Goar is out, Paez is in: Education politics shift in Minneapolis

December 8, 2015

Welcome, Dr. Sergio Paez, to the Minneapolis Public Schools.

Image result for sergio paez
Dr. Paez

Many people were shocked to learn that Paez was chosen to become Minneapolis’ next superintendent, over interim candidate and hometown favorite (for some), Michael Goar. 

The decision was announced at an exhaustingly drawn out special school board meeting on December 7, where a long list of desired superintendent characteristics was sweated over in great detail by the board, with almost no indication–until the very end–that Paez would get the job.

The board room was mostly quiet throughout the nearly three hour meeting, despite sign-wielding protestors, who were demanding the board restart the search. These protestors were–randomly–clustered in seats right in front of the silently observing, stalwart Students for Education Reform (SFER) crew that has been present at many recent MPS meetings.

It was an interesting and telling mix, as well as a preview of the various factions Paez will encounter here in Minneapolis.

SFER is a national education reform organization, started in 2009, supposedly by a couple of nice college kids out of Princeton University. Fact check, please! SFER is simply another super spongy Astroturf group seeking to cash in on, and remake, public schools by declaring them failures, and then heavily promoting market-based “fixes,” such as more school choice, more “innovation,” less tenure, etc. 

CT SFER kids rallying for charter schools. Edushyster photo.

SFER has outposts at colleges around the country, kind of like the Sierra Club or Amnesty International, where they’ve been able to attract (and financially reward) young, idealistic students who will, perhaps unwittingly, carry water for the very adult interests that are pulling SFER’s strings. 

I am sure the young people who get hired by SFER to put tape over their mouths during union-district negotiating sessions, or to shill for certain candidates during school board elections, or to march in favor of judging teachers by their students’ test scores, are probably sucked in by a desire to do something about the real educational inequities and institutionalized racism that exists in our schools, and, of course, our society at large. 

Their activism and youthful desire to change the world provides a nice cover for SFER’s behind the scenes machinations, which revolve around a top-down campaign funded exclusively by very wealthy adults who know how to put their best foot forward, in order to conduct business as usual (with some help, of course; SFER, the national org, has a fancy New York PR firm on a retainer).

Conneticut blogger Jonathon Pelto has written two recent investigative pieces on SFER. Here’s Pelto’s take on what this group is all about:

Dedicated to promoting the privatization of public education, more taxpayer funds for privately owned, but publicly funded charter schools, the Common Core, the Common Core testing scheme and a host of anti-teacher initiatives, Students for Education Reform, Inc. (SFER) was created in late 2009,  according to their narrative, by a couple of undergraduate students at Princeton University.

Claiming to have over 100 chapters across the country, the ‘student run’ advocacy group has, as of late last summer, collected more than $7.3 million since its inception to fund their ‘education reform’ activities.

Oh! That explains how they can pay students to camp out at excrutiatingly long school board meetings. 

SFER was a presence during the 2014 Minneapolis school board race, and they will be present again, in 2016, along with their compatriots from MinnCAN, Educators for Excellence, Teach for America, and other well-heeled, decidedly non-populist reform groups.

But who else will be present? The group of local activists seated in front of the SFER crew at Monday’s school board meeting hopefully will be. Restart the Search

This group was small, and consisted of parents, teachers, and school support staff–and at least one student, who looked far too young to be part of SFER. Despite its small size, the group came wielding a petition that circulated through Minneapolis over the weekend, declaring all three finalists for Minneapolis’ superintendent inadequate, and too, well, too SFER or MinnCAN-like. Too corporate. Too big business. Too wedded to the money and priorities of outside entities with a scripted agenda.

Without any hedge fund cash, or any design help from an out of town PR firm, this local petition gathered 918 signatures in just a few days, asking the school board to restart its superintendent search.

Now, I see, it is up to 950 names.

The petition didn’t work, in one sense, because the school board did not vote to restart the search process.

But that goal was a long shot, at this stage in the game. The school board members themselves are clearly exhausted, and stretched thin by the months-long search. They are only human, after all, and paid virtually nothing to wade through the politics, policies, and shifting priorities that are part of the job.

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Michael Goar

And to start over would look fractious, and perhaps further feed the failure and dysfunction narrative that spins so constantly over our public schools. (Remember Netflix CEO and billionaire Reed Hastings’ call to end democratically elected school boards? He is not alone in wishing for this.)

But it did work, in another, perhaps more important sense: Michael Goar was not chosen to become superintendent (the petition is full of quite pointed commentary on Goar’s tenure in MPS). Just three of the nine board members–Siad Ali, Carla Bates, and Josh Reimnitz–voted for Goar; all of the other board members wanted Paez. And this is significant, as Goar’s year-long trial run as interim superintendent was controversial, and disruptive, in the eyes of many.

Paez is undoubtedly only as human as Goar is, and will probably not offer any immediate, magical fixes for what ails the Minneapolis schools. And what ails it most, according to last night’s board meeting, is a loss of trust in MPS’s leadership, and a need for some relationship repair.

“We need someone who can bring our community together,” and “rebuild trust,” Tracine Asberry told MPR News last night. She did not seem to be alone in that sentiment.

And, not insignificantly, Paez was favored by at least two board members–Rebecca Gagnon and Nelson Inz–because they were impressed with his knowledge of teaching and learning, and what they saw as Paez’s commitment to educating the “whole child,” and not just the portion of the child who may or may not perform well on test day. (Board members also touted his success with ELL students).

We don’t know yet what Paez will do when he takes over as superintendent. Will he make shocking missteps (data walls, anyone?), or will he build bridges? While Paez was superintendent in Holyoke, MA, the district was taken over by the state. Could that happen here? Some people in Minnesota would love to see MPS go down, and be replaced by a New Orleans-style network of “high performing seats,” rather than schools. We should all be aware of this.

And will he know–or learn–how to put a racial and social justice framework first, without bowing to the hidden demands of groups like SFER?

Proceed with caution, Dr. Paez. 

While Students for Education Reform (SFER) will pontificate that they are “all about the children,” their political activities in Minneapolis, Denver and elsewhere tells a very different story.

–Jonathon Pelto

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