April 13, 2016
Last night, two new Minneapolis schools—Southwest High School and the downtown FAIR School–became district-sponsored Community Partnership Schools (CPS), after winning approval from the school board. At last! Becoming a CPS site means these two schools can operate as “innovative, site-based educational models that utilize increased autonomy, accountability and partnerships to meet the unique needs of their school communities and accelerate student achievement.” according to MPS’s website.
But…both Southwest and FAIR already are, or claim to be, built around “innovative, site-based educational models.” Southwest has been an IB school since I was a student there, in the dark ages of the 20th century, and FAIR’s website describes the school this way:
The FAIR School is the result of imaginative educational conception, inventive curriculum planning, and innovative architectural design.
So why would these two already innovative schools want–or need–to also become CPS sites? Besides the half-promise that Community Partnership Schools will be allowed “charter-like freedom” in hiring and firing decisions (an idea that seemed to be dispelled at last night’s school board meeting), what is the benefit?
Let’s admit it: the Minneapolis Public Schools is full of mixed messages. On the one hand, the district pays for a fancy Office of New Schools, where lucky teachers and parents got to take a grant-funded trip to Los Angeles (in March, no less!) to see what innovative, creative schools look like up close (maybe they had to go to L.A. because the Office of New Schools has tried and failed to adequately implement “innovative” schools here already). If they liked what they saw–and who wouldn’t, when you’re going to LA on someone else’s dime–they could come back and “replicate” the innovation in their own Minneapolis school, as long as the school agreed to become a Community Partnership School.
But, on the other hand, many Minneapolis schools are already being given beautiful levels of autonomy, without having to become a CPS site, or taking a trip to LA. Check this video out, from the newly reopened, redesigned Webster Elementary School, in northeast Minneapolis:
Quick backstory (and acronym alert): The “Community Partnership Schools” (CPS) concept came to MPS in 2014, via the Washington state based Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE). CRPE is a market-based ed reform advocacy group skilled in crafting and selling “solutions” for public school districts across the United States, including Minneapolis. (CRPE provides model policies for school districts to use, just like ALEC writes model bills for state and federal legislators.)
CRPE’s aim is to help public school districts become portfolio districts, where each school becomes an island unto itself–left to sink or swim, according to the rule of high stakes, standardized test-based decision making. This is the “autonomy-for-greater-accountability” framework for portfolio districts, where schools supposedly get to do more of what they’d like to, as far as curricula and calendars go, but then agree to be held even more tightly to test-based measures of success.
If a school can get its numbers up–preferably while serving large concentrations of kids in poverty, without asking for more publicly funded resources–then it will survive. If it cannot, then it will drown, and be replaced by a competing school model, in a “sector agnostic” way, of course (charter school, private school, plain old public school–who cares?!).
To make this Faustian bargain sound good, schools have first been subjected to years of bungled, bizarre centralized management, interferences, and mandates–from the federal government (No Child Left Behind) on down. Nowhere is this more evident than the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Here’s what I mean:
Last night, at the April 12 Minneapolis school board meeting, board members approved two new CPS sites for the district, in addition to the four schools that became CPS sites in 2015. One new CPS is FAIR school in downtown Minneapolis, which, I presume, already operates quite independently, since it is an arts magnet school. Magnet schools, by definition, are supposed to be allowed to design and implement their own academic programs and school models, in order to increase creativity and diversity, and they’ve been in use in Minneapolis since the 1970’s.
Confused? There’s more. Southwest High School is the other MPS site which will now go forward as a CPS. Innovate away! But, wait. Southwest already has a lot of autonomy. Or it should. It’s been functioning as an IB school since I was a student there, in the dark ages of the 20th century. And, it’s been doing it quite well, according to most people (the hugely popular school is bursting at the seams).
So why the quest for “autonomy”? Sources close to the Southwest application process, which all CPS sites must endure, often say that Bill Smith, the well-liked, longstanding principal of the school, mostly wanted to be free of district mandates, such as the dreaded (by most) “Focused Instruction.” Focused Instruction should be seen as a mangled attempt by Minneapolis administrators to exact short term success (test score bumps) by requiring all district teachers to get on the same page, literally.
Here is how former superintendent Bernadeia Johnson’s commitment to Focused Instruction was described in a 2013 Star Tribune editorial:
(Johnson) remains committed to instructional protocol that keeps teachers on a similar curriculum. “Some people at the building level apparently thought that focused instruction was negotiable. It’s not. At least 90 minutes a day on literacy is crucial for our kids.’’
So, the very district that claims to want all of its schools to be the autonomous, units of change that want to be, also is running a “non-negotiable,” managed instruction plan out of the other side of its mouth. Huh? It’s no wonder a respected principal like Bill Smith would jump when given the chance to walk away from this craziness, and into the arms of the CPS model.
Who knows if it will work.
From the video, it sounds like principal Ginger Davis Kranz simply had a great idea: “let’s build community at our school through family-style dining,” and was allowed to…try it, without having to become a CPS site. Genius. (And probably part of a comprehensive effort to attract and retain organized downtown Minneapolis families, who tend to be whiter and wealthier than most.)
So, why can’t every school in Minneapolis do this? Why can’t principals, teachers and staff come up with ideas on their own, and try them out? Why are some schools in Minneapolis granted “autonomy”–as they should be–while others struggle under mangled mandates that depress spirits (and keep test scores and morale low, undoubtedly)?
Why does Minneapolis promote “focused instruction” out of one side of the Davis Center, while simultaneously fawning over the idea that empowered, innovative schools are the key to success? Focused instruction, if you will recall, is MPS’s awkwardly implemented, standardized approach to “transforming educational outcomes” by putting test scores and standards first, and then creating instructional strategies that “align” with those tests and standards.
Even with focused instruction, MPS understands that not all of its schools are the same. Here is a picture from the district’s internal website, advising school staff to find which type of school they work in, and then go from there:
Presumably, then, innovation, school choice and autonomy already exist in the district. If magnet schools–which Minneapolis has had since the 1970’s–are not already the “unit of change,” then why aren’t they? If they have not already been granted the “autonomy” to do their own thing, according to the professional judgment of school staff and the input of families, then why would becoming a CPS site change this? What makes CPS a guaranteed approach, while magnet status does not?
And Webster Elementary is neither a magnet school nor a CPS site. It just sounds like a forward-thinking, well designed rebuilt public school that has been encouraged to lead with developmentally appropriate, professionally conceived strategies.
Why can’t all Minneapolis schools be allowed to operate like this? Why is focused instruction a “non-negotiable” for some sites, as former superintendent Bernadeia Johnson said in 2013, while other schools are encouraged to become dream-driven, flexibly arranged sites?
It’s hard to see how CPS sites will eradicate decades of uneven leadership, mishandled initiatives and unequal levels of trust, in terms of who is allowed to act innovatively, and who is not, and at what cost. But I can’t blame FAIR and Southwest for trying.
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