Introductory Comments >>>>> Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota<, Volume XIII, Number 4, October 2026

The district of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is academically disastrous and has been for many decades, for which the data given in this edition of Journal of the K-12 Revolution:  Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota are illustrative.

 

For a brief phase encompassing August 2022 through January 2024, the administration of Interim Superintendent Rochell Cox and Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing launched several initiatives---  Tutoring Triads, online ACT tutoring, and online high dosage tutoring---  intended to address directly the key academic vexations that had long haunted the district.  Cox and Fearing were also moving deliberately to implement knowledge-intensive curriculum and to train teachers capable of imparting such a curriculum.

 

But the current administration of Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams, whose tenure began in February 2024, abandoned all of those promising initiatives.  The new reading curricula of the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) and Arts & Letters were introduced in response to State of Minnesota READ Act stipulations regarding the “Science of Reading,” but in the absence of the aggressive initiatives of reference and knowledge-intensive teacher training, the Sayles-Adams administration indicates little comprehension of the program necessary to advance academics in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

In the articles below, readers will successively observe Minneapolis Public Schools student academic proficiency rates overall and disaggregated according to ethnicity as measured by the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) for the academic year ending in 2026;  a comparison to that single year with those academic years ending in 2014 through 2025;  and then student academic proficiency rates as measured by the MCAs for the academic year ending in 2026 in all MPS  elementary schools, middle & K-8 schools, and high schools.

 

Readers should contemplate the consequences of the loss of momentum achieved during the administration of Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox (August 2022 through January 2024) and the lack of aggressive attention to academics during the tenure of Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams from January 2024 through October 2026.