Be Prepared for the Announcement of Minnesota School Ratings on Thursday, 30 August >>>>> Update from the Minnesota Department of Education

A Note to My Readers  >>>>>

On the afternoon of Wednesday, 29 August, I received an update from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), pertaining to the new North Star Accountability System devised by that department so as to meet the strictures of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed by the United States Congress in 2016.  The Every Student Succeeds Act replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which had prevailed since 2002.  Both ESSA and NCLB were passed in fulfillment of the provisions, and as the current versions, of another law, the Elementary and Secondary School Act of 1968, the purpose of which was to achieve educational equity by providing resources to schools with large percentages of students from families of low income.  The leading indicator for low income for public school students is now qualification for free or reduced price lunch.  After a second attempt, the Minnesota Department of Education received a waiver from NCLB in 2015, instituting a Multiple Measurement Rating System (MMRS) that, as is the case with the new North Star system, took into account factors that included Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) scores, upon which the MDE relied heavily, but also gave considerable weight to graduation rates and improvement over time.  With the passage of ESSA, the requirements of that law superseded those of NCLB and necessitated new plans from state departments of education that had received waivers.

Last evening at a Committee of the Whole Meeting at the Davis Center (Minneapolis Public Schools Central Offices, 1250 West Broadway), MDE staff members Michael Diedrich and Dennis Duffy presented on overview of the North Star Accountability System.  Look for my summary and comment on that presentation in a forthcoming article.

For now, please read this MDE communication and be prepared for the announcement of reference tomorrow that will give the performance statuses of schools according to ESSA and North Star criteria.

ESSA Update: August 29, 2018

---

North Star public release tomorrow

The Minnesota Department of Education is about to publicly release the 2018 North Star accountability results! This is a milestone that you and your colleagues played a crucial role in bringing about, through your participation, feedback and advocacy over the past two years. We have been working with districts and news media over the summer to help them understand how the North Star accountability system differs from the Multiple Measurements Rating under our waiver, and from the days of No Child Left Behind. Of particular importance has been helping them think about accountability as having three important elements: support, recognition and reporting. You may find our growing collection of e-learning modules about North Star interesting as you prepare for our first release of data. 

Tomorrow, we will recognize schools as top performers in the areas of graduation rates, consistent attendance, English language proficiency, and progress on math and reading tests over time. We will also prioritize schools to receive varying levels of support from our MDE and our Regional Centers of Excellence over the next three years. We will add new reports to our Minnesota Report Card to help families see and understand North Star results for their schools. Additional reporting enhancements are coming later this year, and into 2019. 

Below are details about a stakeholder meeting next month. We would like to walk you through the results of our shared work, and hear your thoughts about North Star. We will also continue the important discussion of enhancing and making more transparent the public reporting around school finance.

We all thank you for the work you put in to making this system come to be!

Join us September 24 for an ESSA stakeholder meeting                                                  

The first full year of ESSA implementation has begun, but we still have work to do! Please join us for an ESSA stakeholder meeting, which will include:

• A brief overview of 2018 accountability results.
• Opportunity to provide feedback on school identification and recognition.
• Kickoff of phase 3 of stakeholder engagement, focused on fiscal transparency reporting.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, September 24 in Rooms 15-16, Conference Center B at the Minnesota Department of Education office in Roseville.

Wretched Academic Results Argue Powerfully for Elimination of the Office of Black Male Achievement and the Overhaul of the Government-Mandated Department of Indian Education at the Minneapolis Public Schools

We are awaiting results at this point on student performance on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) measure of academic achievement for spring 2018;  advanced word is that there is a bit of incremental student academic improvement in a few schools, but for the most part student performance will remain flat and for some categories will actually show continued decline.

 

The pattern for African American males during the period when the Office of Black Male Achievement has been in existence (excepting spring 2014 results, recorded before the creation of the office in autumn 2014) has been generally downward.  This is true for African American females in mathematics;  for reading, the results are essentially flat for the four years indicated:

 

African American Students Demonstrating Grade Level Achievement

 

Math

 

                                                                2014             2015           2016           2017

 

African American 

 

                Male                                     22%               23%            21%            18%

                Female                                 22%               22%            21%            19%

 

Reading

                                                               

African American 

 

                Male                                     19%               19%            19%            18%

                Female                                 25%               24%            23%            25%

 

The staff composition of the Office of Black Male Achievement is as follows:

 

Office of Black Male Achievement Staff Members, August 2018

 

1)  Michael Walker, Director

2)  Office Specialist, Senior – Cierra Burnaugh

3)  Andria Daniel, Family and CommunityInclusion specialist

4)  Corey Yeager, Educational Equity Coordinator 

5 )  Jamil Jackson, Community Expert Classroom

6)  Richard Magembe, Social Studies Teacher
7)  Marjann Sirdar, Social Studies Teacher

 

Director Michael Walker receives $125,468 per annum in salary;  other salaries in the department total approximately $400,000, so that in remuneration alone the Office of Black Male Achievement costs the district over a half-million dollars. 

 

The Office of Black Male Achievement serves only 348 students and four years into its existence is still at the pilot program stage in a school district whose African American males number approximately 7,000.  There is no way, therefore, that this office is going to raise overall achievement levels of African American males throughout the Minneapolis Public Schools.  Office staff researchers cite some gains in grade point averages for participating males, as well as indicators signaling likelihood of high school graduation.  But such measures mean little when objective measures indicate such low academic skills, even for the tiny percentage (5%) of the total African American male student population who participate. 

 

Multi-year figures for academic results and number of students served do not support the continuation of this office.  African American history and culture should be an integral part of a logically sequenced, grade-by-grade, knowledge intensive curriculum throughout the K-12 years.  The functions of this office should be subsumed for now in the Department of Teaching and Learning, which also should be greatly reduced as teachers are trained for the delivery of a knowledge-intensive curriculum.

 

For Native American/ American Indian students, academic results for years ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 are as follows:

 

American Indian/ Native American Students Demonstrating Grade Level Achievement

 

Math

 

                                                                2014             2015           2016           2017

 

Native American/ American Indian

                               

Male                                     20%               16%            16%            18%

             Female                                 25%               22%            21%            17%

 

Reading

                                                               

Native American/ American Indian

 

Male                                     18%               14%            15%            19%

             Female                                 24%               26%            26%            27%

 

Department of Indian Education Staff Members, August 2018

 

1)  Anna Ross, Director

2)  Terry Bignell, School Success Program Assistant

3)  Jodi Burke, Counselor on Special Assignment

4)  Tracy Burke, Counselor on Special Assignment

5)  Braden Canfield, Social Worker

6)  Miskwa-Kukwa Desjarlait, Youth Engagement Specialist

7)  Ida Downwind, District Program Facilitator

8)  Alicia Garcia, Social Worker

9)  Tami Johnson, Counselor on Special Assignment

10)  Elaine Kopischeke-Trejo,  Office Specialist

11)  Gary Lussier, District Program Facilitator

12)  James Kukelich, School Success Program Assistant

13)  Christine Wilson, Family Engagement Specialist

14)  Odia Wood, District Program Facilitator

 

Department of Indian Education Director Anna Ross receives $116,509 in salary per annum;  salaries for other staff members total approximately $975,000;  thus, in salaries alone this department costs the district over a million dollars.   By state law, this department must be part of the locally centralized school district in Minnesota.  But the department has not been effective in raising American Indian student achievement.  Director Anna Ross should be replaced, the entire staff should be reevaluated,  and staffing for the department should be reduced to a legally acceptable minimum.   American  Indian history and culture should be an integral part of a logically sequenced, grade-by-grade, knowledge-intensive curriculum throughout the K-12 years, and staff reductions should proceed apace as the Department of Teaching and Learning oversees overhaul of curriculum for logically sequenced knowledge intensity and teachers are trained for the delivery of knowledge-intensive curriculum that incorporates diverse ethnic history and culture into curriculum imparted to all students.

 

Superintendent Ed Graff has overseen the elimination of a separate Department of Communications and the jettisoning of much dead weight in the Department of Teaching and Learning and the Department of College and Career Readiness.

 

The Office of Black Male Achievement and the Department of Indian Education should be next in this rationalization of central office staffing at the Davis Center (1250 West Broadway) at the Minneapolis Public Schools.

Beyond Generalities and Shibboleths as We Enter Academic Year 2018-2019 >>>>> Achieving Equity in the Minneapolis Public Schools Via A Five-Point Program for the Attainment of an Excellent Education for Students of All Demographic Descriptors

The core mission of the locally centralized school district is the impartation of an excellent education, equitably provided to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

Be reminded that the purpose of K-12 education is to give students the opportunity to go forth at graduation to experience lives of cultural enrichment, civic preparation, and professional satisfaction. 

 

Know that an excellent education is defined as follows:

 

An excellent K-12 education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive curriculum in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts to all students in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.

 

And understand that the definition of an excellent teacher is the following:

 

An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical skill to impart that knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

……………………………………………………………………..

 

Equality is a matter of providing the same opportunity to every person.

 

Equity is a matter of ensuring that everyone is positioned to take advantage of equal opportunities.

 

Hence, in K-12 education, equality is necessary but not sufficient to attain equity.  Equity encompasses equality and ensures that students of all demographic descriptors have the support that they need to receive an excellent education and to graduate with the opportunity to fulfill the great purposes of educational excellence.

 

……………………………………………………………………..

 

To provide an equitably excellent education to all students, decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools must establish the following five-point program:

 

1)  Overhaul curriculum, so as to provide a knowledge-intensive education in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 experience of every student.

 

The core of the curriculum should consist of the subject areas of mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts.  These most important constituent subject areas of a liberal arts curriculum should feature very specific content to be delivered in all schools at all grade levels during the K-5 years.  Curriculum at the middle school level should continue the logical grade by grade sequence in the above subject areas, with additional foci on foreign languages and on the technological and vocational arts.

 

Curriculum at the high school level should continue the logical sequence and, given that students in the overhauled approach to curriculum will already have a strong liberal arts foundation, course offerings beyond middle school will be ever specialized in the liberal arts and abundant in the realms of the technological and vocational arts.  Implied in the presence of an advanced curriculum and universally well-prepared students will be the preparation of almost all students to take Advanced Placement courses in mathematics, English, world history, biology, chemistry, and physics;  only those students with special intellectual and learning challenges would not be prepared to take AP courses.

 

2)  Train teachers capable of delivering such an overhauled curriculum.

 

Prospective teachers of K-5 students receive insubstantial subject area training in departments, schools, and colleges of education.  They will have to be trained at the level of the locally centralized school district before they can deliver the advanced curriculum summarized above. 

 

I detailed in my August and September 2014 editions of Journal of the K-12 Revolution:  Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota  the full curriculum and the details for teaching training that will be necessary.  Prospective teachers at K-5 will engage in a full, intensive year of study and thesis writing to attain a Masters of Liberal Arts degree;  they will then spend a full academic year of internship under the guidance of the best veteran teachers available before gaining a judgment as to fitness to teach in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

Prospective middle school and high school teachers must earn both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fields other than education (e.g., mathematics, English, literature, history, chemistry, fine arts) at the four-year college or university level, then serve an internship similar to that given for prospective teachers at K-5.  

 

3)  Design a coherent, district-wide tutoring and academic enrichment program for all students.

 

Currently any tutoring provided in the buildings of the Minneapolis Public Schools is rendered by a variety of mostly external organizations, with variance from site to site.

 

Decision-makers at the Minneapolis Public Schools must rectify this situation, so as to provide highly intentional, cohesive tutoring to those students who are currently struggling below grade level in mathematics and reading.  Tutoring should be provided at designated times of the school day in the context of a delivery system that gives each student the most beneficial academic supplement;  for students functioning fully at grade level, the time set aside should be used for enrichment activities that provide opportunities for academic advancement and exploration of subjects of driving personal interest.  Tutoring and enrichment, in addition to provision at the designated class time, should also be rendered after school.

 

4)  Develop programs of outreach to students and their families, right where they live.

 

Economically and functionally struggling families should receive services directly delivered by well-trained MPS staff of appropriate personal disposition and street-level comfort;  and services rendered by external agencies, to which students are referred by MPS personnel.

 

There is considerable buzz now around full-service community schools, and the buzz-buzz phrase making the buzz-buzz rounds is “wrap-around services.” 

 

But what is really needed is the hiring and development of staff members operating out of each school site who have a real feel for the challenges faced by young people and families living at the urban core.   There should be a coordinator based in the Davis Center (1250 West Broadway) who will oversee and ensure implementation.  Northpoint is accessible for health care to the poorest of poor students in the Minneapolis Public Schools.  Hennepin County also provides an array of social services.  From Minneapolis Public Schools staff, students and their families need understanding of specific problems of the moment from people with whom they have deep, personal, and caring relationships, people who will provide direct counseling and then referral for those health and social services provided by Northpoint, Hennepin County, and service-specific agencies.

 

5)  Greatly pare the MPS central school district bureaucracy at the Davis Center.

 

Superintendent Ed Graff has done admirable work in this area.

 

With well-trained teachers, principals, and counselors (and a numerical expansion of the latter), costly departments such as the MPS Department of Teaching and Learning and the MPS Department of Career and College Readiness could be reduced further. 

 

Continued vigilance in decreasing the central office burden must ensue, so as to increase salaries for the newly professionalized teacher corps and to provide the needed resources for the items given in points 1-4 above.

 

……………………………………………………………………..

 

The ideal of an equal education delivered to all students will be achieved with the realization of points one (1) and two (2) above.

 

Equity will be achieved with the realization of points three (3) and four (4), so that all students are prepared to receive the benefits of an excellent academic program and superbly trained teachers.

 

The realization of point five (5) will ensure that resources are available for the programmatic features of points one through four (1-4).

 

This is the five-point program for achieving equity in the Minneapolis Public Schools, according to which the great purposes of an excellent education, rendered by excellent teachers, are delivered to those most precious beings imaginable:  our children, our responsibility, our future.

                                         

MPS Dept. of College and Career Readiness Staff, Fate as of August 2018

As late as March 2018, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Department of College and Career Readiness portal at the MPS website still listed fifteen staff members, as follows:

 

Minneapolis Public Schools Department of College and Career Readiness

 

(March 2018)  >>>>>

 

Staff Member                                    Position

 

1)            Terry Henry                              Executive Director   

2)            Alexandria (Alex) Spirov       WWYB Associate Educator

3)            Coleen Kaibel                           Director of Student Retention

and Recovery   

4)            Heidi Olson                               WWYB Associate Educator                 

5)            James (Jim) Bierma                Distric Q-Comp Counselor  

6)            Jennifer Ennen                         Office Specialist      

7)            Jill Bjorklund                            STEM/ CTE Project Coordinator         

8)            Julie Montgomery-Weiss      District Lead Counselor      

9)            Melissa Butler                          WWYB Associate Educator 

10)          Michael (Mike) Ash                Account Specialist

11)          Paul Klym                                    Career Development Coordinator                  

12)          Quyen Phan                               ALC 9-12 Manager  

13)          Sara Etzel                                    Director, STEM/CTE                               

14)          Tamala Washington-Green      Office Manager  

15)          Vanessa Moe                            JAG Coordinator     

 

By May, 2018 Executive Director Terry Henry was gone but the portal otherwise still listed the same composition.  But in my close examination of a full (all departments) MPS Davis Center staff roster, I only found these four members:

 

Department of College and Career Readiness (May 2018)

 

                (Actually found on Davis Center Staff List)

 

Name                                    Position                               Annual Salary

 

Colleen Kaibel                  Student Retention            $105,552

          and Recovery

Melissa Butler                  WWYB Associate                 $32,004

    Educator

Quyen Phan                       ALC 9-12 Manager               $86,631

 

Sara Etzel                          Director, STEM/     $84,442

                                                                            CTE

 

With this finding, I inquired at MPS Human Resources as to whether MPS Department of College and Career Readiness had actually disappeared as an administrative entity.  Executive Director Terry Henry was gone, and the department did not seem to have a lead administrator.  I was told that seemingly in the offing for academic year 2017-2018 was a plan to have a few people retained for specific functions but to eliminate this department as a stand-alone entity.

 

At present (August 2018), though, there is a Department of College and Career Readiness portal that lists these seven staff members, with no one acting in an overall directorial capacity:

 

MPS College and Career Readiness Staff, March 2018  >>>>>

 

Staff Member                                    Position

 

1)            Coleen Kaibel                           Director of Student Retention

and Recovery   

2)            Heidi Olson                                WWYB Associate Educator                 

3)            James (Jim) Bierma                Distric Q-Comp Counselor  

4)            Jill Bjorklund                            STEM/ CTE Project Coordinat

5)            Melissa Butler                          WWYB Associate Educator 

6)            Paul Klym                                    Career Development Coordinator                                  

7)            Sara Etzel                                    Director, STEM/CTE

 

Thus, the bottom-line result of a reduction process that began in the course of academic year 2017-2018 has resulted in reductions in a department that originally had fifteen members and was headed by a staff member with the title of executive director to only seven members at present.  Apparently, Superintendent Ed Graff and his advisers decided to retain a title and some collective identity for Department of College and Career Readiness staff, but without any staff having directorial responsibility.  The emphasis in this decision-making process seems to have emphasized functionality, with the elimination of unnecessary jobs and a jettisoning of staff members who had not been effective.

 

Savings for this instance of bureaucratic slimming totals approximately $675,000 in salaries and saliently emphasizes the achievement of Ed Graff in greatly reducing the central office bureaucratic burden of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

Now the driving concern must be the overhaul or ideological transformation of the staff at Teaching and Learning for the delivery of an excellent K-12 education, the only reason for the existence of public schools or any academic system, and a moral obligation to which all citizens are bound.