While I still maintain hope that Lisa Sayles-Adams will move forward with the initiatives of Rochelle Cox and staff, the shift in circumstances signaled by the impending arrival of the East Carver County Mediocrity has led me to an entirely different stance with regard to the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education. I am increasingly attentive to the cluelessness of this assemblage of the Board.
The 23 January Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting is indicative >>>>>
Two items were on the docket for presentation by Cox's staff, in what was the last COW presided over by Cox before the arrival of the Mediocrity:
1) a presentation by Muhidin Warfa and Multicultural
Department staff pertinent to newcomer students, dominated by Latine, Somali,
and Afghan immigrants; and
2) a proposal by Deeqaifrah Hussein and the Special Education Department for a workgroup to be comprised of student representatives, parents/caregivers, representatives from disability organizations, disability self-advocates, members of the already-existing Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC), members of the already-existing Special Education Labor Management (SELM) group, a psychologist program manager, a Multi-Tiered System (MTSS) of Support leader, Elementary/Secondary/Due Process Special Education Directors, and representative contingents from among principals, teachers and paraprofessionals. This group will have a special focus on ensuring that special education students are not marginalized and that, beyond standard practices purporting to ”mainstream” them, efforts are made to construct environments in which they can be part of the general student body.
Telling Moments
Three moments in this meeting struck me as especially notable, giving rise to the following observations >>>>>
1) At one point during the Multicultural Department presentation, one of that department’s staff members explained that newcomer immigrant students arrive with widely varying academic preparation. Some students arrive after several years of interrupted education, so that they do not have grade-level skills in their own language. Especially if these are, or are soon to be, high school students, they are given a six-year acceptable timetable for graduation, allowing them to take, for example, remedial math courses before proceeding to the Algebra I/Geometry/Algebra II sequence that is required for graduation.
During the time for questions following the presentation, Lori Norvell asked this staff member if high school immigrant students could be given regular math credit for the remedial courses, making possible a swifter procession to graduation.
Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing and I simultaneously let out with a
very audible, “No !!!!!,” at which point the Multicultural staffer turned
around to Fearing and inquired, “No?,”
to which Fearing replied with an even louder, “No !!!!!”
That
Norvell, a former MPS middle school math teacher, who now teaches at that level
in Bloomington, would ask such a question proverbially speaks proverbial
volumes about her sense of the academic rigor necessary to prepare students for
success at the college/university level and professions that should always be
understood possibly to include those for which mathematics training would begin
no lower than calculus.
2) The second came during the question period following the Special Education presentation, when Joyner Emerick, who had lobbied energetically for the new Special Education Workgroup, conveyed the deep emotions that she felt in seeing staffers for whom they (Emerick accepts all pronouns; I will use, “they”) have so much respect, though she observed that failure to provide these staffers with the standard name placards revealed the disrespect within which Special Education staff often operates.
Emerick then proceeded to make comments relating the history of recognition for special education in the United States, including the momentous developments of the 1970s but also the advocacy of lesser-known parent pioneers of the 1950s. This latter is less well known, and I found Emerick's account mesmerizing. But very early on in Joyner’s account, new MPS Board of Education Chair Collin Beachy interrupted Emerick, saying that for time considerations they should quickly conclude with comments or questions. This was after a Multicultural presentation that was allowed to run overtime, with a bevy of questions pertinent to that presentation.
That
Beachy would interrupt Emerick at what was clearly a life moment for them, and
at a moment at which they were in the midst of providing such vital
information, speaks to an inability to distinguish between that which is
trivial and that which is paramount during the time for questions, and to a
lack of appreciation for those rare times when a Board member is actually
saying something incisively significant.
3) And the third point came when Adriana Cerrillo, referring to newcomer incoming Latine/Hispanic students, asked about the vision for their academic training after remediation. Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox took the question, giving an answer that emphasized the intervention initiatives that I have praised so highly but did not actually convey much sense of knowledge-intensive curriculum beyond those innovative initiatives. This was one of those rare times when I was not satisfied by an answer from Cox and would have pushed her to say more about increasing student knowledge sequentially throughout the preK-12 years.
But
when Cox asked Cerrillo if she had answered her question, Cerrillo said, “Yes,
thank you.” This denotes the lack of any
vision that Cerrillo herself has for Latine/Hispanic students as to improved
curriculum and teacher quality; this is
the lack of a working definition of an excellent education that I have long
observed as ironically absent among those who claim to want to provide students
with an excellent education.
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