Below I provide a couple of contentious email interactions that I had with Board members--- one with Sharon El-Amin and another with Lori Norvell. I embed my own letter to Norvell that engendered her reply, along with my response to that reply. El-Amin was responding to the letter that I sent to the whole Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education on 26 November, urging the Board to reclaim control of the process from the Task Force and move forward in a way likely to result in the selection of Rochelle Cox as long-term superintendent of the district.
>>>>>
From Sharon El-Amin, 1 December 2023
>>>>>
Good afternoon Gary,
Thank you for your continued attention and dedication to MPS and our students. I have always offered you the respect of listening to and considering your perspective, a courtesy I will again extend by reviewing the information you have sent.
I know you are aware that neither board members nor Search Task Force members are allowed to disclose or discuss anything about who may or may not have been an applicant, beyond those that were selected for an interview. Therefore, I do not expect that others will respond on that portion of your message. Rather, like me, I imagine they will review the information you provided on the two finalists and incorporate that into their decision.
As chair I have strived to collaboratively lead with integrity throughout this search process over the past year. The Board has voted to affirm the process and its specific steps at several junctures during that time. At length, we carefully deliberated and voted unanimously to delegate the selection of finalists to the Search Task Force. My focus is now on seeing through the final stages of this process with fidelity and we have two strong finalist candidates, both of whom I believe would be an excellent leader for MPS.
Without making comment on her status as an applicant for the position or not, my respect and gratitude for Interim Superintendent Cox is unparalleled. She has provided much needed leadership and stability for MPS and to me personally, and I am forever thankful. I am excited to see her continue the work for MPS in her next capacity.
Thank you for your research and for reaching out.
Sincerely,
Chair El-Amin
Sharon El-Amin
Board of Education, District 2 Director|Chair
Sharon.El-Amin@mpls.k12.mn.us | 612.986-3281
…………………………………………
Reply from Gary Marvin Davison
December 1, 2023
Sharon:
This communication is the promised concluding statement on the matter of selecting the next Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent, personalized as a note sent particularly to you.
I read your own framing of the process with care; there is little surprise that you and I have very different views of that process and the various possible scenarios at this evening’s (1 December 2023) 4:00-6:00 PM meeting.
Hence, before proceeding to my comment on the responsibility that you bear for the superintendent process, be reminded that my key points remain as follows >>>>>
>>>>> The MPS Board of Education has bungled the search for the next long-term superintendent badly.
>>>>> The Board should have taken much firmer control in selecting the next MPS superintendent, in the spirit of A. J. Crabill’s advice, and looked first for an internal candidate, of which there were and are several good prospects; Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox was clearly the best, a circumstance that she had proven as Interim Superintendent.
>>>>> I have observed superintendents ranging from Richard Green in the 1980s through Ed Graff during 2016-2022. Because of the terrible training that superintendents receive in education programs, and the academically lightweight nature of their background, there is little surprise that superintendents of the Minneapolis Public Schools and other districts typically fail to address the chronic substandard academic proficiency of students, particularly those facing the challenges of familial poverty at the urban core.
>>>>> Therefore, the fact that Rochelle Cox is a keen reader of books and has interests across the mathematic, scientific, and liberal arts is highly unusual. Following from that keen academic interest and her intense love of children and adolescents, Cox in the months stretching from July 2022 through the present (as November turns into November 2023) has relentlessly presented to the Board at each monthly business meeting and each Committee of the Whole an abundance of long-needed mathematics and reading development and knowledge-intensive academic programs, closely faithful to the goals of Strategic Plan (academic achievement, student well-being, effective staff and a school climate of equity).
>>>>> I sat for years observing Board members and was ever stunned that so little discussion of academics took place. The various initiatives that Cox and staff have authored and articulated, and those into which they have injected new energy--- the intervention triads, online ACT training, much more vigorous implementation of Groves, PRESS, and LETRs, the assemblage of an outstanding group on the Anti-Racist, Anti-Bias (ABARS) for addressing the concerns and the retention of BIPOC staff, the uniform implementation of math and reading curriculum, and the current pursuit of a reading curriculum that provides background knowledge and sophisticated vocabulary development--- represent an unprecedented program for addressing the academic of students of all demographic descriptors, most especially the needs of students whose fundamental skills have languished far below grade level.
>>>>> The Board should have long ago offered Rochelle Cox the position of long-term Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
>>>>> To depend on an MPS Superintendent Task Force, in which 14 of the 17 members are not elected officials and lack suitable qualifications, to recommend two or three candidates from which the Board is to select one to be the new MPS Superintendent, is an abominable neglect of the Board’s duty to take full responsibility for all aspects of the selection process.
>>>>> Those two candidates put forward should be regarded only as recommendations. Rochelle Cox’s name should be put forward as a third option. As detailed in my previous communication, Sonia Stewart has disturbing red flags in her professional history and is the typical mediocrity from superintendent candidate pools; Lisa Sayles-Adams, again as detailed in the previous communication, is also a mediocrity.
>>>>> There are various scenarios that could ensue this evening (1 December 2023), including putting Cox’s name forward among the three for consideration.
>>>>> If the process unfolds as you foresee, and either Stewart or Sayles-Adams is selected, then I will be monitoring the continuation of the promising initiatives of Cox and staff, with the expectation that those initiatives move forward with current first-rate staff.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
I am deeply disappointed in your own role in the MPS Superintendent Search process, Sharon.
I will continue to investigate the details of that process and report that process, as the full range of facts become clear, as I complete the second edition of my book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect and write a bevy of new articles for my blog, which currently receives approximately 55,000 views per month, nationally and across the globe.
Be proud, therefore, of whatever happens this evening and in the days and months to come---
With best regards---
Gary
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph.D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
2507 Bryant Ave North
Minneapolis MN 55411
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)
………………………………………………………………………………………………
From Lori Norvelle, 1 December 2023
>>>>>>
Hi Gary,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and perspective with me. Interim Superintendent Cox stepped into this role and was the right person for our District at that time. I appreciate her, her work, and commitment to MPS. I am very happy with the work of the Superintendent Task Force as well as the process for the Superintendent search. And I am very excited to begin this very important work with Dr. Sayles-Adams.
Best,
Lori
Lori Norvell, Director | she/her
Minneapolis Public Schools | District 5
612-919-8136
………………………………………………………………………..
Reply from Gary Marvin Davison, 2 December 2023
December 2, 2023
Lori---
Thanks much for your reply.
................................................................
The ineptitude, intellectual corruption, and low information bases that I have witnessed among the members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education are stunning.
I am now sorting through the facts to determine whether, as I have queried with reference to other education establishment figures, you and the others are
1) ignorant (abysmal information bases);
2) in denial (staring straight into the truth but rejecting facts);
or
3) outright corrupt.
In any case, as I once told Eric Moore, my former home-dude, when it comes to my babies, the only friend I have is the Truth.
And now my readers across the city, state, nation, and world are receiving the truth and monitoring what you have done.
Lisa Sayles-Adams does have a chance to succeed if she embraces the initiatives of Rochelle and her staff. If she does not, I will induce her resignation, as I did in conjunction with others, in the case of Ed Graff---
Be well---
With best regards---
Gary
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph.D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
2507 Bryant Ave North
Minneapolis MN 55411
http://www.newsalemeducation.blogspot.com
Author,
Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current 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, 2008)
The State of African Americans in Minnesota 2008 (Minneapolis Urban League, 2004)
Tales from the Taiwanese (Libraries Unlimited, 2004)
A Short History of Taiwan: The Case for Independence (Praeger, 2003)
Culture and Customs of Taiwan ([with Barbara E. Reed] (Greenwood, 1998)
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