Gary Marvin Davison’s Answers, Given to Questions Posed to Those Attending St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Search Community Engagement Sessions
Questions, Followed by Gary Marvin
Davison’s Answers
1. What are
the best things happening at SPPS?
One can always find something positive to say about particular
central office staff, site principals, and teachers, but with academic
performance such as the following, indicating St. Paul Public Schools student
proficiency rates based on results from the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments
(MCAs) administered in the spring of the given years, the focus must be
relentlessly on academics, in which there is clearly nothing good happening >>>>>
2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024
Reading 38% 40%
33% 35% 34% 34%
Mathematics 33%
32% 21% 25% 26%
26%
Science 30% 29% 24% 25% ----
25%
2. What are
the most important challenges facing SPPS?
As implied by the above, the
greatest, most important challenges faced by administrators and staff in the St.
Paul Public Schools is the overhaul of curriculum and teacher quality.
The results given above indicate
a grave problem that is, though, only part of the dilemma facing the St. Paul
Public Schools with regard to academics.
The problem indicated focuses on basic skills, possessed by less than
35% of St. Paul students; but beyond fundamental
ability to read and perform mathematical operations, graduates from the St.
Paul Public Schools go across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is a
diploma in name only: Most of those
students have very little knowledge of history, economics, government, biology,
chemistry, physics, or quality world, American, and ethnic-specific literature.
A few students may have found
their way to an Advanced Placement (AP) teacher capable of providing substantive
instruction in key academic areas, but such teachers are very few:
The typical PreK-5 teacher has a
bachelor’s degree in the academically insubstantial major of elementary education
and no advanced degrees in an academic field.
Middle (grades 6-8) school and
high (grades 9-12) teachers typically do hold degrees in legitimate academic
fields, but their graduate degrees are in academically flimsy education
degrees. True scholars are all too few: Most teachers are ill-prepared in the extreme
to impart knowledge-intensive curriculum.
3. What
skills, experiences, knowledge, and personal qualities should the board be
looking for in the
next SPPS superintendent?
Superintendents typically
come from the ranks of teachers and have the same woefully inadequate academic training.
Hence, the stark reality is
that the number of candidates for the position of superintendent who are genuine
scholars approaches zero; in any given candidate
pool, not a single candidate has the requisite interest in academics necessary energetically
to pursue the overhaul of curriculum for knowledge intensity and the retraining
of teachers capable of imparting that curriculum.
Further, superintendent search
firms such as BWP associates are comprised of staff drawn from the ranks of
public school administrators and staff and thus are not themselves capable of
recognizing academically qualified candidates, even if in the off-chance one
comes along.
To get a sense as to how forlorn is the task of
locating a scholar in the superintendent candidate ranks, consider the slim
academic credentials of candidates that BWP associates, in the course of the
recent Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) superintendent search, cited as
candidates of whom they were particularly proud of having placed >>>>>
>>>>>
Eric Gallien
(Note >>>>>
Gallien was dismissed by the Charleston Board
of Education with a $359,000 contractual buyout after
just four months)
(Superintendent, Charleston SC)
Ed. D., Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
University of Wisconsin/Madison
M. A., Curriculum Development and Educational
Leadership
Alverno College
B. A., History Education
University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee
Crystal A. Hill
(Superintendent, Charlotte-Mecklenburg)
Ed. D., Educational Leadership
Gardner Webb University
M. A., Instructional Technology
North Carolina A&T State University
B. A., Elementary Education
Denise Watts
(Superintendent, Savannah GA)
Ed. D.,
Wingate University
M. A., School Administration
University of North
Carolina/Charlotte
B. A., Elementary Education
Elizabeth State University
The most important qualification
in a superintendent is that of the first-rate scholar.
The chances of locating and
recognizing such a scholar are so slim as to approach zero.
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