On 26 November 2024,
soon after the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education announced
that the Task Force was recommending two mediocre candidates, Sonia Stewart and
Lisa Sayles-Adams, as finalists in the search for a new MPS Superintendent, I
sent the following letter to the Board >>>>>
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>>>>>
New Salem Educational
Initiative
A Program of New Salem
Missionary Baptist Church
Gary Marvin Davison,
Director
Church Address/ Academic
Sessions
2507 Bryant Avenue
North
Minneapolis
MN 55411
Administrative Office/
Mailing Address
312 South Linden Place
Northfield
MN 55057
November 26, 2023
Directors
Minneapolis Public
Schools
Board of Education
1250 West Broadway
Minneapolis
MN 55411
MPS Board of Education
Directors:
I trust that this note
finds all of you well in the aftermath of a warm and joyful Thanksgiving with loved
ones, and that the spirit of gratitude lingers as you anticipate a very blessed
holiday season.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Attached to this email
are several documents for your reference as we move forward in this week, at
the end of which you will, if the schedule holds, on this coming Friday, 1
December, vote on the next Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools
(MPS).
You have bungled this
search terribly.
One of the documents
attached is the communication containing the notes that in autumn 2022
A. J. Crabill sent to the
previous iteration of the MPS Board of Education. Mr. Crabill was invited
to address that Board as a representative of the Council of Great City
Schools. Seemingly against expectation of key members of that Board,
though, Mr. Crabill counseled members to use a search or a law firm only for
vetting and handling logistics: He conveyed his conviction that astute
Boards are always in readiness when the need arises to select a new
superintendent and should always be cultivating internal candidates.
The previous Board,
especially as impelled by the four key members given reference above, ignored
Mr. Crabill’s advice and endeavored to put in place a suggested time table for
a very conventional process in selecting the next superintendent. You, the
members of the current Board, in large measure followed the signals of the
previous Board and charted a very conventional search, except that on 7 March
2023 you voted to extend the contract of Interim Superintendent Rochelle
Cox.
With that move you
provided hope that you would understand the historically unprecedented nature
of the extraordinary initiatives authored by the Interim Superintendent and
executed brilliantly, especially by Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives
Sarah Hunter, Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing, Deputy Senior Academic
Officer Maria Rollinger, and Senior Finance and Operations Officer Ibrahima
Diop; but also by Executive Director of Engagement and External Relations
Tyrize Cox, Executive Director of Equity and School Climate Derek Francis, and
Executive Director of Student Support Services Meghan Hickley. Indeed,
Senior Information Technology Officer Justin Hennes, Interim Senior Human
Resources Officer Alicia Miller, the associate superintendents, and the
Anti-Bias, Anti-Racist (ABAR) team give appearance as a nonpareil group of
highly talented individuals working with extraordinary and seamless alacrity to
implement a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete academic program, with abiding
reference to MPS Strategic Plan values prioritizing academic achievement,
student well-being, effective staff, and school and district climate.
With exceptional energy
and acuity, Cox and Fearing superintended the introduction of a new math
curriculum (Bridges/Number Corner) that for the first time in recent memory was
followed across all grade levels at all schools. And for reading/language
arts, a similar uniformity of curriculum was followed in a process that will
now move from Benchmark Advance to a new curriculum currently under
trial. Cox and staff also moved with new vigor to ensure faithful
implementation of the reading intervention programs Groves, PRESS (“Pathways to
Reading Excellence”), and LETRS (“Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading
and Spelling”). Academic and Strategic Initiative staff introduced high
dosage tutoring provided by the firms of Carnegie and Axiom, online ACT
training and, most importantly, 133 three-person professional teams (one
licensed teacher, two trained Education Support Professionals [ESPs]), each
team responsible for addressing the academic needs of 75 students lagging below
grade level and having not experienced growth in reading or mathematics skills
for two successive quarters.
Remember that I have
profound knowledge of the history and philosophy of education, that I have
spent 52 years teaching students living at the urban core, that I have for 30
years now directed the New Salem Educational Initiative, and that I currently
teach 45 students per week, with a 25-person waiting list of students living
mostly in North Minneapolis who either attend or live in the attendance zone of
the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Take very seriously,
then, this communication that conveys to you that Rochelle Cox has been in the
process of leading the Minneapolis Public Schools forward toward a model for
urban public school districts across the United States.
The work that Cox and
staff have done to address with elevated intentionality the skill acquisition
needs of students languishing chronically far below grade level has never been
accomplished by any public school district serving students living at the urban
core.
Never.
If you doubt this
assertion, please read the Analysis and Philosophy sections of my book, Understanding
the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect, or
schedule a meeting with me so that I may explain to you why you have been
making history under the direction of Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
Thus, you should have
eleven months ago put aside conventional processes and asked Rochelle Cox to be
the next long-term superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools. You
should never have given your decision-making responsibility to a task-force
that included 14 (of the 17 total) members not elected by the voters in the
district.
You could still take the
initiative to decline the recommendations of the task force and offer the
contract to Cox; alternatively, you could make other moves that would
alter the track you are now following:
You could add Cox’s name
to the list of finalists, so that the whole Board would have the ability to
assess her record compared to the other candidates.
I find odd the
circumstance that the task force did not recommend three candidates rather than
just two:
While Cox has never
publicly stated that she submitted an application, there is a high degree of
probability that she did so and could have had her name forwarded to the Board,
along with those of Sonia Stewart and Lisa Sayles-Adams. You members of
the Board--- and the public--- should have the opportunity to
assess the candidacies of Stewart and Sayles-Adams along with the accomplishments
of Cox.
………………………………………………………………………………………………...
As you ponder these
recommendations, please read the documents that I have attached to this email.
I
am also going to embed in this email (see below) a mostly objective assessment
of the candidacies of Sonia Stewart and Lisa Sayles-Adams. This combines
much information from the presentations on the MPS Board of Education website
with objective information from my own investigations,
especially including data on the demographics and academic progress for
the Hamilton County Schools, where Stewart has served as Deputy
Superintendent; and the Eastern Carver County Schools, where Sayles-Adams
has most recently served as Superintendent.
Be
attentive, though, in the information provided for Stewart that a controversy
arose over her claims of academic progress at Pearl-Cohn High School, in view
of policies of her initiation that seemed to make failing courses impossible
and rewarded students excessively, giving any student an “A” who merely took an
Advanced Placement (AP) course.
Please
read the article (see link directly below) by Samantha West (“Meet Sonia
Stewart, One of Two Finalists for the Green Bay Area Public School
District,” Green Bay Press Gazette, May 12, 2023), pertinent
to the questions that have been raised about Sonia Stewart’s policies while at
Pearl-Cohn High School.
https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/education/2020/02/14/sonia-stewart-candidate-green-bay-schools-superintendent-touts-focus-school-culture/4649734002/
Stewart
has written a book, All Our Children Are Our Children: A Pearl at
the Heart of the City that is inspiring at many junctures (I ordered
and read this book on Saturday, 25 November) but makes highly exaggerated
claims for the academic achievements of students at Pearl-Cohn High School,
given that U. S. News and World Report data indicates that
only 3% of students at Pearl-Cohn are proficient in math, only 12% in reading,
that 35% of students at the high school take at least one Advanced Placement
(AP) course but that not one--- not one--- passed (score of at
least 3 out of 5) in the year ending in 2022 covered by the U. S. News
and World Report presentation, and that college readiness for
Pearl-Cohn seniors is only 8.7 (eight and seven-tenths) on a scale of 0 to 100.
As
to the record of students in the Eastern Carver County Schools where
Sayles-Adams has been serving as superintendent, the data observed is not very
impressive, given that this district serves middle class students and
only 9.2% (nine and two-tenths percent) of students are on free/reduced price
lunch. Also, the word I have from my sources in the St. Paul Public
Schools (SPPS) is that administrators regarded Sayles-Adams as not being ready
to take a head superintendent role when she assumed the position in Eastern
Carver County Schools. The latter district serves just 9,377 students,
casting doubt as to whether this stronger of the two candidates recommended by
the task force is actually prepared to lead the Minneapolis Public Schools,
with 48% of 29,000 students on free/reduced price lunch; at many MPS
schools the figure for those receiving free/reduced price lunch is at 85% or
more).
Consider
my comments and information provided herein very seriously, and read carefully
the attached documents.
I
will be attending the events for the upcoming week and will be highly available
for any discussion or questions.
Do
go ahead and consider the information below.
With
my very best wishes---
Gary
Gary
Marvin Davison, Ph.D.
Director,
New Salem Educational Initiative
http://www.newsalemeducation.blogspot.com
Author,
Understanding
the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Gary Condition,
Future Prospect (New Salem Educational Initiative, second edition,
2023)
Foundations
of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education (New Salem
Educational Initiative, 2022)
A
Concise History of African America (Seaburn, 2004)
The
State of African Americans in Minnesota 2004 (Minneapolis
Urban League, 2004)
The
State of African Americans in Minnesota 2008 (Minneapolis
Urban League, 2008)
A
Short History of Taiwan: The Case for Independence (Praeger,
2003)
Tales
from the Taiwanese (Libraries Unlimited,
2004)
Culture
and Customs of Taiwan ([with Barbara E. Reed]
Greenwood, 1998)
<<<<<
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At the juncture at which I sent the above letter to the Board, the
directors had an opportunity to atone for the miserable decision of the Task
Force. But, although some directors had
misgivings about the recommendations, not one had the courage to take the
necessary action to assure that Rochelle’s Cox’s name was included among the
final candidates for consideration by the entire MPS Board of Education.
This edition of Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis,
Minnesota, gives details on the finalists (including the information that I
sent via attachment to the Members of the MPS Board of Education), the
decision-making process, and the lamentable phenomenon that was the botched
search for the long-term superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, and
the historic nature of this astounding missed opportunity.
