Transformation at the Minneapolis Public Schools Should Now Involve
Ousting
Lisa Sayles-Adams as Superintendent, Installing New Leadership, Then
Focusing
Keenly on Knowledge-Intensive Curriculum and the Training of Teachers Capable
of Imparting Such a Curriculum
The
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams
administration and MPS Board of Education should have moved forward with plans
to close at least 16 schools and thus achieve millions of dollars in cleaning
and maintenance costs and to position the district to realize an abundance of
revenue from the sale or rental of buildings.
Thereafter,
the focus then should have been to providing students with a
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education, necessitating the training of
teachers capable of delivering such a curriculum.
Rochelle
Cox would have, as long-term superintendent, long since induced the Board to
act on the financial crisis about which she, Senior Finance Officer Diop, and
Executive Directo Thom Roethke had warned. And she would have moved
forward with her Tutoring Triad interventions, online ACT preparation, and
online high dosage tutoring. She and then Senior Academic Officer Aimee
Fearing would have continued to invite such proponents of broad knowledge for
intrinsic value and improved reading ability as Natalie Wexler and then
skillfully induced teachers to undergo the training necessary for the provision
of a knowledge-intensive curriculum.
The
process that denied to Cox and Fearing the opportunities to continue their
promising initiatives was deeply corrupt. The Superintendent Lisa
Sayles-Adams administration has been deceitful and irresponsible in seeking to
blame former Finance Division officials for the crisis about which they had
warned and sought so skillfully to mitigate. Sayles-Adams is an
intellectual lightweight who somehow gained doctoral committee approval at
Minnesota State University/Mankato for the worst dissertation that I have ever
read, yet insists on staff and Board members addressing her as “Dr.” Her
administration has taken no action to improve academic quality, lacking the
comprehension and courage to take necessary action.
In the
aftermath of the Cox and staff presentation on MPS finances in November 2022, I
analyzed building usage and published suggested closings and re-purposed
buildings that closely resemble the plan presented at the 15 September 2026
meeting by the Sayles-Adams administration, while also continuing in Public
Comments and on my blog and other platforms to expose the academic failure of
the district.
The MPS
Board of Education was at least three and a half two years too late in moving
on the building usage and financial issues; Sayles-Adams moved too slowly
on the building usage issues since her assumption of her position and she
irresponsibly has blamed the district financial crisis on people who were
confronting that crisis forthrightly.
Genuine
Transformation would entail the changes necessary to provide
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education to children of all demographic
descriptors
……………………………………………………………………….
The most
important part of the overhaul of the district will come with the retraining of
teachers capable of imparting knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum to
students of all demographic descriptors.
College
and university scholars should be commissioned to provide subject area
instruction to both elementary and secondary teachers, all of whom either
majored in education or matriculated in academically weak departments, schools,
or colleges of education to gain certification, then in many cases sought insubstantial
Master’s Degrees in education.
The
scholars would give elementary teachers and principals instruction leading to a
Masters of Liberal Arts degree, for which they would receive rigorous academic
training in mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government,
geography, economics, world and English language literature, and the visual and
musical arts; they would then write an academically substantial master’s
thesis in one of these key subject areas.
Scholars
would also provide instruction to secondary teachers and principals in a field
of their certification, leading to a master’s degree in mathematics, biology,
chemistry, physics, history, government, geography, economics, world and
English language literature, and the visual and musical arts.
Given
such training, teachers would (as in the case of college and university
professors) return to the classroom ready to impart subject area information
constituting knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum, and they would be
expected to demonstrate the pedagogical ability for transmission of their
knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.
……………………………………………………………………….
With the
prevalence of teachers and principals of requisite knowledge and pedagogical
ability, a bevy of offices, departments, divisions, and staff could be
eliminated; these include the Office of Black Student Achievement
(approximately nine [9] staff members), the Office of Latine Student
Achievement (approximately seven [7] staff members), and the Department
Academic Core and Instruction (approximately twenty-three [23] staff
members.
None of
these offices, departments, divisions, and staff would be any more necessary
than they are on college and university campuses: Teachers and principals
would now have academic expertise comparable to their college and university
professorial counterparts. The four associate superintendent positions would
also be eliminated, now that principals would not need the mentoring that is
the putative function of associate superintendents.
The
Minneapolis Public Schools Department of Indian Education is legislatively
mandated and thus will have to be retained; however, this department should
be reduced in staff to a contingent of subject area experts positioned to bring
greater academic rigor to indigenous students.
……………………………………………………………………….
With such
an overhaul, the MPS administration can make an appeal to individual donors and
foundations with the message that the Minneapolis Public Schools is positioned
to deliver a nonpareil excellence of education to students of all demographic
descriptors. Families will opt to send their students to the Minneapolis
Public Schools, rather than to charter and private schools, in part mitigating
the demographic trends pertinent to lower birth rates and a declining student
age population. Donors and foundations will be eager to be part of this
exciting revolution in public education, so that the additional funds necessary
to supplement federal and state sources will be forthcoming.
With all
of the above actions, the Minneapolis Public Schools could become a model of
excellence in public education that would in the course of time extend the
revolution to districts throughout the United States--- and also induce
comparable action worldwide.
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