Minneapolis Public Schools >>>>> A School District in Deep Trouble

The Key Vexations of the Minneapolis Public Schools, to Be Revealed in the Forthcoming Second Edition of My Book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect

 

The district of the Minneapolis Public Schools manifests all of the features that make public education in the United States so abominable.

 

The key vexations are knowledge-deficient curriculum and inept teaching at the median.

 

Both of these vexations are traceable to departments, colleges and schools of education, wherein those campus embarrassments known as education professors espouse an anti-knowledge ideology that they impose on teachers and administrators seeking certification.  Thus trained, public school teachers and administrators are ill-positioned to impart to students a knowledge-intensive curriculum across the liberal, technological, and vocational arts.

 

Elementary school teachers are especially inadequately trained;  few ever obtain a degree in any key subject area, obtaining bachelor’s and often master’s degrees in education that are the least academically substantive on any college or university campus:  They have little knowledge of mathematics, natural science, history, geography, government, economics, the visual and musical arts, or high-quality Western, international, and ethnic-specific literature.

 

Secondary teachers often do obtain a bachelor’s degree in a key subject area, but almost all teachers for many decades have obtained any graduate degrees in education programs yieldingly meaningless master’s degrees in education (M.Ed.) or the similarly academically insubstantial doctorate of education (Ed.D.).

 

Superintendents are drawn from the ranks of teachers and administrators trained in this intellectually vacuous manner.  Those superintendents whose teaching experience was entirely in elementary education typically have never acquired expertise in any academic subject area;  and, as indicated above, the knowledge level of secondary teachers is also inadequate for lack of academically substantive graduate training.

 

Superintendent searches, therefore, inevitably fail to locate a leader capable of overseeing a district imparting knowledge-intensive education.  Our precious students have little chance of graduating with the knowledge and skills necessary to live as culturally enriched, professional satisfied, and civically active and informed citizens.

 

Elections for boards of educations rarely attract high-quality candidates.  The number of such candidates who understand the vexations of the public schools as indicated above tends toward zero.  Once in office, board members come to view their task as supervisory, rather than managerial, leaving matters of curriculum and teacher quality to administrators who themselves were never knowledgeable and pedagogically effective teachers and have no idea as to the constituent elements of an excellent education.

 

Members of any given board of education are collectively the boss of the superintendent, but neither board members nor superintendent are capable of designing and implementing high-quality, knowledge-intensive education.  Important decisions are often deferred while the Board and the superintendent wait for the other to move assertively.  Key decisions necessary for the delivery of educational excellence are never made.

 

Put starkly, no one with the responsibility for improving academic quality in the public schools knows what she or he is doing.           

Lack of knowledge of the key vexations of the public schools applies also to the electorate, the general public, community members, and those in the media.  Very few individuals or entities external to the public education establishment have any idea themselves of the  impediments to achieving academic quality;  hence, little outside pressure can be exerted for the needed change.

 

The Minneapolis Public Schools is essentially the typically terrible public school district.

 or 

But beyond the typicality, this particular Board membership is worse even than the usual, having dithered in making necessary decisions pertinent to building usage, assistance for students whose proficiency lags far below grade level, or improving academic quality.  This Board---  especially in the personages of Chair Collin Beachy (At-Large), Clerk Lori Norvell (District 5), and District 6 member Greta Callahan---  has a decidedly authoritarian streak that seeks to protect the education establishment and prevent candid criticism.

 

And the administration, led by Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams, is among the worst that one will find in any public school district. 

 

Sayles-Adams, who insists in every forum and situation on being addressed as “Dr.,” wrote the worst dissertation that I have ever read;  has made no decisions pertinent to the improvement of academic quality;  has maintained a numerically burdensome central office staff, despite grave financial circumstances;  has authored no new revenue-generating initiatives;  is incapable of presiding over open-mike public forums that invite genuine criticism;  and has unconscionably attempted to shift the blame for the district’s financial woes onto former Senior Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop and others who worked under him in the finance division.  

During his ten-year tenure, Diop adroitly guided the district to recovery of a top bond rating, inevitably managed finances so that the district received favorable financial audits by outside evaluators, and achieved innovations that in recent years enabled the Minneapolis Public Schools to struggle on financially, even in the absence of initiatives by administrative decisionmakers capable of improving educational quality, rationalizing building usage, or improving security.  While Diop was senior finance officer, families fled the district not because of any lack of trust in financial management, but because they lost faith in the academic program and frequently feared for the safety of their children 

 

The district of the Minneapolis Public Schools is in deep trouble under the current leadership and manifests all of those key vexations that call for overhaul of existing practices for the delivery of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education.