Introduction >>>>> >Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota<, Volume XII, Number Seven, January 2026

Generally Unrecognized Key Vexations Pertinent to the

Minneapolis Public Schools

  

The wretched quality of teacher training is the fundamental reason for the abominable quality of public education.

 

Education professors infect prospective teachers with an anti-knowledge ideology that maintains the conceit that set bodies of knowledge are not necessary, that fact can always be looked up, and that teachers should respond to the driving interests of students in creating curriculum.  Many people may respond with wagging heads of assent until the reality is considered:

 

In actuality, students as prospective professionals and citizens need vast set bodies of knowledge in mathematics, natural science, history, government, economics, quality literature, and the visual and musical arts to have the information base to enjoy life to the fullest, to be responsible citizens, and to be prepare to become skilled workers and professionals.

 

Facts can indeed be looked up, but now more than ever, in the age of digital sources of disinformation and information, people need a strong information base to evaluate the credibility of these sources.

 

And, while driving interests of students should always be encouraged, young people need the contextualization provided by broad knowledge to comprehend those topics of most immediate interest to the student.

 

Wretched teacher training degrades curriculum and results in terrible pedagogy, resulting in the embarrassing quality of education at the Minneapolis Public Schools and other public school districts.

 

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But few members of the public have any understanding of these key vexations, and a host of other dilemmas, largely unnoticed by the public create an environment that worsens the quality of preK-12 education.

 

In this edition of Journal of the K-12 Education:  Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, I consider these five unnoticed vexations that go mostly unnoticed by the public:  1) the increasing meaninglessness of the high school diploma;  2) the lack of concern for the particular struggles of students facing conditions of poverty and other challenges of life at the urban core;  3) poor quality of school board members;  4) the shallow knowledge of journalists, opinion piece writers, and other outside observers;  and 5) the low chances, approaching zero, of finding an adequate superintendent.  

 

Consider, then, the articles that follow in the succeeding pages.