The locally centralized
school district of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) has been a chronically
ineffective school district since the mid-1970s--- over forty
years. Up through the mid-1960s, MPS North High School was academically
the best high school in the state, with a student body comprised of upwardly
aspiring African American students and their Jewish neighbors. Riots
along Plymouth Avenue in 1967, combined with Fair Housing legislation of the
late 1960s, hastened Jewish and middle class African American flight from North
Minneapolis. In the course of the 1970s, an increasing number of
in-migrants from troubled urban centers in Chicago, Gary (Indiana), and Detroit
took the place of these solidly middle class contingents.
At
the time the Minneapolis Public Schools had no more than five African American
teachers; the mostly white middle class MPS teaching and administrative
staff was overwhelmed, possessing little understanding of the needs of young
people from families facing grave challenges of finances and functionality.
To
this day, decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools have never
articulated or implemented a program designed to meet the needs of these
students. The jargon of the administration of Superintendent Ed Graff
indicates that the lack of understanding abides. The meager Graff program
emphasizes bromides connected to Social/Emotional Learning, Equity, Literacy
(SEL), and something dubbed Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS). The
new MPS Comprehensive District Design (CDD) offers such shibboleths, along with
an array of jargon from the education professor’s catalogue. What is
missing is anything remotely resembling academic substance.
Graff
continues to make staffing changes at the Davis Center that are peripheral to
the academic program at the district, with slim prospects for the delivery of
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education or improvement of student
achievement:
His cabinet of leaders continues to feature a
number of capable officials, but the most talented have nothing to do with
mainline academic decision-making. Aimee Fearing remains mystifyingly in
her role as a mere Interim Senior Academic Officer; she is an academic
lightweight who should have long since been removed from the position and
replaced by a scholar with a Ph. D. in a key subject area discipline.
Associate Superintendents Shawn Harris Berry, LaShawn Ray, Ron Wagner and Brian
Zambreno similarly have no advanced training in a key academic area;
their $150,000-plus positions, which involve mentoring principals, should be
terminated as principals are properly trained to rise above the current level
of mediocrity.
To his cabinet Graff has added Ryan Strack in his
role as Administrator for the Board of Education and Government Relations and
Celina Martina as Executive Director of Engagement and External Relations.
Strack is a capable official who has coordinated successful efforts pertinent
to referenda issues; he is, though, not a scholar and has nothing to do
with academic decision-making. Martina is also capable, but she bears the
stain of moderating most of the community engagement sessions as the MPS
Comprehensive District Design (CDD) was under consideration; she ran a
highly controlled event that dodged tough questions having to do with any
academic improvement likely to occur upon CDD implementation;
Martina, who is also not a scholar or involved in academic decision-making,
came across as a Graff sycophant in those CDD engagement sessions.
Other changes at the Davis Center also have
little prospects for improving academic performance at the district.
There now exists an Equity and Integration Department, for which Candace Logan
serves as executive director. Jason Bucklin serves as Out4Good
(advocating for LGBTQ students) director in the department; Christina
Benz, Roi Kawai, and Betsy Ohrn serve as equity coordinators. Julie
Young-Burns acts as bullying prevention coordinator and also takes the lead on
the implementation of Social/Emotional Learning (SEL). Ann Viveros and
Jewel Reichenberger serve as SEL facilitators. In the Positive
School-Wide Engagement program, Faiza Holmes, Vince Jackson, and Matthew Myvold
serve as District Program Facilitators.
All of these positions and programs represent the
typical bureaucratic response to a very real problem, with little prospect for
addressing the issue; the perceived need for such a response necessarily
calls into question the capability of school site staff on the relevant
issues. None of these newly assigned staff members is likely to
have an impact on student academic performance or the imperative to impart
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education that is at the core of the mission
of any public school system. Just as for six years of its existence the
Office of Black Male Student Achievement (now dubbed Office of Black Student
Achievement) and for much longer a Department of Indian Education have had no
impact on abysmal student achievement rates, these bureaucratic initiatives
will likely end up being boondoggles for those occupying the newly created
sinecures.
Rather than creating a bureaucratic position to
pretend that an issue is being addressed, or to provide cover for site staff
who should be but are not culturally and socially sensitive to student needs,
teachers, principals, and other on-site staff should be thoroughly trained (far
beyond the level of typical professional development, “PD” in education
establishment jargon) and great care should be taken with new hires.
In the case of teachers and principals, the
training should not be just in matters pertinent to cultural and social
sensitivity. Given the woeful nature of teacher and administrator
training at colleges and universities, teachers and principals need to undergo
rigorous academic training by scholars of academic disciplines assembled to
provide subject area knowledge and skill sets from a new curriculum of
scholarly design.
There is no evidence, four years now into his
tenure, that the academically lightweight Graff has any idea as to how to
proceed with regard to curriculum design and teacher training. He is a capable
administrator who supports talented staff members such as Ibrahima Diop (Senior
Financial Officer), Karen Devet (Senior Operations Officer), Justin Hennes
(Senior Information Technology Officer), and Rochelle Cox (head of Special
Education). But none of these officials is key to the design of the main
academic program of the district.
Graff places a great deal of emphasis on
“alignment” of staff according to functions important to the district.
But when there is no one on staff of scholarly merit, no “alignment” can
address the woeful academic record of the Minneapolis Public Schools. To
meet the needs of the district relevant to curriculum and teacher quality,
staff with scholarly credentials will need to be brought in. With the
academic upgrade, the district also needs to create a new Department of
Resource Provision and Referral, full of staff members who are not bureaucrats
but rather on-the-ground activists comfortable on the streets and in the homes
of students facing severe life challenges right where they live.
If Graff does not do this, then he should depart
the Minneapolis Public Schools and a new MPS Board of Education (that includes
prospective 3 November victors Sharon El-Amin, Adriana Cerrillo, and Michael Dueñes)
should hire a scholar in his stead.
Electing new leadership is imperative for
recognition of the changes needed at the Minneapolis Public Schools, so as to
address issues that have not been faced since 1975.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
For a Chance at Attaining the
Jeffersonian Vision, Electing Sharon El-Amin, Adrian Cerrillo, and Michael Dueñes to the
Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education Is Imperative
Thomas Jefferson, as a slave
owner who among other founders established a nation the electorate of which was
comprised mainly of substantially propertied white men, his notion of “the
people” seems limited. But as he sat at
his desk penning his majestic works, he wrote in the context of Enlightenment
ideas that projected a vision of government controlled by human beings in the
abstract. And intellectual colleague James Madison took the lead in generating
a United States Constitution that had
the same limitations in immediate application but established the principle of
citizen rule and through provision for amendments in time enabled people of all
ethnicities and gender identifications to vote and to participate fully in the
political life f the nation, or to demand the right to do so.
Thus a couple of slave holders
ironically provided a route to genuine democracy and were great articulators of
a vision for the people as the ultimate source of governmental power. Thus did Jefferson write,
I
know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society
but
the people themselves; and if we think
them not enlightened
enough
to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the
remedy
is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion
by
education. This is the true corrective
of abuses of constitutional
power.
In the course
of the 19th century, Horace Mann was the greatest spokesperson for
the establishment of “common schools” for the attainment of the Jeffersonian
vision as reality. But inasmuch as these
schools were supposed to provide a common knowledge base upon which citizens
could make informed decisions, they never realized their potential. Today, in the Minneapolis Public Schools
(MPS), students among those 70% who manage to graduate in four years walk
across the stage to receive a diploma in name only. One-third of those graduates who go on to
matriculate at colleges and universities need remedial courses. All MPS graduates are knowledge-deficient in
mathematics, natural science, history, government, economics, literature, fine
arts, and the technological and vocational arts.
The impediments to the impartation of
knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education to the students of the Minneapolis
Public Schools (MPS) are knowledge deficient curriculum, ill-trained teachers
and principals, the absence of any scholars among those making academic
decisions at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway), a
central office bureaucracy incapable of addressing these dilemmas, and a
corrupting context created by the public education establishment that extends
from college and university based teacher training programs through the
Minnesota Department of Education MDE), with many tentacles reaching into a
community of complicit enablers.
To address the vexing dilemmas that send
forth graduates (that less than 70% of MPS students who manage to graduate in
four years) of the kind who now make up a fact-denying, ignorant citizenry
capable of bring forth the Trump disaster, we must set about overhauling public
education at the level of the locally centralized school district. To overhaul our local iteration, we must
clean house at the Davis Center, bring in scholars to overhaul curriculum and
to design a system of teacher training for delivery by the school district, and
elect members of the MPS Board of Education that will recognize and act upon
the imperative to oversee the needed transformation.
The current composition of the Minneapolis
Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education presents nine members who are firmly
connected to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers
(MFT)/Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) cohort that always blocks any needed
change; the cohort is in turn deeply
indebted to Education Minnesota, the pro-DFL lobbying entity of which the MFT
is a local affiliate. To break through
these impediments, ousting current board members KerryJo Felder (District 2)
and Kim Ellison (At-Large) and bringing leadership unconnected to the MFT/DFL
cohort to the District 4 seat is imperative for bringing knowledge-intensive,
skill-replete curriculum to MPS students.
Thus, voters who comprehend the nature of the needed transformation
should cast their ballots for Sharon El-Amin in District 2 (so at to oust
Felder), Adriana Cerrillo in District 4 (so as to defeat DFL-endorsed Christa
Mims for the seat abdicated by Bob Walser), and Michael Dueñes for the At-Large seat (so
as to oust Ellison).
Current District 2 Member Felder is an
erratic presence on the Board, often making errors in citing statistics that
she compiles but insufficiently understands;
she is deeply indebted politically to the Minneapolis Federation of
Teachers (MFT) and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party and has little
understanding of or inclination toward the overhaul needed in curriculum and
teacher quality in the district. Current
At-Large Member Ellison is also tied to the MFT/DFL cohort that always impedes
reform efforts. Mercifully, District 4
Member Bob Walser opted not to run again, opening the way for Dueñes.
Sharon El-Amin has served as head of the North Polar (North
High School) parent group and is a community activist who twice a month prepares
100 meals for those in need; for many
years, El-Amin owned and ran the El-Amin Fish Shop on West Broadway Avenue.
Adriana Cerrillo is an activist who
has made many appearances at the state capitol in St. Paul as an advocate for
immigrants’ rights. She is guardian for
her 11-year-old nephew, who attends Emerson Spanish Immersion Learning
Center in the Loring Park neighborhood, where Cerrillo is on the site council
and has agitated for improved quality.
Michael Dueñes is a former dean of liberal arts and global education at North
Hennepin Community College. Since 2018
he has been self-employed as a policy analyst focused on education and racial
disparities.
Electing Sharon
El-Amin and Adriana Cerrillo will rid the MPS Board of Education of MFT/DFL
sycophants KerryJo Felder and Kim Ellison;
electing Dueñes will bring to the Board a member willing to question
district approaches and policies that have produced such terrible academic
results.
Ridding the nation
of the menace that is Donald Trump and gaining politically progressive control
of the Senate and retaining such in the House of Representatives, transforming
K-12 education is immediately important for addressing the ills now besetting
the United States of America. But electing
school board members across the nation willing to challenge the political and
ideological forces that impede the needed transformation is vital to the
production of a more knowledgeable, fact-led citizenry.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
Defeating Donald Trump Is an Important But Merely
Tactical Action; Transforming K-12
Education Is the Most Important Strategic Initiative for Creating an Informed
Citizenry: Thus, Electing Vital
Challengers to the Current System Is Imperative
Electing Sharon
El-Amin, Adriana Cerrillo, and Michael Dueñes to the MPS Board of Education is imperative
for producing an informed citizenry.
Defeating Donald Trump in the presidential
election on 3 November and achieving Democratic Party victories for control of
the Senate and retaining majority in the House of Representatives are supremely
important goals for the American electorate. But these are well-publicized
goals for everyone disgusted with the tone and temper, as well as the policies,
of the Trump tenure, and deeply concerned about the issues of climate change,
health care, and economic equity.
But strategic, as opposed to tactical
objectives, will only be achieved with greater attention to and better outcomes
in the least publicized race in Minnesota, similar to low-radar contests across
the nation: races for seats on the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board
of Education--- and like races across the United States.
The dilemmas at the Minneapolis Public Schools
are not those that gain the most attention during those rare moments during
which issues pertinent to K-12 education generate public responses. Last
spring, before the threat posed by COVID-19 became clear, members of the
Minneapolis community packed the assembly room at the occasion of monthly
regular business meetings of the MPS Board of Education. At issue was the
MPS Comprehensive District Design (CDD), which brought forth complaints mostly
of an intensely personal nature, with parents complaining about alterations in
programming or transportation pertinent to schools attended by their own
children. In fact, the CDD (ultimately approved by the Board in May 2020)
is in most ways an enormously thoughtful reshaping of MPS that induces
attendance at community schools, centralizes and reconstitutes magnet programs,
and rationalizes transportation so as to capture precious resources that can be
applied to the most vexing dilemmas relevant to curriculum and teacher quality.
The real problem with the CDD is that those
who generated this otherwise thoughtful plan did not address either of those
most important issues for reform. Curriculum at the Minneapolis Public
Schools is enormously weak. Teacher quality is mediocre. As a
result, math, reading, and science proficiency lag below fifty percent, below
thirty percent for many demographic groups. Students gain little
knowledge of natural science, history, government, economics, literature, or
the fine arts. The fewer than seventy percent of students who manage to
graduate in four years walk across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is
a diploma in name only. One-third of former MPS students who matriculate
at colleges and universities must take remedial courses.
Across the nation, these circumstances are
familiar to the public schools, which produce a citizenry that possesses a
lamentably weak knowledge base; those who vote tend to do so on the basis
of emotion and, at worst, to the framing of issues by demagogues. Only
when we overhaul public school systems such as the Minneapolis Public Schools
will we send forth citizens primed for lives of cultural enrichment, civic
participation, and professional satisfaction, capable of making decisions on
the basis of objective information rather than emotional responses and personal
prejudice.
This is why low-radar school board races are
the most strategically important of all political contests. Only via the
overhaul of curriculum for the impartation of key knowledge and skill sets and
the training of teachers capable of delivering the requisite information will
we produce the citizenry necessary to meet the enormous challenges the nation
faces.
In the open seats for the MPS Board of Education,
voters should vote for Sharon El-Amin (over KerryJo Felder) in District 2
(North Minneapolis), Adriana Cerrillo (over Christa Mims) in District 4
(ranging from Bryn Mawr through Uptown and adjacent areas), and Michael Dueñes for the open at-large seat
(currently occupied by Kim Ellison). El-Amin is a longtime presence on
the North Side, a business owner and parent active in MPS schools in that part
of the city. Cerrillo is an activist at the State Capitol, advocating
for immigrant rights and promoting social justice. Dueñes is a former college administrator with clear
policy interests. All of these candidates will bring needed new
perspectives, unencumbered by ties to the usual political forces that have
weighed so heavily against reform at the Minneapolis Public Schools for
decades.
Thus, please by all means vote
for Biden/Harris and for Democratic Senate and House of Representative
candidates. Doing so will achieve tactical victories necessary for moving
forward on issues vital to the nation’s future. But the strategic victory
will come only with the election of school board candidates positioned to bring
the needed overhaul at the Minneapolis Public Schools and other public school
systems, productive of citizenry capable of evaluating issues on the basis of
strong bases of information and making decisions based on objective fact rather
than emotion and prejudice.
