By November 2022, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox had made enormous progress toward overhauling the academic program of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
She had
conceived of tutoring triads (composed of one teacher and two assistants) to
address the skill deficiencies of clusters of students who were chronically
more that two years below grade level in math or reading. She also initiated online high-dosage
tutoring to provide skill acquisition opportunities to other struggling
students and online ACT training to address the needs of students in a district
wherein the median ACT score is 15 (five points under the national median for
students taking the ACT). And beyond
basic skills, she and Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing were working to
design and implement knowledge-intensive curriculum--- with the necessary
teacher training--- consistent with the
Science of Reading and the acquisition of a broad knowledge base as advocated
by researchers such as Natalie Wexler and Alfred Tatum (the latter of whom has
focused especially on promoting broad knowledge for African American students,
particularly boys).
Rochelle
and the Finance Division led by Senior Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop also
endeavored mightily to balance the budget from year to year, warning that the
district was facing a “fiscal cliff” as ESSER (Elementary and Secondary Student
Emergency Relief) funds intended to provide additional financial assistance
during and in the immediate aftermath of the height of the COVID crisis were
due to sunset.
Mara
Klecker of the Star Tribune covered a November meeting of the MPS Board of
Education in which officials at the district warned of the looming crisis if
action was not taken. Klecker quotes Budget director Thom Roethke as stating that
"If
we continue status quo operations, we will run out of money at the end of
fiscal year 2025."
Interim
Superintendent Cox and Finance officials knew that five new board members (Collin
Beachy, Lori Norvell, Fathia Feerayarre, Abdul Abdi, and Sondra Emerick
(Emerick would later change their given name to ‘Joyner”) would take office in
January 2023 and would need to move with great haste to address the financial
emergency of the district.
Klecker
quoted Roethke as noting that MPS spent $3,900 more on a per-student basis in
general operating costs than the average spent by the state's 15 largest
districts, saying, “That's largely due to Minneapolis' ‘significantly lower’
student-to-teacher ratios compared with other districts. Those lower ratios are a product of the
relatively large number and small size of schools. Other districts simply operate fewer, larger
schools,"
Rochelle
Cox said at the meeting,
"For
all the reasons noted in the [projection], something has to change as our
current path is not sustainable," Cox said. "But this moment of
financial challenge is also an opportunity for our city and our district to
make sure that our district is funded in a way that aligns with our
values."
………………………………………………………………………………………..
Three and
a half years after the new Board assembled in January 2023, the opportunity has
not been embraced and the building usage issues have not been addressed.
The new
members (Feerayarre eventually resigned her District 3 seat and was replaced by
Lucie Skjefte) extended Rochelle Cox’s contract to run through June 2024 but on
1 December 2023 made the unfortunate decision to hire Lisa Sayles-Adams as
superintendent. Sayles-Adams took the
superintendent position officially on 5 February 2024, quickly inducing the
exit of Rochelle Cox and Aimee Fearing and abandoning all of the promising
academic initiatives that they had sought to bring educational excellence to
the district.
Sayles
Adams and staff have fulfilled the requirements of the Minnesota Legislature’s READ
Act by adopting the phonics-focused University of Florida Language Institute
(UFLI) program in the early grades and the Arts & Letters reading program for
implementation at all grade levels. But
in the absence of the academic initiatives that Cox and Fearing had begun, and
without addressing poor teacher quality in the Minneapolis Public Schools,
these programs are unlikely to raise even fundamental reading skills; further, knowledge sets in mathematics, the
natural sciences, history, and the social sciences have continued and will
continue to languish.
Sayles-Adams
and staff have not in the last two academic years overseen any energetic Board
meetings focused on academics, including bringing in teachers and principals
from around the district to discuss the most promising school-based academic
efforts, that prevailed during the Cox tenure (1 July 2022 through 5 February
2024). During academic year 2024-2025,
the dismal results of the spring 2024 MCAs (Minnesota Comprehensive
Assessments)--- in which only 35% of
students were proficient in mathematics and only 41% proficient in reading,
with African American, American Indian, and Hispanic students not reaching
beyond 16% proficiency in any category---
was not raised one time.
Neither
did Sayles-Adams nor the Board moved assertively to address the building usage
issues that should evaluate at last eight schools for closure or repurposing,
as Cox, Roethke, and Diop had strongly urged should be done as a major action
for confronting the looming fiscal crisis.
With no improvement in the
academic program, too many buildings, too many teachers, a large central office
staff burden, and a demographic outlook destined to bring long-term enrollment
decline, the Sayles-Adams administration faced a budgetary crisis that at
present stands at $40 million.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
Facing
this gloomy outlook, Sayles-Adams, with MPS Board of Education’s
acquiescence, constructed a scheme to shift the blame.
Aaron
Gilbert and Ibrahima Diop were targeted for their shifting of 5% ($3 million) of
deposits intended for the teacher benefits account to investments.
The
Finance Division was accused of being negligent for incurring IRS penalties
totaling just above $5 million dollars.
The
Finance and Special Education divisions were accused of failing properly to code
items for special education funding that resulted in the loss of $11,000,000.
Expensive
outside agencies were hired to investigate the teacher benefit account shift
and to assess the culture and climate in the Finance Division. Another firm was hired to replace ousted
Finance Division leaders Ibrahima Diop, Aaron Gilbert, and Tariro
Chapinduka. All of this by January 2027
will cost approximately $1,200,000.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
But then
we have the testimonies of Sara Spafford Freeman, Jim Clark, and Jenny Arneson
reminding the public that Senior Finance Officer Diop had been highly regarded
within the district and nationally recognized for his accomplishments in
securing highest bond ratings, restoring the unassigned fund balance to at
least the recommended 8% of revenue, and promoting structurally balanced
budgets while warning of the changes that needed to be made to avoid the fiscal
cliff.
The Lisa
Sayles Adams administration’s imputations regarding the performance of a highly
skilled senior finance officer and his staff are hyperbolic, accusatory, and
costly. Having dithered and failed to
make the decisions necessary to improve the district’s finances, financial
largesse has with great irony now been expended in the hire of unnecessary
consultants.
The controversies pertinent to the Minneapolis Public Schools Finance Division constitute an unconscionably irresponsible attempt of the Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams administration and an inept Board of Education to shift the blame for their own failure to improve the financial and--- highly related--- academic condition of the district.
No comments:
Post a Comment