Article #6 >>>>> Those Most Responsible for Abysmal Student Academic Proficiency Rates at the Minneapolis Public Schools >>>>> Cabinet Level Positions >>>>> Deputy Superintendent Ty Thompson; Senior Academic Officer Melissa Sonnek

The Minneapolis Public Schools constitute a salient public school district in which incompetence at the lower levels induces a layering of even greater incompetence at putatively higher levels in the district bureaucracy:

 

>>>>>   Teacher training in colleges, schools, and departments of education is abominable, so teachers  at the median are mediocre;  many are incompetent.

 

>>>>>   Principals typically train first as teachers and then receive masters and sometimes doctoral degrees in those same wretched colleges, schools, and departments of education;  they officially have responsibility for teacher and programmatic academic quality at school sites---  but they are at least as inept at delivering quality education as are teachers.

 

>>>>>   Because neither principals or teachers are effective in implementing a high-quality academic program, the position of associate superintendent is created for the mentorship of principals;  but these associate superintendent have the same disastrous training as do principals and teachers, so they, too, are incapable of implementing high-quality curriculum or improving principal and teacher quality.

 

At no level in the educational bureaucracy of the Minneapolis Public Schools is one likely to find anyone who has graduate degrees in an academically relevant discipline:  Overwhelmingly, degrees are received in the same terrible programs of colleges, schools, and departments of education, so that no teacher or administrator has any advanced training in a key subject area (mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, or literature).

 

Consider the training of the deputy superintendent and the senior academic officer (cabinet positions in the Minneapolis Public Schools bureaucracy), understanding that these officials are among those responsible for abysmal student academic proficiency in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

 

Ty Thompson (Deputy Superintendent)

 

M.Ed., Leadership in Education

(University of Minnesota/Twin Cities, 2013)

 

B.A.

(Occidental College, 1999-2003)

 

 

Melissa Sonnek (Senior Academic Officer)

 

M.S., Education

(Winona State University, 2013)

 

B.A., Elementary Education