Article #4
Lisa Sayles-Adams’s Mediocrity Was Clearly on Display
at the Tuesday, 13 February 2024, Meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools
Board of Education--- As Was the Intellectual
Corruption of Board Chair Collin Beachy and the Embarrassing Buffoonery of
Education Consultant Betty Webb
The monthly meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education was this past Tuesday (13 February), the first at which Lisa Sayles-Adams took occupancy as MPS Superintendent.
A number of African American women who do not often in some cases (e.g., activist gadfly Nekima Levy-Armstrong) and not every time in others (e.g., We Win Program leader Titilayo Bediako) show up at Board meetings attended this time to demonstrate support for Sayles-Adams. A full slate of the possible 25 commentators made Public Comments, some of them a representation of the aforementioned African American women supporters; others speaking to issues at certain schools; and, among other issues, some there to express concern about anti-Semitism in schools and other public venues, in Minneapolis and in the context of the broader national phenomenon.
Before I spoke there was a slight pro-Sayles-Adams vibe to the evening, even if Davis Center staff members seemed possessed of limited enthusiasm.
Then I changed the mood >>>>>
I began by conveying aspects of my heavyweight scholarly preparation in conducting doctoral research in route to my Ph. D. in Taiwanese history: high-level fluency in Mandarin Chinese, reading skill in Japanese, some acquisition of the local Minnan dialect, village-based research, interviews in Mandarin with university professors and government figures, construction of surveys in Chinese administered to farmer association officials, and meticulous combination of anthropological and oral history techniques with copious reading of the English and Chinese literature.
I then conveyed that while such scholarly seriousness typically accompanies pursuit of the Ph. D., the Ph.D. is not be confused with the Ed.D. (Education Doctorate). I said,
Education professors are campus embarrassments.
No one who holds the Ed.D. would ever be selected
as a college or university president. The Twin Cities
metro has a number of cash cow degree mills---
University of Minnesota, Augsburg University,
University of St. Thomas among them---
that bestow such degrees. At Minnesota State
University/Mankato, of 89 dissertations written
between 2016 and 2022, only one, a gossamer 134-page
whisp of a document, has been embargoed. This is a
dissertation for the Ed. D. written by Lisa Sayles-Adams.
At this point, Board Chair Collin Beachy interrupted me, saying, “That’s character assassination,” and seemed poised to continue interrupting and possibly cut the mike. So I stepped away from the podium and walked right in front of the Board members and Sayles-Adams and continued,
The evidence strongly suggests that Sayles-Adams
is even worse than the typical mediocrity,
nevertheless
selected by (as I gestured with my right hand in a
semicircle
enveloping each Board member and Sayles-Adams) these
inept members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board
of Education.
I actually got some scattered applause but mostly received angry looks for the Sayles-Adams supporters and solicited startled expressions from MPS staff members and many others. I got an angry retort from erstwhile Board consultant, the buffoonish Betty Webb. When at the 10-minute break between Public Comments, a member (African American female) member of the Robbinsdale Board of Education engaged me in a spirited conversation, Webb (holder of the Ed.D.) approached us as if to break into our conversation, saying to me,
“I’m just as smart as you are--- if not smarter.”
“You’re trying to justify yourself to me,” I replied. “Please go away,” a request that the Robbinsdale Board member reinforced by urging Webb (whom the Board member knows) not to interrupt our conversation, which was lively and constructive.
After the meeting, Webb touched me gently on the arm as if to make amends.
I told her, “Do not touch me.”
She touched my arm again.
I then very loudly shouted, ”I said do not touch me!!!. I do not want to talk to you!!!!!”
Remember that Betty Webb is the buffoon who wasted my time and that of the Board (at the invitation of Sharon El-Amin) at a six-hour--- that would be 360 minutes--- retreat and a couple of follow-up sessions. My disgust was registered to many people and now has been implicitly conveyed to Webb herself.
…………………………………………………
The meeting then consisted primarily of Sayles-Adams giving a monotonic, jargon-infested presentation of her plans for her first hundred days as MPS Superintendent. She brought forward no staff members during this presentation. She read from a script. In numerous ways my pain was amplified in enduring this presentation by the contrast with Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox’s presentations at business and Committee of the Whole meetings with lively focus on academics, mainly, and otherwise student support services and school environment issues--- always with staff (variously teachers, principals, and Davis Center leaders) well-represented.
I stared in disgust throughout this inept presentation.
Follow-up communications with Davis Center staff have been interesting. Despite their variously tacit or explicit agreement with me as to Sayles-Adams as the typical mediocrity or worse, I have the sense that spines are softening and accommodation is occurring, faster and involving more staff members than I had predicted. There are only so many situations in which many Davis Center staff could ever gain $150,000 per annum remuneration.
Much will come into my consciousness in the days ahead that will be assessed on my blog, in the second edition of Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect, and at an ongoing series of Public Comments.
The document that accompanied Sayles-Adams’s presentation, which she mostly read in verbatim monotone, can be found at the School Board portal of the MPS Board of Education website.
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