Group #1 >>>>>
The Supreme Talents and Effective Staff Members Among the Leadership at the Minneapolis Public Schools, in Order of Value to the District
Position Annual Salary
Senior Finance Officer
Ibrahima Diop $163,962
One of the three best in the nation at his position, Diop has taken a smoke-and-mirrors situation of de facto deep budgetary indebtedness and overseen the development of a structurally balanced budget.
Senior Operations Officer
Karen Devet $166,896
Devet adroitly oversees the large operations division that provides construction & maintenance, security, transportation, and food service; she was responsible for some of the best features of the MPS Comprehensive District Design, pertinent to transportation rationalization.
Associate Superintendent for Special Education
Rochelle Cox $154,669
Cox’s title is misleading. For many years, the head of special education bore the title of executive director. Cox does not oversee mainline school site principals, in the manner of the ineffective associate superintendents discussed below. She is rather responsible for a greatly improved special education program that had been in shambles and under litigious pressure when she assumed leadership. Cox’s work pertinent to the MPS Comprehensive District Design was superb, emphasizing placement of students receiving special education services as close to their home locations as possible and mainstreaming as much as practicable. Cox is an educator who has high expectations and great love for the students with whose lives she has been entrusted.
Senior Information Officer
Justin Hennes $158,496
Having served as executive director under former Chief information Officer Fadi Fadhil, Hennes has the intellectual acumen and creativity of his mentor.
General Counsel
Amy Moore $163,962
Ably handles legal affairs for the district and oversees a highly responsive data requests service.
Executive Director,
Marketing & Communications
Julie Schultz Brown $139,313
Schultz Brown ably oversees marketing and communications for the district; she adroitly handled logistical matters pertinent to public meetings for consideration of the MPS Comprehensive Design, and when crises arise she oversees the delivery of well-crafted statements to the public.
Board & Governmental Rel.
Ryan Strack $108,236
Strack is a versatile staff member who has overseen advocacy for bond issues and now ably performs logistical functions for the MPS Board of Education, as well as establishing relationships with governmental entities.
Group #2 >>>>>
Staff Members Whose Effectiveness is Constrained by the Political Ether
Senior Human Resources Officer
Maggie Sullivan $158,496
An enormously bright staff member who must carefully navigate contentious matters such as teacher and other staff contract negotiations, she also has an understanding of the need to upgrade teacher quality; Sullivan, though, is constrained by a firmly entrenched education establishment and must find ways to break through daunting impediments to produce the requisite quality of teaching and academic staff excellence.
Executive Officer, Superintendent Office
Suzanne Kelly $190,038
Kelly was a key go-to person in the initial stages of the generation of the MPS Comprehensive District Design (CDD) and she sincerely wants to bring knowledge-intensive curriculum to MPS students; but the academic component of the CDD became a jargon-infested document that cannot be the basis for the needed changes: To be effective, Kelly will have to find a way to break through the bureaucratic impediments posed by the Department of Teaching and Learning and other forces of the education establishment, so as to advance the needed overhaul of the academic program.
Senior Accountability, Research & Equity Officer
Eric Moore $158,496
Moore is a curious case, an enormously articulate communicator and a supreme master of data. But Superintendent Graff has given Moore responsibilities pertinent to the generation of an academic program at which this gifted staff member has failed. Moore has not done the reading necessary to gain comprehension of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum, and he is given to espousing noble values while acting in a careerist manner. Moore should stick to his strength in data analysis and demure on matters pertinent to the academic program.
Executive Director,
Engagement and External Relations
CELINA S MARTINA $118,631
Martina is a personable staff member who acts with considerable skill in public forums; but she served as an Ed Graff flunky in the way that she oversaw public meetings pertinent to the MPS Comprehensive Design, maneuvering to jettison any tough questions relevant to the academic program; she must find a way to handle bureaucratic pressures or forever bear the stain of sycophantic careerism.
Group #3 >>>>>
Academic Lightweights Responsible for the Knowledge-Deficient,
Skill-Deplete Curriculum and Low Teacher Quality in the Minneapolis Public Schools
Superintendent of Schools
EDWARD J GRAFF $230,000
Graff has proved an able administrator who has given talented Ibrahima Diop, Karen Devet, Justin Hennes, and Rochelle Cox scope to promote effective policies and programs in finance, operations, information technology, and special education respectively; but Graff is an intellectual lightweight, with no degree in a key subject area: Graff himself can never be the progenitor of knowledge-intensive curriculum and substantive teacher training at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Interim Senior Academic Officer
AIMEE Y FEARING $159,580
Fearing has irritatingly borne the given title for a year, effectively taking over from the hapless, failed outgoing Deputy of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Cecilia Sadler; Fearing has an undergraduate degree in English as a Second Language (ESL) and graduate degrees in education; she has no subject area training, has the intellectually lightweight descriptors recalling those of Graff, and has no understanding of, or ability to design, knowledge-intensive curriculum or to oversee the needed teacher training.
Associate Superintendent
Ron Wagner $154,669
Associate Superintendent
Lashawn Ray $154,669
Associate Superintendent
Brian Zambreno $154,669
Associate Superintendent
Shawn Harris-Berry $154,669
These four academically insubstantial staff members have the tragicomic role of mentoring principals. Wagner, Ray, Zambreno, and Berry have no substantial graduate training in any key subject area. Wagner’s degrees, both undergraduate and graduate, are all in education. Ray and Zambreno have undergraduate training in the social sciences but otherwise have matriculated only in education programs. Berry has an undergraduate degree in business but graduate degrees only in education; she was bumped up in Peter Principle fashion from a failed tenure as principal at North High School, where fewer than 10% of students were proficient in reading, math, and science, and where many classes were so out of order that teachers had given up teaching. These four associate superintendents constitute a burden on the district; they can never be of any help in generating knowledge-intensive curriculum, and they cannot be effective as mentors of principals:
The position of associate superintendent should be eliminated.
Group #4 >>>>>
Other Important Davis Center Staff Members
Executive Director,
English Learners & Global Education
Muhidin Warfa $123,239
Warfa was listed as a member among MPS leaders until well into the 2019-2020 academic year, but Graff removed him from the cabinet when he questioned features of the MPS Comprehensive District Design relevant to language immersion programs; to be an effective staff member for the students of the district as a whole, Warfa needs to work to master the details needed for curriculum overhaul and to develop a strategy for overcoming bureaucratic impediments.
Director,
Office of Black Student Achievement
Michael Walker $137,148
Walker was an effective dean of students at Roosevelt High School and has enormous communication skills; but during the six years of his tenure at the helm of the Office of Black (formerly Male, now Student) Achievement, academic proficiency for students in the designated demographic has continued to lag; Walker’s position and the department should be eliminated, giving way to experts with genuine academic credentials in African American and African history and culture contributing to the design of knowledge-intensive curriculum. Walker’s skills could then be utilized in a new Department of Resource Provision and Referral, staffed with people comfortable on the streets and in the homes of students and families struggling with issues of finances and functionality.
Director, Indian Education
Jennifer Rose Simon $112,565
Simon came to her position after the long tenure of Anna Ross; she is no more an academician than the latter. The Department of Indian Education is legislatively mandated; inasmuch as this is so, the department must be staffed with scholars knowledgeable of Native American history and able to integrate pertinent subject matter into knowledge-intensive curriculum.
