board chair; Ellison
as one of three At-Large members. Inz,
Ellison, and Gagnon recruited candidates friendly to the Minneapolis Federation
of Teachers (MFT) to run against the independent voices of Josh Reimnitz and
Tracine Asberry (the most assertive actor for better academic results); and for the At-Large seat vacated by Carla
Bates.
Walser, who represented the toney areas of Bryn Mawr, Lowry Hill, and
Linden Hills, was the salient example of that creature who assigns to himself
the appellation of “progressive” on matters pertinent to preK-12 education,
thus a participant in a sordid history traceable to Teachers College at
Columbia University. Consistent with the
various strands of this ideology, Walser railed against objective assessment of
student performance and spouts the jargon of putatively child-centered
education.
The most stupid verbal fodder spills from Walser’s mouth:
Two whoppers demonstrated the facile, grating nature of this lamentable
school board creature:
>>>>> At one meeting that involved the fate of
middle schools versus preK-8 schools in the district, Walser wondered why we
have middle schools and asserted that we have only had this type of student
grouping since the 1950s. In making this
comment, Walser demonstrated the typically shallow nature of his reading and
research. He had apparently come across
a reference to the advent of the middle school (grades 6-8), which did from the
1950s mostly replace junior high (grades 7-9).
But Walser’s reference maintained that grouping at the level of the
middle grades did not begin until the 1950s.
In fact, the first junior highs appeared in 1909.
>>>>> At the September meeting of the MPS Board of
Education, Walser mentioned during the final, tortuous comments that members
make on the cusp of each meeting’s adjournment that he had attended a number of
community meetings lately and found the comment of one African American mother
especially moving. Walser said that she
identified the problems of the Minneapolis Public Schools as grounded in the
northern European approach to education taken by the district.
I have been deeply embedded in the African American community for
forty-eight years:
African Americans do in public forums occasionally have recourse to the
same jargon of “cultural relevance” and “cultural competence” with assertions
of Western bias as do hippy-dippy white liberals of the sort that my radical
leftist inclinations find abhorring. But
face to face, I never hear such jargon.
When African American parents, the largest familial contingent in the
New Salem Educational Initiative, come to me in behalf of their children, their
plea is in essence, “Please impart to my baby the mathematical and reading
skills that the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools fails to render,
along with strong college preparatory knowledge sets that MPS does not
deliver.” They
trust and know that I have a strong grasp of European-based culture and
history and also the traditions of Asia, Africa, African America, and a bevy of
other ethnicities. What they want for
their children is the best education that can be had, so that those precious
young people can be the vanguard that leads the family forth from cyclical
poverty and centuries of abusive history.
Armchair white liberals of the Walser type are offensive to most
African Americans. They sense that those
who shout adoring phrases from afar are frauds, full of condescension and
paternalism. Bob Walser has offended
most African Americans in positions of leadership at the Minneapolis Public
Schools. They know a fake and a
patronizer when they encounter one.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
In any case, the approach taken by the Minneapolis Public Schools is
not northern European, except inasmuch as it is through British conveyance that
a curriculum consisting of knowledge gathered from the entire globe was
delivered to American colonists and thence to the fledgling United States of
America. The knowledge thus conveyed
came prominently from southern (not northern) Europe, China, India, and from
the Muslim empires of the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman dynasties. The best contemporary masters of modern
curricula are students of South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Note the absence in any of those references
from the last two sentences of anything identifiable as northern European.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Bob Walser was the silliest, most intellectually trivial board member I
have witnessed on the MPS or any other board of education.
Walser blessedly did not run in the election of November 2020 and would
best never make his way back through the Davis Center door.
#2 >>>>> District 5 Member Nelson Inz >>>>> The Spectacle of the Political Hack as Board
Chair
Nelson Inz was elected to the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of
Education in November 2014 and reelected without opposition in November 2018. Lack of opposition to call Inz on his corrupt
ineptitude demonstrated public disinterest in, and misunderstanding of, the
chronic deficiencies of preK-12 education.
Inz is a former bartender turned teacher who has located professionally
in several different school systems during his five years on the MPS Board of
Education. After Rebecca Gagnon quickly
offended enough of her fellow offenders to turn the majority on the board
against her as chair, Inz began his stint as chair in January 2017.
By that time, Inz had joined Kim Ellison and Rebecca Gagnon in
recruiting Ira Jourdain and Bob Walser to run against Tracine Asberry and Josh
Reimnitz for the District 6 and District 4 seats respectively. Asberry was a particularly effective advocate
for academic progress who would closely question Research, Evaluation,
Assessment, and Accountability Chief Eric Moore when he would deliver the
latest bad news on student academic achievement; Reimnitz, a former Teach for America
participant, was also an independent voice.
Jourdain and Walser were recruited to do the bidding of the Minneapolis
Federation of Teachers (MFT). Gagnon
specifically endorsed Jourdain; Inz
endorsed Walser.
Endorsement of Walser, the silliest, most offensive school board member
I have ever witnessed on this or any other board, conveys much about Inz’s
personal judgment. He is a political
hack who harbors the same ambitions as do Ellison and Gagnon, neither of whom
has been able to realize goals for exalted political futures. Inz describes his endorsement of Walser over
Reimnitz as the action of a “team player.”
There were many of those in the regimes of Hitler and Stalin; they abide in the administration of Donald
Trump today.
Before the Public Comments phase of every meeting of the MPS Board of
Education during his stint as chair, Inz read the following protocol:
The
MPS Board of Education values public comment
and
input at board meetings to inform our decision
making
and provide information and insight into
what
is happening throughout the district.
If you
did not sign-up ahead of time, there are sign
up
sheets on the table where you entered, near the
meeting
agendas. We will close sign-ups 15 minutes
after
public comment begins. Each person wishing to
address
the board will be given 3 minutes and the
clerk
will let you know when your time has expired.
Individuals
will be called up in the order in which they
signed
up to speak. Please approach the podium, if
able,
and state your name, area of the city you live in,
and
connection to Minneapolis Public Schools.
To
ensure we are modeling constructive public
engagement
for our students, we ask that if you wish
to
address the board, you observe the following:
· Address
your comments to the Board Chair
and not to individual
Board directors, staff,
or the audience.
· Refrain
from personal attacks, swearing,
abusive or threatening
language, or other
disruptive behavior.
· Respect
those around you and do not hold
up signs that block the
view of others—
please do not bring
signage to the podium.
· Do
not discuss employee or employment
related issues, as
public comment is not the
appropriate venue to
raise such issues.
· Refrain
from referring to a person by name
or position.
· Making
accusations and derogatory
statements about
employees is not
appropriate.
This
is a time for the Board to listen so we will not be
responding
to comments or questions posed. If you
have a
question that requires a response, please
submit
it to the Board’s Executive Assistant in the
back
of the room. Thank you.
This protocol was appropriately read by the political hack that Inz is
but was not of his authorship. The
protocol was written by Ed Graff and Rebecca Gagnon (when the latter was
briefly chair), because I was regularly citing specific Davis Center (MPS
central offices, 1250 West Broadway) staff members who were not doing their
jobs and also taking to task particular board members. The protocol was crafted as a shield from
criticism of central office bureaucrats and MPS Board of Education members and
makes mockery of the opening claim to value Public Comment. Board members now know that I have so many
venues for issuing my views that the
Graff-Gagnon ploy was an exercise in futility;
but the protocol does have an inhibiting effect on some speakers.
The current iteration of the MPS Board of Education was composed of
politicos heavily indebted to the MFT for electoral backing.
These corrupt board members were cowards who hid behind metaphorical
embankments that they devised to shield them from criticism.
That the board ever opted for Nelson Inz as Hack in Chief is telling.
Nelson Inz should have resigned from the MPS Board of Education long
before he felicitously opted not to run in the election of November 2022.
#3 >>>>>
District 2 Member KerryJo Felder
>>>>> Fraudulent
Claimant to North Minneapolis Leadership
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education member KerryJo
Felder representsed District #2, encompassing North Minneapolis. She was endorsed by the Minneapolis
Federation of Teachers (MFT) for her winning candidacy in November 2016. She also had firm ties to the
Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party that looms behind the MFT front powerfully to
influence the outcomes of school board elections.
Thus, Felder was a political hack doing the bidding fo the MFT/DFL
cohort, as was the case for all nine members on this unfortunate assemblage of
the MPS Board of Education.
Felder has had children in Northside schools and was active at MPS
sites and at board meetings many years before she ran for a seat. She had an unsettled childhood and adolescence,
mostly growing up in South Minneapolis.
Her personal accounts allude incoherently to an academician father who
held a doctorate--- and to a life of
poverty as a youth. Also in her shadowy
background is a young adulthood spent for many desultory years in a lifestyle
lacking firm vocational articulation in California.
Those South Minneapolis and California sojourns do not denote a firmly
rooted Northsider.
Felder has had little connection to the North Minneapolis of the
Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House, W.
Gertrude Brown, Harry Davis, Bertha Smith, Marion McElroy, Larry Brown,
the Edmund Cohen Community Center, old Sixth Avenue, North High School in its
academic heyday of Jewish and African American composition and friendship, or
even to the more recent influence of the Way and Opportunities Unlimited (where
Syl Davis, Gwen Davis, and Spike Moss held sway) and the City, Inc., as a successor to the Way.
And yet Felder projected an image of herself as a Northsider out to
claim resources for MPS schools that have been previously denied investment for
buildings, athletic fields, and academic programs by comparison to sites and
programs in other areas of the city.
But Felder was a fraud, as a claimant to firm Northsider status, and as
an advocate for the schools of North Minneapolis.
She was a corrupt politico with very little knowledge of the history
and philosophy of education.
Felder was a particularly objectionable member of the MPS Board of
Education for pretending that she is an advocate for academic quality in what
she abidingly refers to as “my schools” for “my Northsiders.”
When confronted with student reading, mathematics, and science
proficiency rates at North High School that were (and are) less than seven
percent (7%) and ACT scores averaging 15.7, Felder had no comment. When she was told that there are classes at
North that are so out of order that teachers have quit teaching, she uttered
not a word. When Felder was told that an
English teacher pretending to teach The
Autobiography of Malcom X had absolutely no knowledge of that towering
personage, she sat silently and never thenceforth addressed the problem. When told by Hispanic parents that the
pre-K-5 and preK-8 schools of North Minneapolis are failing, she gave
appearance of the denial that is her wont.
KerryJo Felder is a fraud as pretender to firm Northsider status.
She was a corrupt political hack typical for a group that to a member
is beholden to the MFT/DFL cohort.
Felder had no grasp of the history or philosophy of pre-K-12 public
education.
And she was ever in immoral, neglectful denial of the rampant
deficiencies of curriculum and teacher quality in the Minneapolis Public
Schools.
Felder projects the image of a fighter.
Blessedly Felder was defeated in the November 2020 election by Sharon
El-Amin and lost in a bid for an At-Large seat in the election of November
2022.
#4 >>>>> District 1 Member Jenny Arneson >>>>> Astoundingly Stupid Statements and Multi-Year
Ineffectiveness Obligates Her to Resign from the Board of Education
District 1 (Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis) Jenny Arneson was an abiding
enigma as a member of the worst composition of the Minneapolis Public Schools
Board of Education:
Arneson was the hardest working of the members on that formulation of
the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education.
She is a courageous person who appears to be triumphing over a very
serious case of lymphatic cancer.
Arneson was a masterful accumulator of factual detail on many aspects
of the inner working of the district, notably information pertinent to her
Northeast Minneapolis stomping grounds and items relevant to current district
finances. She also was an adept chair
during her term of service in that position, a knowledgeable manager of
meetings per Robert’s Rules of Order, a skill that stood her in good stead
during fall 2020, when she was chair of the finance committee.
But three moments suggest the cluelessness that typified Arneson’s
tenure.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
In the spring of 2016 a forum sponsored by the League of Women’s Voters
unfolded at Bryn Mawr K-5 school. This
forum offered one of the very few chances for audience members to ask
open-ended oral questions; that is to
say, there was none of the usual scripted nonsense, such as questions having to
be written down on slips of paper and then vetted for posing to members of the
board. The MPS Board of Education then
consisted of Arneson, Siad Ali, Tracine Asberry, Carla
Banks, Kim Ellison, Rebecca Gagnon, Nelson Inz, Josh Reimnitz, and Don
Samuels. Ali, Banks, and Reimnitz were
not in attendance; Asberry arrived only
very late. Hence, the members fully
available for questioning were Arneson, Ellison, Gagnon, Inz, and Samuels.
Most of the questions from the audience were nondescript and had little
to do with academics.
I by contrast posed a question that made reference to the opposing
philosophies of education represented by the knowledge-intensive views of E. D.
Hirsch and the student-driven curriculum advocated by Alfie Kohn; each of these views have roots in a
discussion that began in the 1920s with William C. Bagley and William Heard
Kilpatrick of Teachers College at Columbia University.
My question to the members of the MPS Board of Education in spring 2017
was:
“Given the description that I just gave you of the views expressed in
Hirsch’s 1996 The Schools We Need and Why
We Don’t Have Them and Alfie Kohn’s 1999 The Schools Our Children Deserve, do you favor Hirsch’s
knowledge-intensive established curriculum or Kohn’s open-ended, student and
teacher driven curriculum?”
Board members were tongue-tied and tried to have it both ways,
articulating their views no better when I maintained that for clarity they had
to favor one of these views over the other, because Hirsch and Kohn would agree
that these approaches result in very different curriculum and pedagogy.
Jenny Arneson was as inept as the others in articulating any philosophy
of education. She does not to this day
reveal any coherent philosophy of education, a telling observation regarding a
board member who is now in the midst of her ninth year on the MPS Board of
Education.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Arneson never gave evidence of an internally consistent philosophy of
education in nearly a decade of board membership.
Two Arneson statements further demonstrate her lack of fitness for
comprehending the changes needed at the Minneapolis Public Schools:
>>>>> At an MPS Board of Education meeting in
late spring 2019, Jenny Arneson noted, as part of her final report at a meeting
of the MPS Board of Education (of the sort with which board members conclude
each of their meetings) that her son had been accepted by his first choice for
college attendance, Grinnell College in Iowa.
She then opined that “This proves that every student at MPS is College
and Career Ready.”
That statement was astonishingly stupid, given that fewer than thirty
percent (30%) of students on Free and Reduced Price Lunch and those of several
ethnicities who tend to fall in the Free/Reduced category are not proficient in
mathematics, reading, or science; and
that one-third (33%) of MPS students who matriculate on college and university
campuses need remedial courses.
>>>>> At the Committee of the Whole meeting of
Tuesday, 22 October, Arneson conveyed the essence of a conversation that she
had had with a student who liked the idea of ethnic studies courses offered as
alternatives to a United States history course, because the high school course
is just a repetition of what students learned in a course focused on the same
subject in grade seven. Arneson accepted
the student’s view uncritically, thereby revealing appalling ignorance for a
graduate of St. Olaf College, albeit in the academically undemanding field of
social work.
The pertinent truth is two-fold >>>>>
1) The grade 7 course is
typically taught via videos and through packets that students fill out in the
absence of teacher-imparted information or comment and without class
discussion. And unless students take
Advanced Placement (AP) United States History in high school, the mode of
teacher
disinterested, unengaging instruction evident at grade 7 abides also in
the high school course--- and lamentably
even in some AP courses, taught as they often are by knowledge-deficient
teachers.
2) Limiting the number of United
States history or any other courses in core subject areas should be determined
only as a practical matter, since the number of such courses would be multiple
if the amount of information to be conveyed were the determinant.
Perpend:
>>>>> Various American Indian groups, tending
toward three hundred (300) in number, upon arrival of Columbus and subsequent
Europeans---
>>>>> Impact of American Indians and Europeans on
each other---
>>>>> the different ruling styles of Spaniard,
Portuguese, French, and British imperialists---
>>>>> pre-slavery organization of agricultural
labor---
>>>>> reasons for the economic appeal of slave as
opposed to indentured labor---
>>>>> exact functioning of the slave trade, from
the sale by Ashanti and Dahomey kingdoms of African human commodities to the
Portuguese, French, Dutch, and eventually mainly the British shippers and
traders---
>>>>> everyday slave resistance and occasional
rebellions---
>>>>> Loyalists versus Rebels in the run-up to the
American Revolution; the tough,
extremely constrained options for African Americans in assessing potential for
manumission via participation---
Now consider that I have not even arrived at the precipitating events
and fighting of the American Revolution, the American Constitutional
Convention, the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with the United
States Constitution, or the first decade (1790s) of the new republic--- nor to the little matter of the two complete
centuries (19th and 20th) that by definition reveal the
bulk of events in the history of the United States.
Thus, Arneson’s comments regarding the repetition involved in two
courses of United States history is appallingly stupid because
>>>>> the
problem is not repetition but rather that students learn nothing of great
substance in either course because of the approach to curriculum and pedagogy;
and
>>>>> on the basis of amount of information
important for conveyance, even multiple courses could not impart all that there
is to learn concerning American and United States history--- so that the decision as to how many courses
to offer is a matter of temporal practicality:
Repetition except as a matter of review as foundation for new learning
is a matter of teacher inadequacy, not intrinsic to the abundant knowledge sets
for mastery of American and United States history.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Jenny Arneson did not seek reelection in the November 2022 for seats on
the MPS Board of Education; this was a
highly favorable development for the students of he Minneapolis Public Schools.
#5 >>>>>
At-Large Member Kim Ellison >>>>> Tragi-Comically Silly Comment Regarding
Alternative Schools as a Model for the Minneapolis Public Schools and Other
Gaffs
At the same Tuesday, 22 October 2019, Committee of the Whole meeting of
the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education at which District #1
member Jenny Arneson made her astonishingly stupid comment regarding the
sequence of United States history courses in the district, At-Large member Kim
Ellison chimed in with a remark of her own that, when taken together with her
nearly decade of ineffective participation on the board, should induce her
resignation and departure with Arneson out the Davis Center door.
After hearing Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Aimee Fearing
and Chief of Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore
engage in double talk and jargon-infested presentation of an academic plan that
has no hope of success, Ellison felt impelled to make a comment pertinent to
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).
Ellison commented that Graff’s emphasis on Social and Emotional Learning
resonated with her immediately because of her experience as a teacher at an
alternative school. She did not mention
the name of the school, but the school of
reference was known as Plymouth Christian Youth Center (PCYC) for a
number of years, now rendered as Plymouth Youth Center (PYC) Arts and
Technology High School. Ellison said
that at her school there was a strong emphasis on teacher and staff
relationships with students, with the implication that this produced student
success.
Ellison was half-right but the half-wrong part reveals the abominable
level of academic substance delivered at such schools. The City, Inc., and the Street
Academy/Minneapolis Urban League High School were schools at which relationship
building was touted; those schools are
now
defunct. The Minneapolis Public
Schools contracts with seven privately run alternative schools to provide
academic and other services to students whom MPS failed to engage. Those contract
alternative schools are 800 West Broadway, Loring Nicollet, Menlo Park,
Merc, PYC Arts and Technology (Ellison’s school of reference), Tatanka Academy,
and Volunteers of America (VOA) High School.
Academic performance for many years at these schools has stagnated at
levels witnessed in the following aggregate results for academic year
2018-2019:
Percentage of Students Proficient at MPS Contract Alternative
Schools
(Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment [MCA])
Mathematics 2%
(52 tested)
Reading
(32 tested) 22%
Science
(30 tested) 13%
Many more than 52 students are enrolled at these alternative schools,
so that even the number (52) representing students taking the mathematics MCA
fails to capture the number of students enrolled. But absences are high; on any given day, a small percentage of
enrolled students actually are in attendance.
There was also some formal opting out, as well as spontaneous refusal to
take the tests.
Staff members at alternative schools do tend to build amicable
relationships with students and to reach out to families with a persistence and
compassion not prevailing in mainline MPS schools. In that sense, the overwrought term, Social
and Emotional Learning, could resonate with Kim Ellison’s experience at PYC
High School. That she would only mention
this facet of the school, though, is telling:
Thus there was ever the abiding question with the MPS Board of
Education membership under review:
Were those members
1) ignorant;
2) in denial;
or
3) corrupt.
Accumulated evidence over multiple years of observation strongly
suggested to me that the members of this particularly inept Board manifested
all three qualities:
1) They were ignorant as to the
history and philosophy of education in the United States and had little
understanding of the components of an excellent education.
2) Given their fascination with
their ability to attain membership by winning elections with the strong support
of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), they were in denial on matters
of curriculum and teacher quality;
and
3) They were corrupt political
hacks who cared more about maintaining their positions, in some cases for
potential to spring from the school board to a legislative seat or other
political position--- than they did
about the academic sustenance of the precious students whose lives they
disregard.
Kim Ellison was ignorant, in denial, and corrupt in making such
comments as attend her advocacy of alternative schools as models for the
Minneapolis Public Schools. She made
such comments and failed to identify the problems pertinent to curriculum and
teacher quality throughout her near-decade of membership on the MPS Board of
Education.
Ellison, though, has high name recognition due to her surname, derived
from that of ex-husband and current Minnesota Attorney General. She easily won reelection for an at-large
seat in the election of November 2022.
But a glimmer of hope abides that---
under the influence of a much better MPS Board of Education that
assembled in the aftermath of those elections--- Ellison seems to have undergone something of
a reinvention of herself as Board member and is poised to make better decisions
than she did under the particularly nefarious influences of that most terrible
iteration of the Board.
#6 >>>>>
At-Large Member Kim Caprini
>>>>> The Case of
a Corrupt and Ignorant Board Member in Deep Denial
Caprini ran against Felder for the District 2 (North Minneapolis) seat
in 2016, losing narrowly; she then ran
successfully for an At-Large seat, with heavy Minneapolis Federation of
Teachers (MFT) backing, in 2018.
Caprini grew up in North Minneapolis but mostly attended non-MPS
schools, graduating from high school at Benilde/St. Margaret’s. She has taken scattered post-secondary
courses but does not hold a college degree;
she has a background in culinary arts but now works in social
service. Caprini has two daughters who
have attended Henry High School.
Caprini proved herself to be a corrupt politico that most typically
described members on the iteration of the MPS Board of Education under review; and she frequently betrayed a woeful knowledge
base,
generally and particularly pertaining to the history and philosophy of
education. But her most frequent mode gave
appearance of a person in deep denial.
She has proclaimed that her daughters got a “first-rate education” at
Henry, by factual counterpoint demonstrating that she has no understanding of
the constituents of an excellent education.
At Board meetings during November 2019-January 2020, a contingent of
Hispanic parents cited woeful conditions at what they describe as
“low-performing” schools attended by their children, calling for “priority
enrollment” that would give their children better educations at “higher
performing” schools. Public commentators
voiced other complaints, such as the turmoil frequently witnessed at and
outside Harrison school attended by students with severe emotional disorders.
Board members by protocol do not respond in the moment to Public
Comments but have ample opportunity to do so in the course of regular and
Committee of the Whole meetings.
Caprini’s response was impulsively reactive: She reflexively defended schools where
wretched academic quality is most obvious, and she was in seemingly deep denial
over conditions at Harrison. Concerning
Harrison, Caprini correctly countered criticism with citations of good
programs, such as those pertaining to culinary arts and music; but Caprini never concerned herself with the
palpable and chronic turmoil at Harrison, and she never addressed the abundant
deficiencies in curriculum and teacher quality that describe not only
“low-performing” schools but the classrooms of the Minneapolis Public Schools
as a whole.
As At-Large member, Kim Caprini revealed herself to be a political hack
and gravely ignorant as to the history and philosophy of preK-12 education.
Her most prevalent and manifest mode was that of the MFT sycophant in
deep denial.
By the Grace of the Good, Caprini, after ironically failing to receive
endorsement by the MFT for the election of November 2022, did not run in that
contest.
#7 >>>>> District 6 Member Ira Jourdain >>>>> Error-Prone, Philosophically Bereft,
Politically Tainted
Ira Jourdain was suspect from the beginning of his tenure on the
Minneapolis Public Schools(MPS) Board of
Education for running against Tracine Asberry in November 2016. Asberry was the best participant that I have
witnessed on this or any other school board.
She did not have a clearly expressed dedication to the
knowledge-intensive preK-12 education that I advocate, but she did manifestly care
about fundamental skills in mathematics and reading. Whenever Chief of Research, Evaluation,
Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore would deliver the latest round of bad
news regarding MPS student academic performance, Asberry would ask detailed questions
pertinent to plans for improvement. When
Moore or others would offer double talk or pleasing promises, Asberry would ask
why we inevitably get the same vows for future progress that we’ve gotten
before but little of substance to warrant confidence.
Asberry made a nuisance of herself by not walking the party line of the
Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT)/Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL), calling
failure as she did by that name, and implying that better instruction was
needed. As detailed above, board
members Kim Ellison, Rebecca Gagnon, and
Nelson Inz acted at the behest of the MFT/DFL cohort to recruit opponents to
run against Asberry and Josh Reimnitz.
Inz endorsed Bob Walser against Reimnitz; Gagnon endorsed Ira Jourdain against
Asberry. Both endorsees won narrowly.
Thus Jourdain is politically tainted.
He also is philosophically bereft, giving no evidence of any knowledge
of the history of education or any coherent views of his own.
As a matter of particularly great irritation to me, Jourdain at one
meeting of the Board stated that he signed waiver forms for his children (he
has two, one in elementary and one in middle school, enrolled in the
Minneapolis Public Schools) to opt out of taking the Minnesota Comprehensive
Assessments (MCAs); moreover, when he
did this at a regular meeting of the MPS Board of Education, Jourdain looked
out at the audience and advocated letting other parents know that they had the
right to allow their children to opt out.
The MCAs are linked to the Minnesota State Academic Standards and are
the most objective way of assessing student mastery of the standards. When students opt out in significant numbers,
as they have done at Henry, South, and Southwest high schools, this vitiates
the pool of students assessed and skews the accuracy of the results. Allowing and encouraging students to opt out
is irresponsible.
Jourdain bears the political taint of MFT/DFL backing, he is
philosophically bereft, and he is error-prone.
Urging students to opt of the MCAs went beyond error to indication of
political taint (the MFT rails against standardized testing) and philosophical
waywardness.
Less clear was Jourdain’s voting with a 5-4 majority led by Rebecca
Gagnon to restore $6.4 million dollars in funding that had been cut in a
well-crafted budget emanating from Chief Ibrahima Diop’s Finance Division in
spring 2018. Gagnon was putting herself
in the service of her affluent constituency in Southwest Minneapolis (she
occupied an At-Large position but counted voters in that area as key
supporters); Jourdain voted with the
slim majority roused by his campaign endorser and mentor Gagnon.
Jourdain, who respects Ibrahima Diop and eventually realized the error
of his ways, later showed remorse for his vote.
Also, Jourdain has expressed skepticism about the academic promises
proffered in the MPS Comprehensive District Design. One evening, he sounded some very
Asberry-like comments of the “Haven’t we heard this before?” type.
The vibe of one who cares emanates from Jourdain’s vocal tone and
facial expression. He has the
unfortunate connection to the MFT, he lacks philosophical coherence, and he has
been prone to errors.
But Jourdain gives some evidence of improvement. If he can distance himself from the MFT/DFL
cohort, develop a consistent philosophical approach to academics, and avoid
major miscues of the type that characterized his votes especially in the first
two years of his tenure, Jourdain gives some hope for improvement.
Jourdain ran unopposed for reelection in November 2020 and currently
sits on the Board. Even more that
Ellison, Jourdain seems to have undergone development into a much more
conscientious member of the MPS Board of Education.
In the interest of the academic and life prospects of the students of
the Minneapolis Public Schools, Ira Jourdain must continue his favorable
evolution.
#8 >>>>>
District 3 Member Siad Ali >>>>> Hail Fellow, Well Met Who Never Bolstered Diligence,
Philosophy, or Spine
Siad Ali represented Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of
Education District #3. Ali was
originally from Somalia, studied in India (where he obtained a master’s degree
in business), and speaks Hindi, as well as Somali and English, at a high level
of fluency. Ali gained election to the Board
in 2014 and was reelected without opposition in 2018. In his successful run, Ali replaced fellow
Somali Mohamud Noor, who had gained controversial appointment when the previous
District #3 representative died in office.
District #3 is centered on the Cedar-Riverside area wherein a large
Somali population resides. The district
will for the foreseeable future most likely be represented by a member of the
Somali community, with much discussion therein as to who will run for the
position.
As was the case with all members of the iteration of the MPS Board of
Education under review, Ali had firm ties to the Minneapolis Federation of
Teachers (MFT)/Democrat-Farmer-Labor cohort that determines most elections to
school boards in Minnesota. Ali in fact
works for Amy Klobuchar. He gave no
evidence of finding fault with either group in the cohort. Like so many, he appreciates the greater
propensity of DFL politicians to provide generous funding for education, by
comparison with Republicans, and to assume that more funding in the absence of
meaningful change is a good thing. He neither
understood nor did he want to think about the deleterious effect that DFL
administrations (e. g., Mark Dayton with his Minnesota Department of Education
[MDE] Commissioner Brenda Cassellius;
Tim Walz with his MDE Commissioner Mary Cathryn Ricker) have had on
enforcement of state academic standards and objective measurement via the
Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs).
Thus, Siad Ali bore the same taint of political corruption that was
true of all members of this Board under assessment. And he gave no indication of having any more
knowledge of the history and philosophy of education in the United States than
did the others. But he was an amicable,
proverbial “Hail Fellow, Well Met” who professed love for everybody and seemed
to mean it. He did not do his homework
very well to apprise himself of policy details, but neither did he make clearly
lamentable judgments. In support of the
work of Ed Graff and especially Chief of Finance Ibrahima Diop, Ali voted with
the minority to uphold the budget as presented in spring 2018, losing in the
5-4 vote to the contingent led by Rebecca Gagnon to restore $6.4 million that
upon budget trimming had engendered opposition by affluent parents whose
students’ high schools had been affected.
Although he never took meaningful action, Ali listened more
empathetically than did most other Board members to Public Commentators such as
the Hispanic parents who appealed for “priority enrollment” giving their
children the option of attending schools perceived as “higher performing.” He also listened to my Public Comments and
approached me in the aftermath for follow-up discussion. But in private conversation, Ali was a
terrible listener who, despite understanding the main thrust of my advocacy for
a knowledge-intensive curriculum and the paramount importance of academics, never
got far enough beyond the MFT/DFL party line to digest cognitively my comments.
Like Ira Jourdain, Siad Ali had faint potential to become a better Board
member; but he opted not to run for
reelection in November 2022, giving way to the unopposed candidate, Fathia
Feerayarre, for the District 3 seat.
#9 >>>>>
At-Large Member Josh Pauly
>>>>> Some
Potential on a Board for Which Slim Hope Demanded Consideration
Josh Pauly was one of the At-Large representatives on the Minneapolis
Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education, along with Kim Caprini and Kim
Ellison. He and Caprini won their seats
in the election of November 2018 and took their positions formally in January
2020.
Pauly student taught at Southwest High School, substituted for a while
at Lucy Laney and Bethune, and then taught social studies and AVID (Advancement
Via Individual Determination--- a
minimally effective college preparatory program) at Sanford Middle School. He now works in social and community service
while living in South Minneapolis. Pauly
holds one of those easily obtained and insubstantial masters of education
degrees.
In the election of November 2018, Josh Pauly ran in a four-way
candidate race for two open positions.
The other candidates were Caprini, Rebecca Gagnon, and Sharon
El-Amin. Gagnon had out-connived herself
and run afoul of the Minneapolis Federation of Teacher (MFT)
/Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) cohort.
Gagnon ran essentially even with El-Amin, who has great respect and name
recognition for her longtime North Minneapolis residency and business
ownership, and for her marriage to the imam of Masjid Annur mosque, Makri
El-Amin. Caprini also has longtime
residency and parental involvement on the Northside, and she benefitted
enormously from MFT-DFT backing in the citywide race.
But Pauly was a nonentity whom El-Amin would have defeated handily on
the strength of name recognition and length of community service. Pauly benefited most decisively from the
phone calls made, campaign literature, and door-knocking of his MFT supporters.
During the campaign, I did not find Pauly to offer much in the way of
vision or program for change needed in view of the degradation that is the
district of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
His MFT/DFL backing did nothing to endear him to me. He seemed to have the inexperience of youth
with little compensating vigor; and
rather than offer youthful impetus toward change, he entered his position
tainted by association with the MFT/DFL cohort.
There was much about Pauly that always remained unimpressive:
He read from a script anything of substance that he wants to convey
before important votes or in making reports to other board members; he had little spontaneity or ability to
express himself off-script, in the moment.
Pauly was tentative on matters of curriculum, teacher quality, or other
items pertinent to the academic program
at the core of the locally centralized school district’s reason for being.
And yet three observations gave me very limited hope that Pauly had
some potential to be some degree of a positive force on the MPS Board of
Education >>>>>
>>>>> Pauly did not do any direct harm or say
anything so outrageously stupid as have Arneson, Ellison, Caprini, or Inz; and certainly never uttered any of the
insipid, offensive verbiage of Walser.
>>>>> He had a sense of when discussion was
tending toward seemingly interminable banter and was known to call the question
or use other devices to move matters forward;
he often seemed particularly irritated with the propensity toward the scattered
verbosity of Felder or the baroque rhetoric of Walser.
>>>>> And most importantly, Pauly demonstrated
a considered skepticism at the academic proposals in the emerging MPS
Comprehensive District Design, notably asking Amy Fearing (then Department of
Teaching and Learning Executive Director) and Chief of Research, Evaluation,
Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore (at a fall semester, academic year
2019-2020 Committee of the Whole meeting) how we can be sure there was anything
new in this plan that would improve achievement or was in any way be better
than what we have had for lo these many years.
But Pauly resigned abruptly in March 2022, to be replaced by interim
member Cynthia Booker, who then gave way to the at-large members (Collin Beachy
and Sonya [now Joyner] Emerick) who were victorious in the November 2022
elections.
On the Matter of the Student Representative to the Minneapolis
Public Schools Board of Education
Student Representative Janaan Ahmed
>>>>> One Major
Bright Moment, But Mostly the Typical Wasted Opportunity
Janaan Ahmed was the student representative on the Minneapolis Public
Schools (MPS) Board of Education from January through December 2019.
Ahmed was the fifth student representative to serve. In order, with full calendar years beginning
each January during which they served given in parentheses, the representatives
have been the following: Noah Branch
(2015), Shaadia Munye (2016), Gabriel Spinks (2017), Ben Jaeger (2018), and
Janaan Ahmed (2019). Three of the
student representatives (Branch, Munye, Ahmed) have been students at Henry High
School; Spinks was a student at Edison
High School, Jaeger at Roosevelt High School.
I have the same high expectations of these young people that I do for
my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative. Each of the representatives has ultimately
been disappointing to me as potential agents of change who have not seized the
moment. These students all attend high
schools at which the mean ACT score is approximately 16 (at the 20th
percentile by national standards); at
which major modes of teaching are to distribute packets, show videos, group
students together for projects in the absence of contextualizing information,
or send them singly to computers to seek
information on topics for which they similarly have little background
knowledge; where teacher
burnout leads to long-term substitutes with tangential subject area
expertise; and from which students
graduate with insubstantial knowledge and skill sets and often need remedial
coursework if attending colleges or universities.
And yet not one of these students has articulated the grave problems at
her or his high school. Some had their
moments of eloquence but to no ultimate effect.
Jaeger in particular presented himself as an advocate for those student
groups for which academic achievement has lagged; he did not, however, seem to grasp the
fundamental reasons for the lag or to have any compelling suggestions for
improved achievement.
Thus, Ahmed has been the typical unproductive student representative,
rather than bearing particular culpability.
Ahmed’s most consistent point of advocacy was the call for the change
of name for Patrick Henry High School, on the grounds that Henry was a slave
owner. This appeal jibes with the temper
of our times, in which we change names while leaving historically mistreated
groups still suffering from
various ongoing gaps in social wellbeing. The appeal in this case is also simplistic,
as are most such entreaties. If one
considers the American Revolution a positive occurrence (and there were
Loyalists who did not, with Native Americans and African Americans having
internally opposing views), then
Henry was one of the most forceful proponents of the break with Great
Britain. Further, George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson each famously owned more slaves than did Henry. As a leftist revolutionary, I view the hippy
dippy liberal tendency to launch attacks on people out of historical context
while failing to address injustices today unseemly and frequently
infuriating.
Ahmed did have one bright moment, at an MPS Board of Education
Committee of the Whole. Her incisive
comment came when the subject of new ethnic studies courses came up. At issue was whether to offer these new
courses as electives or as permissible replacements for core subjects such as
United State history. Ahmed said that
she has a passion for ethnic studies but that ethnic specific courses would be
unnecessary if subjects such as United States history were taught as they
should be, with that history as necessarily entailing the participation of
multiple ethnicities in all past events.
Janaan Ahmed is an apparently very bright young woman whose ability and
capacity for public leadership and engagement will stand her in good stead
during her postsecondary life; but she
contributed very little to a regular board membership of adults who are
variously ignorant, corrupt, or in denial.
Those adults had great need of a an incisive, oppositional student force
that Ahmed--- like her
predecessors--- did not provide.
