As readers scroll down to the next two entries, they will find reviews of two impressive books from my bevy of summer 2026 reading >>>>>
Tana French, The Witch Elm (New York: Penguin/Random House, 2019)
Sharon McMahon, The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Thesis/Random House, 2024)
Sharon McMahon, The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Thesis/Random House, 2024)
Sharon McMahon has gained podcast fame as “America’s History Teacher”; in The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement, she has produced a work that resonates with her moniker.
McMahon occasionally lapses into current slang “(She was like, “What that’s all about?”) not particularly appealing to this scholar accustomed to reading weighty historical tomes, but the book is lively and informational, drawing attention to people who have affected the way we live today in a way that is in sync with my own propensity to combine research into historical documents with interviews and oral collections so as to discover the stories and the facts that might not otherwise gain wide notice.
McMahon provides a substantive introduction, then divides the work into seven major parts.
In the introduction McMahon reminds us of the achievements of Gouverneur Morris, Constitutional Convention delegate from Pennsylvania, who wrote the Preamble to the United States Constitution and edited the text of that historically most important document. James Madison’s ideas suffused the Constitution, so that he deserves short-hand credit as author, but Morris’s work constituted major contributions and should have the wider airing that McMahon provides.
The part of the book entitled. “Angel of the Rockies” focuses on Clara Brown, bringing to life the horrors of slavery in her native Kentucky during the 1830s; the anger between supporters and opponents of slavery in “Bleeding Kansas,” to which Brown moves in the 1850s; and the crudeness of life for miners during the Colorado gold rush during the 1870s, where Brown provided all manner of free and paid services to the miners, becoming (remarkably, given her background) a millionaire and a philanthropist of fame in Colorado but not nationwide.
In the part, “The Next Needed Thing,” we meet Virginia Randolph, also an African American of humble beginnings who in the 1890s gained enough education to become a teacher and by the early years of the 20th century had opened the Virginia Randoph Training Academy to qualify other young Black residents of Virginia to teach in or launch schools of their own.
In “America the Beautiful,“ readers learn the story of Katharine Lee Bates, poet from Cape Cod who in the 1880s traveled to England and garnered favorable notice from literary magnates, then responded to a request in 1890 to write the lyrics for “America the Beautiful” by the organizers of the World Exposition in Chicago.
In “Forward Out of Darkness” we meet three women who were avid participants in the long struggle for women’s suffrage and rights: Inez Mulholland of New York, Maria Lopez of California, and Rebecca Brown Mitchell of Idaho. Their life stories, not as well-known as those of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul make vivid the courage and fortitude necessary to confront a patriarchal system that would not relent on the matter of female suffrage until 1920 and even begin to succumb to the pressure of Second-Wave feminism on matters of legal equality until the 1960s.
In “An Orientation of the Spirit,” readers meet the philanthropist Anna Thomas Jeannes who most notably funded those who became known as “The Jeanes Teachers” upon the activist energy of William James Edwards; and Julius Rosenwald (cofounder of Sears-Roebuck and creative spirit behind the Sears Catalog) who funded the institutions dubbed the “Rosenwald Schools” on the model of his friend Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, emphasizing technical training and the achievement of economic prosperity as foundation for citizenship and the attainment of wider civil rights.
In “Go For Broke,” we meet Daniel Inouye, Norman Mineta, and Alan Simpson; the former two were Japanese Americans whose families faced the ignominy of the 1940’s concentration camps but who went on to become war heroes and formidable statespersons. Simpson, a White American who lived near the concentration camp in Wyoming into which Mineta and family had been forced to move, made childhood friends with Norm under those circumstances, objected to the injustice, and went on to become an influential Republican moderate from Wyoming who reconnected with Mineta when the latter became a Democratic congressional representative from California (and Secretary of Commerce under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush); the two frequently argued over issues but also cooperated in numerous legislative initiatives, Including those to aid war veterans generally and former soldiers who were Asian American specifically. Daniel Inouye, elected in 1964 to the United State Senates representing Hawaii, gained fame as a member of the Senate Watergate Committee and, over a career that endured through 2012, at times served as the Chair of the Intelligence, Indian Affairs, Commerce, and Appropriations committees. He connected with Mineta as a fellow Japanese-American and worked with both Mineta and Simpson to pass important legislation.
And in “Momentum, readers come to understand the contributions of Claudette Colvin of Alabama and Septima Clark of South Carolina, precursors of the more famous Rosa Parks in resisting oppression in the American South and in the course of resistance putting themselves in jeopardy and subjecting themselves to jail time in ways that would inspire both Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.
A curiosity pertinent to the subtitle of this work is that there actually seem to be more than twelve unsung heroes covered in the chapters;
Gouverneur Morris is not mentioned in the introduction but is clearly considered an unsung hero.
These thirteen people from the narrative that I give above do appear in chapter headings:
Clara Brown
Virginia Randolph
Kathleen Lee Bates
Inez Mulholland
Maria de Lopez
Rebecca Brown Mitchell
Anna Thomas Jeanes
Wiliam James Edwards
Booker T. Washington
Daniel Inouye
Norman Mineta
Claudette Colvin
Septima Clark
Booker T. Washington certainly should be well-known enough not to be included as “unsung,” so this --- with the exclusion also of Gouverneur Morris would bring the list to twelve. The lack of clarity, though, is puzzling.
Puzzling but trivial:
McDonald has brought to life and wider recognition a number of people who made vital contributions to their states, communities, and nation. In a work of popular circulation, she utilizes the arts of oral collection and oral history in conveying as fully as possible the story of the human past. The book is a captivating read and a worthy contribution to the historian’s craft.
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Tana French, The Witch Elm (New York: Penguin/Random House, 2019)
Tana
French’s The Witch Elm Is an enormously well-conceived, well-structured,
adroitly written novel that qualifies both as a superior literary work and a
page-turning mystery.
The novel
features two main mysteries, both involving protagonist Toby Hennessy:
The first
focuses on an incident that occurs in Toby’s apartment after an unusual
situation at his place of employment, an art gallery for which Toby serves as
communications director:
A fellow
employee and aspiring artist, Tiernan, convinces Toby and his boss, Richard,
the executive director of the gallery, to feature an exhibition of young
artists living in challenging circumstances at the urban core whose work
portrays the gritty conditions of their lives.
Preparations seem primed for a display that has caught the avid
attention of the general public, wealthy patrons, and donors as a result of
Toby’s deft advertising work; then he
discovers that the paintings, including prominently those attributed to a young
man known as “Gouger,” are not the work of the street artists but rather
Tiernan. Tiernan had long sulked at the
lack of recognition for his work and hatched the scheme as a ruse to gain a
viewing for his paintings.
Toby
ponders the situation and ultimately decides not to reveal the scheme to
Richard; when the scheme is nevertheless
discovered, Richard conveys a sense of disappointment to Toby for not telling
him the truth about the exhibit, but he decides to let the exhibit go forward
under the false pretenses that the paintings are indeed those of the urban
youth. Soon after the opening day for
the exhibit, Toby is attacked and badly hurt by two burglars who enter his
apartment, crack his skull, and make away with several items.
The
episode dramatically changes the course of Toby’s life. Formerly, he was a bright young man approaching
thirty years of age who seemed destined to move on to a position at a larger
professional entity with considerably elevated salary. But in the aftermath of the burglary, while
Toby substantially recovered, he did not escape some neural damage; in all likelihood, he would return to the
gainful workforce but in a reduced capacity for achieving high earning power
and status.
As to the
burglary, who could be suspects?
Detectives Gerry Martin and Colm Bannon (dubbed “Flashy Suit” by Toby)
want to find out. Toby answers their
questions as to the circumstances of his life, people in his social universe,
and any ideas that he might have as to who would want to steal from him or do
him harm. But Toby does not tell the
detectives of the art gallery ruse, claiming falsely that youngsters at the
urban core had painted the works that in fact Tiernan had produced.
The
matter of the false claims for a well-attended showing haunts Toby and becomes
a fact of life, along with his altered neural condition: Would he be found out? Had Tiernan and he and Richard committed a
criminal offense? Were the circumstances
pertinent to the gallery showing somehow related to the attack he sustained at
his apartment?
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With this
mystery lingering, a second develops:
Toby’s
uncle Hugo, who lives at the family retreat know as the “Ivy House,” is dying
of cancer. Toby offers himself as his
caretaker and, in the many months before Hugo dies, assists him in his work as
a genealogist employed by those seeking details as to their family
histories. On a Sunday like many, in
which the extended family gathers for a jointly homecooked dinner, cousin
Susanna’s children--- Zach and
Sallie--- suddenly scream loudly in
stark fear from the large back yard of the Ivy House. An investigation turns up a skeletal head and
eventually other objects and skeletal parts in the hollowed (though live) tree
where the children had been playing, raising the question: Who is this?
Did the person die of an accident?
murder? self-inflicted harm?
Here
another set of detectives, Mike Rafferty and his partner, introduced only as
“Detective Kerry,” enter the story.
Their questioning of members of the family and conversations among
family members themselves seem to indicate the most likely perpetrator, with
the suspicions shifting over time.
Rafferty, Kerry, and their forensic team ultimately identify the victim
as a person by the name of Dominic Ganly, a high school mate of Toby, Susanna,
and another cousin, Leon. Dominic had
disappeared shortly after having done poorly in senior high school exit exams,
leading to the conclusion that he had committed suicide, perhaps by jumping
into and drowning in the ocean.
But
Rafferty and Kerry determine from the evidence in the wych elm that suicide was
unlikely. The investigation and
conversations among the cousins induce recall that Susanna and Leon had each
clashed with Dominic at times. Uncle
Hugo had long served as the main occupant of the house; he seemed not to be a suspect, until he
confessed to the murder well into the investigation. Was he really a possible culprit, or was he
protecting someone? Even further into
the investigation,
Toby---
who had not theretofore been seriously considered--- was reminded of an altercation that he and
Dominic had had at a party soon after graduation; he wondered if he had blocked memories of the
violent act that was the focus of this investigation.
Who,
then, was guilty of the murder?
What, in
the meantime, were Martin and Flashy Suit finding out as to the burglary?
Both
mysteries are ultimately resolved with surprising evidence and in the course of
disturbing interactions near the novel’s conclusion. Author French concludes these events with
exceptional skill, utilizing whodunnit tropes as reference but with
contemporary flourishes and deftly subtle narrative. Her skill is manifest, too, in her
development of every single character---
including the children, whereby Zach is an impudent torturer of adults who
only briefly gets his comeuppance with the scare at the wych elm (a seeming “witch”
elm, indeed); while Sallie is a
generally sweet but occasionally whiny younger sister who is frequently drawn
into Zach’s schemes).
The plot
and setting of the novel allow French to raise important questions, including
economic inequality in the pursuit of legal justice; the thin line between perceptible life
success and life that falls very much short of such; similarly, the thin border separating high
legal standing in life and trouble with law;
also similarly, the fluidity of guilt and innocence in any given
individual; the fragility of loyalty
among family, friends, and paramours (but also the possibility of loyalty that
endures); persistence and adaptability in
life when confronting shifting and challenging circumstances; and, hovering over all of these questions,
the ultimate issue as to purpose and meaning of the earthly sojourn.
French’s The
Witch Elm is an admirable work of literature and page-turning mystery (though
relying on evolving, intriguing events, rather than the conventional
chapter-ending teaser) that will leave readers enthralled, including at novel’s
end, when French presents a scenario that proves even more thought-provoking
than is the case throughout the narrative.
Volume XIII, No. 1
July 2026
Journal of the K-12 Revolution:
Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota
The Hopelessness of Current Conditions
at the Minneapolis Public Schools
A Five-Article Series
A Publication of the New Salem Educational Initiative
Gary Marvin Davison, Editor
The Hopelessness of Current Conditions at the Minneapolis Public Schools
A Five-Article Series
Gary Marvin Davison
New Salem Educational Initiative
Copyright © 2026
Contents
Introduction
The Hopelessness of Current Conditions
at the Minneapolis Public Schools
Article #1
An Academically Disastrous District
Article #2
Article #3
Despite Misleading Claims of Central Office Staff Reductions by the Lisa Sayles-Adams Administration, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Central Office Burden Remains Very High at a Time When the District Confronts a $40 Million Dollar Budget Deficit
Article #4
Controversies Pertinent to the Minneapolis Public Schools Finance Division
On November 2024 and again in December Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Finance Division
Article #5
My Public Comments to a Hopeless Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education and Inept Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams at the Regular Business Meeting of Tuesday, 28 July 2026
The Hopelessness of Current Conditions at the Minneapolis Public Schools
Current conditions at the Minneapolis Public Schools are wretched.
Most instrumentally, teaching at the median is woeful and curriculum as actually delivered is knowledge-deficient.
These issues are never addressed by a Board of Education whose members are variously ignorant, in denial, or outright corrupt in the sense of knowing that the issues of teacher quality and curriculum as actually delivered persist without response.
The Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams administration has taken no leadership in addressing the academic conditions of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
And in multiple ways the Sayles-Adams administration has created unnecessary distractions and engaged in shameful innuendo in an attempt to shift the blame for the present financial condition of the district, which faces a $40 million budget deficit.
This edition of Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota examines the academic failure of the Minneapolis Public Schools and various other issues that vex the district:
Article #1 focuses on academic failure.
Article #2 examines expensive contracts that have been signed with entities replete with education establishment figures close to Lisa Sayles-Adams.
Article #3 provides analysis of the misleading claims of central office staff reductions (which have been negligible) made by the Sayles-Adams administration.
Article #4 carefully presents the facts and claims pertinent to the Finance Division.
And Article #5 conveys Public Comments that I made at the 28 July 2026 regular business meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education, in which I gave a succinct account of the woes facing the district.
There is, then, a bevy of information and analysis that awaits readers in the succeeding articles.
An Academically Disastrous District
The only reason for a public school
district to exist is to provide a knowledge intensive, skill-replete education
to students of all demographic descriptors.
The provision of meals, after-school programs, and extracurricular
opportunities are expected but are ancillary rather than prime
responsibilities.
Students who graduate from the
Minneapolis Public Schools walk across the stage to collect a piece of paper
that is a diploma in name only. They go
forth into the world deficient in the knowledge that they should have to thrive
as culturally enriched, civically prepared, and professionally satisfied
citizens: They lack sufficient knowledge
of mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, geography, government,
economics, quality English and World literature, the visual and musical arts,
and vocational skills.
Thus, even aside from fundamental
skills in reading and mathematics, the education that students in the
Minneapolis Public Schools receive is abominable.
As to those fundamental skills, note
that reading and mathematic skills languish for students in general and that
for African American, Native American, and Hispanic students, proficiency rates
to not reach 20% in any category >>>>>
>>>>>
Minneapolis Public Schools
Academic Proficiency Rates
Years Ending in 2014 through 2025
as measured by Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments
All
Students
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Math
44% 44% 44% 42% 42% 42% 35% 33% 35%
35% 35%
Reading
42% 42% 43% 43% 45% 47% 40% 42% 41% 40%
41%
Science
33% 36% 35% 34% 34% 36% 36%
33% 31% 32% 22%
African
American
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Math
22% 23% 21% 15% 18% 18% 9% 10% 8% 8% 10%
Reading
22% 21% 21% 21% 22% 23% 19% 18% 16% 15% 16%
Science
11% 15% 13% 12% 11% 11% 11% 8%
6% 6% 3%
American
Indian
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Math
23% 19% 19% 17% 17% 18% 9% 9%
10% 12% 13%
Reading
21% 20% 21% 23% 24% 25% 20% 22% 19% 18%
19%
Science
14% 16% 13% 12% 14%
17% 9% 9%
7% 12% 6%
Hispanic/
Latine
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Math
31% 32% 31% 29% 26% 25% 12%
12% 12% 11% 11%
Reading
22% 21% 21% 21% 22% 23% 19%
18% 16% 12% 13%
Science
17% 18% 21% 19% 17%
16% 10% 11% 9% 8%
5%
Asian
American
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Math
48% 50% 50% 49% 50% 47% 46% 39%
25% 26% 28%
Reading
41% 40% 45% 41% 48% 50% 54% 49% 33%
31% 27%
Science 3
1% 35% 42% 35% 37%
40% 43% 36% 27% 28% 19%
White
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Math
77% 78%
78% 77% 77% 75%
62% 61% 65% 68% 68%
Reading
78% 77%
77% 78% 80%
78% 74% 71% 72% 73% 75%
Science
71% 75% 71%
70% 71%
70% 61% 60% 59% 61% 45%
<<<<<
The goal for decision-makers at the
Minneapolis Public Schools must be to secure university-based subject area
specialists (decidedly not education professors) to retrain teachers capable of
delivering a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum. Once such an action is taken, other support
policies may be instituted to ensure that these sufficiently trained teachers
fulfill their responsibility to impart excellent education to students of all
demographic descriptors.
Contracts Signed by the Minneapolis Public Schools Lisa Sayles-Adams Administration with the Center for Effective School Operations (CESO) Raise Questions of Financial Judgment and Professional Ethics
Consider these contracts signed by the Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams Administration with the Center for Effective School Operations (CESO) >>>>>
Transportation Contract, 28 October 2025 through 31 January 2026
>>>>> $!40,406.25
Transportation Contract, 14 November 2025 through 30 June 2026
>>>>> $82,500.00
Data Extraction and Costing Model Customization Training and Support,
14 July 2025 through 30 June 2026
>>>>> $45,500.00
Executive consulting support for MPS Human Services at a rate of $195 per hour for an amount not to exceed
>>>>> $45,000.00
These figures total
>>>>> $312,906.25
The Lisa Sayles-Adams administration has also signed contract with CESO to provide support for the Finance Division; the contract extends from 20 January 2026 through 20 January 2027, with payment given as $68,865 per month. For the twelve-month period, this would total
>>>>> $826,380.00
Additional work may also be provided at a rate of $195 per hour.
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Thus,
Total expenditure for contracts concluded by June 2026 was
>>>>> $312,906.25
Total expenditure for support to the Finance Division when the contract concludes in 20 January 2027 will be
>>>>> $826,380.00
These figures total
>>>>> $1,139,286.25
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The administrative wisdom and motivations of Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams must be questioned in offering contracts to CESO, an establishment entity closely associated with the Minnesota Association of School Administrators (MASA), another establishment organization the board members of which include many to whom Sayles-Adams has close connections.
