The K-12 Revolution continues apace.
>>>>> Last Saturday’s (13 September) gathering at
Butter Bakery turned out to include just Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board
of Education members Greta Callahan, Kim Ellison, and Collin Beachy; Kristi Mayne (tentative spelling: I only got the oral rendering), an elementary
school librarian/media specialist; Lara
Bergman (for whom I worked in the November 2024 MPS Board of Education
election; she ran for the District 6 [Southwest
Minneapolis] seat against the ultimately victorious Callahan); a friend of Lara’s (I have not yet lodged her
name in my mental file) who attends many events with Lara; and very briefly (he had to leave very early)
an administrator from South High School--- in addition to myself. Thus, there were eight of us who attended,
and just three of us who are not officially associated with MPS; and, while Lara and her friend do have
children in MPS schools, all three of us in the latter category have an
interest in the district far beyond the typical parent or citizen.
Callahan
largely presided at the meeting; Ellison
and Beachy arrived late. Callahan was
much more cordial than I expected and, along with the others, seemed genuinely
interested in my copious knowledge of the Minneapolis Public Schools, as I
provided factual data that no one else knew, including (tellingly) the Board
members themselves: current total
staffing at the Davis Center (574), number (four) and names of associate
superintendents, and various observations on the history of the district. I also, again highly tellingly, was the only
one present who seemed to know that the MPS Data Report Card portal (giving
student academic proficiency rates, graduation rates and data on discipline
(suspension rates and such) has been unresponsive for two years.
My main
purpose in attending this meeting at Butter Bakery was to apply pressure with
my presence, especially given the opportunity to bring the authoritarian Board
Chair Beachy down from his throne. And,
not surprisingly, my main item learned was how much the others did not know. I did, though, learn that six teachers at
South High School resigned over the summer and that there is considerable
discontent among school site staff with directives from the central office that
lack (in the view of school site staff) clarity and proper support (training
and technology).
And I
learned that Callahan and I may have some foundation for productive interaction. She certainly is a far better listener and
not such a control-freak as Beachy. And,
since my ideas for retraining teachers would always involve union agreement or
acceptance (at whatever necessary level of coercion) Callahan’s status as a
former Minneapolis Federation of Educators president with close ties to current
president Marcia Howard (with whom I have interacted a bit) provides some hope
for communicating my views on the necessary upgrading of teaching staff.
>>>>> Today (Friday, 19 September), I finished a
time-consuming formatting of Davis Center staffing by position and salary data
for presentation on my blog; I ran
numerous calculations on the basis of this data that are telling in many ways,
including confirmation that the Lisa Sayles-Adams administration played some
very deceptive games with claims of central office reductions under the
exigency of budgetary crisis that effectively were not made. When the smoke cleared on the game-running
pathway with GMD in hot pursuit came to an end, claims of cuts that went as
high as 14.22% ended up a bit over a mere three percent (3%).
>>>>> And the past week featured many an entry on
the blog, including another article on corruption at Kipp Academy
Minnesota; coverage of the silly waste
of time constituted by the two Board retreats this summer; the farce that is the Board’s projected
“Transformation” of the Minneapolis Public Schools that has no grounding in
reality; a compilation of building
maintenance costs that should, along with school site enrollment versus
capacity data, result in the closing of at least six schools and repurposing of
two others; and lists of books read this
summer, including seven on public education;
four volumes in Chinese ( two volumes of legends and historical tales,
one of morality tales, and one with articles on traditions and customs); four Shakespearean plays; and approximately twenty nonfiction books.
Listing
my bevy of books read is multifunctional, including emphasizing to my blog
readers the breadth and depth of my knowledge; and communicating to people who claim that
they do not have time to read books that I have recommended just on public
education that such protestations will never get very far with me.
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