Tag Archives: Minneapolis

Minneapolis Public Schools Redesign Plans Marred by Inaccurate Information

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January 27, 2020

On January 24, the Minneapolis Public Schools sent an email to parents and community members with the following subject line: Comprehensive District Design Digest: Everything you need to know!

The cheery exclamation point did little to calm fears, however, regarding the district’s comprehensive design proposal (known as the CDD).

For one thing, the email sent to MPS families and staff included a summary of the five options now contained in the district proposal, but there was no link provided to the actual document so that people could read through it themselves.

A parent requested the link on Facebook from a district employee, and it was then provided, but this does not seem like an effective way to build trust in MPS’s potentially massively disruptive plans.

Incomplete Information

The proposal, thus far, is outlined in a PowerPoint document that will be discussed at the school board’s January 28 Committee of the Whole meeting and at the district-sponsored listening sessions that will be held over the next several weeks.

This approach–selectively releasing explosive information just days before public engagement sessions are slated to begin–seems designed to further stoke panic, division, and discord between parents and various school communities, with little sense of how to actually bring people together for the common good.

And the plan itself is laced with incomplete or inaccurate information, which is also sowing mistrust and fear in some corners of the district.

MPS Seems Bent on Slandering K-8 Schools

The CDD proposal released on January 24 continues an attempt to prove that K-8 schools are somehow worse for students than standalone middle schools. In so doing, the proposal offers a shoddy side-by-side comparison of unnamed (but easily identified) district schools.

Slides 45-46 seem to pit Barton Open K-8 against Justice Page Middle School. Barton is listed as “School A: K-8” and Page is “School B: 6-8.” A list of what each school ostensibly offers, in terms of enrichment and support, then follows.

But the list under School A: K-8 (Barton) is selectively narrow and purposefully incomplete, in order to drive home MPS’s pitch that K-8s are inadequate. This is slide 46:

Barton does offer team sports (though fewer in recent years, thanks to district-level budget cuts), though, and health in grades 5-8, not just in 7 and 8. Phy Ed also happens for every kid, K-8, and not just in 8th grade.

Barton offers art, too, and many other specialized elective course offerings, including Film Studies and a semester-long deep dive into the Holocaust and its connections to current events.

The dance class Barton offers as an elective is built around students as creators, since the class culminates in a show of dances choreographed by students. In recent years, there have been powerful works done that reflect students’ interest in Black Lives Matter and gun violence, for example.

The school also has a robust after-school debate league, and has recently fielded English, Spanish and Somali-speaking teams.

Good School vs. Bad School = A Problematic Framing

Barton does not have AVID (a separate programming model built around providing more support and smaller class sizes for students in need) but it does offer in-school classes for students who need homework help and so on–all on an absolutely bare bones budget, of course.

It may also offer something else, thanks to its smaller size: an opportunity for closer connection among teachers, staff, and students. This connection might foster stronger relationships, which is also a form of essential support. (Nicole Naftziger, MPS parent at a community K-8, has done a thorough job of debunking claims–often using MPS’s own data–that 6-8 schools are better for all students.)

But the CDD proposal seems designed to tell a purposefully inaccurate story.

Electives Are Not Offered to All

Justice Page is “School B” in the above slide, and it does appear to boast an impressive number of elective classes. But upon closer inspection, these course offerings are most available to the students who are already successful–as least as far as standardized test scores go.

That’s because the course offerings sheet available on the Justice Page website, which guides students through the enrichment classes available to them, includes the following caveats:

ELL students, in other words, are presumably isolated from the rest of their peers and not allowed to participate in enrichment courses with native or proficient English speakers.

And kids who perhaps don’t test well or who are somehow below grade-level in math or reading (the two most tested subjects) will also miss out on at least one enrichment class, and be shuttled into a remedial class–even though there is good pedagogical support for not doing this.

Should MPS Understand Its Own Schools Better?

While I don’t presume to know all of the reasons Page has structured their course offerings this way (it may be what the staff feels is most helpful for students), it certainly challenges the narrative that all kids will receive a “well-rounded education,” as MPS claims, at large, standalone middle schools.

My critique here, however, is not directed at Page, nor should this be read as a simplistic defense of Barton. My own kids have gone to Barton but my youngest will go to Page if K-8s are eliminated in MPS, and I deeply believe there are no “perfect” schools, including Barton.

Every school is a complex mix of success stories and sometimes deep-seated obstacles. Barton is no different, although it does–like Justice Page–benefit from the kind of stability and community support that should be cultivated at all MPS sites.

Rather, I am using an example concerning two schools that are in my neighborhood to poke holes in the incomplete and factually inaccurate marketing plan/proposal MPS released on January 24.

Beware the Red Herring

If we are to accept the idea that large-scale disruptions are urgently needed–now–in order to save money and better serve MPS’s most marginalized communities, then we need factual information that can be vetted and verified.

We can’t build a better MPS on half-truths and skimpy marketing plans.

Communities in north, northeast and the south/central neighborhoods have experienced the most disruption and upheaval in recent history. North High School was recommended for closure by district officials in 2010; it is still in the process of trying to rebuild its community.

Some people also maintain that the Central neighborhood has never gotten over the closure of its high school in the 1980s. From a website run by Augsburg College historians:

Central High School was the heart of the Southside African-American community for most of the twentieth century. Despite protests, the Minneapolis Public Schools decided to close the building in 1982. It was demolished soon thereafter (except for the gymnasium, which remains). The school was also critical in the life of Prince Rogers Nelson, who attended high school here from 1972-1976. 

The essential question, then, is what MPS can do collectively to support schools across the city, especially since closures are almost certain to follow–even though the January 24 CDD proposal states such decisions will be made after the board votes on a plan.

Community-Led Change

Disruption and the creeping Charlie-like spread of neoliberal, market-based education reform ideas are exactly what has been done, repeatedly, in Minneapolis and other large districts. (Just take a look at the proliferation of charter schools in north and northeast Minneapolis, in particular.)

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Jitu Brown

What hasn’t been tried–as a school board member acknowledged recently–is a grassroots, community-led approach to strengthening existing schools within MPS. This is a strategy supported by many racial and education justice activists, including Jitu Brown of Journey for Justice and the leaders of the Schott Foundation based in Boston.

Will it really work to push through school closures, dramatic boundary changes (some of which I think hold promise, including the move to send Kenwood area kids to Anwatin and North High), teacher and staff upheavals, and so on? Where will this put the district in five years?

And, amid MPS’s faulty claims that standalone middle schools are somehow better for students, the Minneapolis City Planning Commission appears to have given the green light to yet another K-8 charter school in northeast Minneapolis, Metro Tech Academy.

“We don’t have failing schools—as a public we’ve been failed.”

—Jitu Brown

Minneapolis Ranks High–Relatively–On Loving Cities Index

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March 20, 2018

Want Education Reform? Try Love

Since 2000, according to his own estimation, Bill Gates’s philanthropic foundation has dedicated $1 billion to the remaking of America’s schools. Speaking at an urban education conference in 2017, Gates said he hopes to address disparities in outcomes between students of color and their white peers. While noting that race-based differences in school success measures are still a problem, Gates makes it clear that he still believes in schools as the “unit of change” when it comes to boosting student achievement. 

Never once in his speech did Gates mention the broader inequalities—from immigration status to lack of prenatal care—that impact students’ lives. Instead, as outlined in his 2017 speech, Gates and his foundation have maintained a laser focus on what happens inside the classroom or, in the case of its promotion of charter schools, on what type of school kids attend.

From Ronald Reagan to Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Trump, the federal government has supported a Gates-like view of education policy by promoting everything from a national, standardized curriculum (Common Core), to the continued use of testing to rank teachers, schools, and students.

But there is a different perspective available, thanks to a new report from the Boston-based Schott Foundation. 

Called the “Loving Cities Index,” the Schott Foundation report looks at multiple and intersecting factors that create unequal opportunities for students—often before they ever set foot in a public school classroom. Schott Foundation researchers did a deep dive into ten U.S. cities from Long Beach, California to Springfield, Massachusetts and points in between, evaluating four “areas of impact”: Care, Commitment, Stability, and Capacity.

Cities across the United States are built around policies rooted in “implicit racial bias at best, and explicit racism and hate at worst,” the report argues. The result is that too many families still lack access to healthcare, job, and housing options that would provide a solid foundation for their children’s academic success. Over 40 percent of students of color across the country attend schools where at least three-quarters of the student body live in poverty or are considered low-income, the report notes. In contrast, just over 7 percent of white students attend these same types of schools.

No city scored well on the Schott Foundation’s Loving Cities scale. Minneapolis and Long Beach were at the top, offering just over half, on average, of what the Foundation believes kids need to thrive, including healthy food, safe neighborhoods, reliable public transportation and access to advanced coursework. Charlotte, North Carolina, was the lowest performer, along with cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Little Rock, Arkansas. These cities were flagged for offering just over one-third of the social and environmental support services deemed necessary for greater student, family, and community success.

Some of the solutions offered by Loving Cities include school support staff who can coordinate “with community partners to bring outside resources inside schools—from immediate needs like food or clothing to more complex ones like counseling or emotional support.” The report also describes the need to address “white-washed” teaching of our history of oppression, and the importance of building a common understanding of how we have historically created opportunity gaps. Another important part of the equation involves “progressive” school funding policies, with sufficiently high funding levels and higher rates of funding for high poverty districts.

By zeroing in on segregation, environmental racism, police brutality, and unfair banking practices, for example, the Schott Foundation offers a seismic shift in how policy makers, philanthropists, and the general public can approach education reform.

The Schott Foundation offers a seismic shift in how policy makers, philanthropists, and the general public can approach education reform.

This is a radical departure from the market-based reform model pushed by Republican and Democratic leaders, along with billionaires like Bill Gates, and venture capitalists eager to take a crack at reshaping—not to mention profiting from—America’s “untapped” public education system.

Market-based reform measures have succeeded in scattering the education landscape with seemingly endless “choices” for families, including charter and voucher schools. But 90 percent of students in the United States still attend traditional public schools, and as Schott Foundation president Dr. John Jackson notes in his introduction to the Loving Cities Index, “parent income remains the number one predictor of student outcomes—not type of public school, labor contract, or brand of assessment.”

In other words, promoting school choice as the solution is a distraction from the basic fact that parent income, along with interrelated racial and economic segregation, remain powerful determinants in the quality of education a child receives.

Attacking these more economically oriented issues appears to be uncomfortable for billionaires like Gates—perhaps it calls into question the largesse he accumulates while income inequality balloons. Maybe that is why he avoids tackling the racially biased policies that the Schott Foundation and others insist stand in the way of progress for all America’s students. As the report states, “Placing the blame at the doors of educators, parents, students and the public school system is the easy route that has proven to do very little to solve the problem.”

This piece was originally published by The Progressive.

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Educators, Allies to March From AFT Convention

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July 18, 2016

Today at 4 p.m., members of Minneapolis’s Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC) and the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, along with community allies and representatives from teachers unions around the United States, will be marching together in downtown Minneapolis. Their jumping off point is the Minneapolis Convention Center, where the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) national convention is being held this week.

A July 18 press release from NOC states that the groups are marching to “stand in solidarity,” as a show of  “direct action following the unjust killing of their colleague and friend Philando Castile.” Along with honoring Castile, the march is also intended to “demand justice for his life and for Black lives everywhere.”

But the marchers are also providing a framework that moves beyond drawing attention to police violence by planning to march from the convention center to the U.S. Banks building in downtown Minneapolis:

The groups are demanding community safety beyond policing; naming those who profit from unjust and violent systems that are taking the lives of people of color; and demanding investment in community-driven solutions.

Like the Chicago Teachers Union, the St. Paul teachers union has been instrumental in drawing parallels between disparities in access and outcomes in education to big picture issues of economic injustice, arguing that large, national banks like U.S. Banks and Wells Fargo profit mightily from the prison industrial complex and the foreclosure crisis, for example.

This is reflected in NOC’s work, too, and in their press release for today’s event: 

  • Both U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo have served as the underwriters and trustees for a number of cities that have issued bonds to pay police misconduct settlements. Cities throughout the country have spent over $1 billion in the last 10 years on such settlements, taking money away from public services.
  • Local and state governments, desperate for funds and wanting to avoid raising taxes, use traffic tickets and fines to increase cash flow and balance their budgets. U.S. Bank operates the online payment system in states such as Minnesota and Wisconsin, and for municipalities in those states, receiving a fee for each transaction.
  • U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo have both provided significant financing to private prisons, including the largest for-profit prison operator in the country, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The controversial prison in Appleton, Minnesota, now owned by CCA and vacant, was originally financed in 1992 through the use of bonds, for which U.S. Bank served as the trustee. 

Karen Lewis, the high-profile head of the Chicago Teachers Union, is scheduled to speak at the march, along with Amber Jones, of NO, and Michelle Wiese, the newly elected president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, among others.

WHEN:

TODAY, TUESDAY, July 19, 4:00 p.m.

WHERE: 

Minneapolis Convention Center (Second Avenue South Entrance), 1301 2nd Ave S., Minneapolis, MN 55403

“As a society, we choose to underinvest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment. We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs. We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book. And then we tell the police, ‘You’re a social worker; you’re the parent; you’re the teacher; you’re the drug counselor.’ We tell them to keep those neighborhoods in check at all costs and do so without causing any political blowback or inconvenience; don’t make a mistake that might disturb our own peace of mind. And then we feign surprise when periodically the tensions boil over.”

–President Obama, quoted in Charles Blow’s recent New York Times Op-Ed, “Blood on Your Hands, Too”

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No Art, No Counselor: Budget Concerns Follow Goar’s Exit From Minneapolis

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May 13, 2016

At the Tuesday, May 10, Minneapolis school board meeting, interim superintendent, Michael Goar, received something of a hero’s farewell from several board members, along with a handful of parents and community members. Board member Don Samuels, for example, praised Goar for many things, including his negotiating skills with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), which resulted in “unprecedented concessions” from the union.

It is not clear which concessions Samuels was referring to, but they probably have something to do with the still-nebulous “Community Partnership Schools” plan that Goar and MFT president, Lynn Nordgren, agreed to during 2014 negotiations. More principal power over “hiring and firing” of staff is a key aspect of this “autonomous/accountable” school model. (The academic freedoms supposedly associated with these schools don’t make sense in a district flush with a diversity of school models, from magnets to IB and beyond.)

Coincidentally, or not, the day after the May 10 board meeting, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published an article about the slippery budget practices that have gone on during Goar’s time as district CEO and interim superintendent. The gist of the article is that MPS has a “$15 to $17 million budget deficit” this year, in part due to the practice of purposefully cooking the books ahead of time–by willfully underestimating costs for known expenses–to make the budget look better. (Goar has faced budget-related issues in previous school district jobs.)

This issue was actually presented at the June, 2015 school board meeting, when board members first approved the 2015-2016 budget, while also agreeing to an emergency addition to plug the gaping $17 million hole within it.

Red flags also flew up in February, 2016, when an audit of MPS’s finances revealed the shifty budgeting practices that local media outlets are only now covering, months later. (This audit was discussed at the February 9 school board meeting, just after Goar withdrew his name from consideration for the superintendent position.)

The multimillion dollar budget discrepancy for this year could be attributed to any number of things, such as:

  • The sudden addition of an extended school day this year, at district middle and high schools, with no apparent planning for what this would cost.
  • Community Partnership Schools (CPS). How are these schools being funded? What additional monies are being given to the four CPS sites? It is not clear, partially because the funding formula (called “student-based allocations”) used for these sites is different than the one applied to every other district school. A Minneapolis parent requested the formula months ago and has yet to see it.
  • Ongoing patterns of mysterious budgeting, as when, in 2015, Goar publicly announced he was “right-sizing” the Davis Center, by cutting staff, only to hire many of them back, under different job descriptions. Positions were also pushed off onto schools, which were required to absorb the cost of jobs previously included in the Davis Center budget. 
  • The auditor presenting information at the February 9 board  meeting raised–ever so politely–questions about the board and district’s budget processes, noting that there did not seem to be an accurate “paper trail” attached to district requests for additional spending.

The good news is current district CFO, Ibrahima Diop, seems unwilling to continue on with shady budget practices, telling the Star Tribune that he “did not know why the previous financial staff crafted the budget in such a manner, but he and his staff members, who are almost all new to the district, have committed to budget expenses accurately.”

In the meantime, some Minneapolis schools are finding it difficult to navigate the capricious spending priorities of the Davis Center. At the May 10 board meeting, Field Middle School parent Darren Selberg described the painful choices confronting Field this year, as it struggles to absorb what parents say is a new, district-imposed program for special education students, without additional district resources.

“As I understand it,” Selberg later said, “the budget was essentially flat but Field is now required to add a program that eats up $100,000. so other cuts were needed. The choices were to fully cut a language arts class, which is part of the core curriculum. The most viable option–if it can be considered that–was to cut art completely, a Media Tech position, and the school counselor.”

Selberg has daughters in fifth and seventh grade at Field and is especially concerned about losing the school’s counselor. “My fifth grader’s classmate has been subjected to bullying most of the year from a group of boys. She’s a little quirky and has some behavior issues herself, so the bullying has been difficult,” Selberg noted. He says the child had further trouble coping at school, and even attempted suicide while at Field. Thankfully, Selberg reports, the counselor was able to help the girl access potentially life-saving outside resources.

“My concern without a counselor is how much time staff may have to spend dealing with these issues that they’re not trained for, nor have time for, when they should be teaching their subject.  Additionally, with the behavior issues around the district, who will implement whatever plans they put forth?”

In June, Goar will leave the Minneapolis schools for a new job, and the school board will be tasked with final approval of the 2016-2017 budget. Whether or not that budget will include a counselor for Field Middle School remains to be seen.

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Bernie Sanders & AFL-CIO to focus on Racial and Economic Justice in Minneapolis, Unions

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February 9, 2016

It’s 5 degrees outside, but you can put away that parka: things are hot in Minneapolis right now.

Bernie Sanders is coming to a north Minneapolis forum on Friday, February 12. The exact details have yet to be revealed, but the significance of this event is, as Sanders might say, “yooge.”

Sanders will appear at north Minneapolis’s Capri Theater, at the invitation of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC), a northside non-profit dedicated to fighting for racial and economic justice in the Twin Cities. A February 8 NOC press release says the forum will “focus on the Black experience in America, and specifically in Minnesota” and the racial disparities that exist here and elsewhere. Also up for discussion is what the federal government can do to “invest in radical solutions being developed in Black communities and other communities of color.” The statement says Hillary Clinton declined NOC’s invitation to attend.

According to NOC, a presidential candidate has never held a forum in north Minneapolis, a historic area home to some of Minneapolis’s proudest, yet most marginalized neighborhoods (learn more about the area by watching this superb, story-based video). By agreeing to come here, Sanders will have to put his progressive stump speech to the test.

Are the marginalized and people of color really at the center of Sanders’ proposed reforms? If you follow the recent writings of both Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander, you know that, this year, there will be no free passes given to candidates who say they want what’s “best” for African-Americans, specifically, or people of color overall.

That seems refreshing, as does another major event scheduled in Minneapolis this week. On Thursday and Friday, Tefere Gebre, Vice President of the AFL-CIO, will be in town for a forum on the need to bring racial and economic justice to the nation’s unions. POCUM Forum

Kerry Jo Felder is the education organizer for the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation (MRLF), which acts as an umbrella organization for the AFL-CIO, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, and other local unions. Felder says Gebre is coming to Minneapolis as part of the AFL-CIO’s eight-city Labor Commission on Racial and Economic Justice tour.

This tour was set in motion at the 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri and is intended to provide a platform for confronting the institutionalized racism in labor unions, while also making the case that unions can provide solutions to today’s entrenched and expanding racial and economic inequities.

Felder, who started a People of Color Union Member (POCUM) caucus within the MRLF, says the union must step up and do a better job of acknowledging how racism is holding unions back. “I hear the stories all the time, from my POCUMs. People are sick and tired of being passed over for jobs and promotions.”

Tackling racism head-on is essential to the overall survival of unions, according to Felder, who lives in north Minneapolis and sees disparities–in housing, jobs, income and education–around her every day. “We have to have people who are in the unions go back to the community, and explain why unions matter. Relationships matter. If people are getting passed over for positions, they’re not going to have a good taste in their mouths, or want to help support unions.”

The AFL-CIO held similar racial and economic justice tours in 1995 and 2005, says Felder, but, clearly, not enough has changed.“We’re trying to make this happen,” she insisted. “We hope we can focus on what’s bad about how our unions are operating, come up with some solutions, and make it good.”

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka gets this, says Felder. “He sees that, if the unions are going to survive, they are going to have to include people of color more.”

Perhaps, if Bernie Sanders, or Hillary Clinton, or any presidential candidate, is going to survive, they will also need to, authentically, address the issues–and solutions–raised by people of color.

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Will love find a way to save the MTI?

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Could this be the key to education reform, all wrapped up in the words of a Minneapolis high school student named Ja’Meyah? Here, Ja’Meyah responds to a question from one of her teachers, Josh Zoucha:

“When you get to know people, and they make you want to come to school, and they make you want to do right, then you start to do right, and you start to like it, and you start to enjoy coming to the place, and you don’t want to do nothing to lose those people and make them stop liking you, so you gotta be good, you know? And you gotta come to school because they want to see you just as much as you want to see them.”

Image from the Minneapolis Teachers Institute

Josh was asking Ja’Meyah to reflect on why she was coming to school more, and why she had zero suspensions this year, but 14 last year. He also asked Ja’Meyah about her absences: 

“Last year, in the fall, you had 48 absences. And, you had only earned 2.75 credits and 7 days of suspension….This year you’ve earned 14.5 credits…and 0 days of suspension. What’s the difference between last year and this year?”

Josh recorded his interaction with Ja’Meyah, and on the recording, it is clear the two have a bond. Their interaction is casual, familiar. Love-based. 

But not accidental.

Josh participated this year in the Minneapolis Teachers Institute (MTI), a year-long, voluntary professional development program for Minneapolis teachers. It was created by long-time education practitioner Lisa Arrastia, and funded by the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Office of Equity and Diversity.

Part of Josh’s task as an MTI fellow this year was to develop a close relationship with one of his students at Minneapolis’ Edison High School, where he works, and that student was Ja’Meyah. Here is how Josh describes the assignment, and its impact:

…(MTI) asked us to partner/adopt a student for the year.  We had guided questions and documented our discussions for the year by journaling, recording, and asking deeper questions about life.  My students name is Ja’Meyah…and she has made some of the greatest gains towards graduation in our program.  As of September no one believed she was going to graduate and as of right now she is at the very least going to walk and most likely graduate, which in her own words is a miracle.  I believe this is not only because of the…program at Edison but also the relationships that were built within the process of MTI. 

Teaching today can seem like a blood sport, with teacher-baiting the main form of entertainment. Politicians and edu-experts everywhere can often be found gleefully smacking their lips and placing bets on this: 

NJ governor Chris Christie, putting a teacher in her place

How much can we belittle and demean those  lazy, union-loving thugs who choose to enter the classroom and work with kids before they cry uncle and limp away? 

Josh even touches on this, in a letter he wrote in defense of the MTI–which is, sadly, on the chopping block in Minneapolis. The district has deemed it “too expensive,” and has shut down the department–the Office of Equity and Diversity–that funded the MTi.

“Education has a high burnout rate, and I have felt it, but after this year (with MTI), I have felt refreshed, renewed, and it has honestly been one of my favorite years in education.”

In place of the MTI, which offers a project-based, love-focused approach to education reform, Minneapolis administrators have proposed a cheaper, faster alternative, using “culturally relevant pedagogy training.”

In response, MTI fellows have flooded the district, and school board members, with impassioned testimonials on behalf of the MTI. Like this, from Minneapolis high school teacher Morgan Fierst:

The stresses, pressures, and violence that students and teachers face on a daily basis are profound and cannot be ignored.  The Minneapolis Teacher’s Institute is the only real professional development that I have come across during my tenure in the profession.  MTI is the only professional development that has stopped me from seeking a new career, but more importantly, the only PD that has rejuvenated my spirit and grounded me so I could reconnect with my passion and energy for this work.  I know many people are concerned about getting rid of the “bad” teachers in our district.  I understand and appreciate this concern.  But I think we need to be just as mindful, if not more, about keeping our great ones.

 I beg of you to reconsider this decision and learn more about MTI and bring it back to our school district. We (teachers, students, administrators, families) need it!

MPS administrators then settled on a form response to these letters from teachers. Here is an excerpt from it:

Thank you for your email regarding the positive experience you’ve had with the Minneapolis Teacher Institute. It’s always great to hear how MPS professional development opportunities impact teaching and learning.

As you noted, MPS will no longer provide MTI for subsequent teacher cohorts. However, MPS is committed to continuing the critical work we’ve been doing to ensure teachers and our school leaders are provided with the skills they need to be responsive to the needs of all our students, and especially our students of color.

Because of this, the district is moving toward a PD model that will reach more teachers, faster. 

In another note to Minneapolis school board members, Minneapolis’s “CAO” (or, Chief Academic Officer) Susanne Griffin told board members about the district’s prefab response to inquiries about the MTI, and prefaced it this way:

Below is a response that can be used for any inquiry into the status of the district’s professional development plans around cultural responsive teaching.

Because the current model for the Minneapolis Teacher Institute is not cost effective, the district has decided to provide culturally responsive professional development in house so that more teachers can be trained faster.

“A response that can be used for any inquiry” is probably not a response that anyone wants to read. And, reaching more teachers, faster, might look good on paper, but will it be satisfying? 

Here’s what one teacher has to say about that:

In my tenure as a teacher, I have attended many PD’s and often after the moment it started wondered when it was going to end, just hoping to get something out of it. With MTI, I was always disappointed when it was over.  I have attended different cultural responsive trainings in the past but have never been a part of anything like MTI.  I know I have been changed through my experience with MTI, I will forever be proud to call myself an MTI alum and I can’t express my disappointment that no one else will have this opportunity. 

I wonder what students like Ja’Meyah would have to say about this, given the opportunity.

Students on testing: Taking tests is not a job skill

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Testing from the inside out: This week, on May 20, the debate team at Minneapolis’ Northeast Middle School is hosting a “community panel on standardized testing.” With the help of French teacher and debate team coach Michael Grandys, these kids–whose school lives have been defined by testing–will be going directly in to the belly of the beast, and taking the rest of us with them. (I will be on the panel on the 20th, and, more importantly, so will a lot of other people, including students.)

After I met a few of these kids at a pre-panel event, I couldn’t resist asking them why they wanted to host a debate about testing. I just assumed that, since they have grown up within the low expectation-slashing embrace of No Child Left Behind, being tested would be as natural a thing as breathing for these kids. Turns out it’s not that simple.

NEMS 2nd
These kids have brains in their heads and feet in their shoes.

Here’s what the students I spoke with–8th grader Margret Ritschel and 7th graders Eleanor Craig and Ginger Benson-Nicheallochain–had to say. My questions and prompts are in bold; their answers (not in multiple choice format, unfortunately) are the bullet points that follow.

Tell me how you got interested in the topic of testing.

  • I have hated testing since I was little and thought the whole thing was really unfair.
  • I got involved in the panel on standardized testing after our coach, Mr. Grandys, went and saw Jesse Hagopian speak in March. He then talked with us about testing, and I got intrigued with it. I did a bunch of research and just got really passionate about it. That’s why I’ve decided to speak out about it.
  • There is just so much pressure with testing. Our teachers feel a lot of pressure to teach to the test, but the tests don’t match up with what we’re doing in class.

How do the tests not match up with what you are doing in class?

  • We are all in advanced math classes, so the (federally mandated) MCA tests don’t match what level we are at. The test is for grade-level work only, and we are all working above grade level. So, before the tests, we get crammed with knowledge, and told “we’re doing this because it’s on the test.”

Wait. When I asked the Minnesota Department of Education about testing last year, their message was clear: they do not endorse or support the use of test prep. But it sounds like that message didn’t reach your school.

  • No, we do test prep packets for three months out of the year, to get ready for the tests. The packets are 10-20 pages long, and we have to do them every day.
  • The test prep packets are huge, and kids don’t have time to do them because we still have all of our other work to do. So, this leads to copying and searching on the Internet for answers.
  • We get graded on the test prep packets, but we don’t have time to for them. 

Why do you think you have to do so much test prep?

  • We hear the message all the time: You have to do well on these tests so our school can succeed and teachers can keep their jobs. One teacher said, “I kind of want a job next year, so do well on the test, everyone.”
  • It’s so much pressure on students, but the teachers can’t help it. They have to do this

    “We know that adults learn best, just like children do, when they are engaged in a natural learning cycle that includes goal-setting, exploration, and reflection.”

    because they are getting graded on our scores.

Some people say the tests are needed, to see how students are doing and what they’re learning. What do you think?

  • Testing is not learning. The quizzes and tests that teachers make are more fair, and they are about what we’re doing in class. And teachers don’t lose their jobs if we fail a spelling test. But with standardized tests, teachers can be fired if we don’t do well.
  • There are two worlds: the testing world, and the real world. In real life, you can ask for help. On the tests, you can’t.
  • With the tests, no one knows what’s on them. We don’t know what we got wrong or why. 
  • Life isn’t multiple choice. In life, you have to think. And these tests don’t help you think. They don’t teach us how to apply information. 
  • I don’t like that you can’t ask for help, so there’s no learning. In life, we can always find help or look up information we need.
  • I have friends who get good grades and take all advanced classes, but do bad on tests. Why should so much depend on the tests?

So you’re not buying in to the idea that these tests provide useful information to you, your teachers, or anyone?

  • Testing was initially a good idea, because we do need to assess students. But it all got mangled. If I hadn’t opted out of the testing this year, I would have had to take 11 standardized tests. It’s too much.
  • Assessing students is a great idea, but not to the point of affecting students’ mental health and causing anxiety.
  • There is a difference between assessing and ranking, and these tests are about ranking. I know they do this in high school. My brother happens to be near the top of his class, but how would you feel if you were number 138 or something? It is not encouraging.
  • So much falls on one day. Kids are crying and feeling pressure, and if you have a bad test day, you can then be put into a special class, for extra reading or math. But there are a lot of smart kids who don’t test well.
  • These tests are used to judge students, but do we ever blame the people who make the tests? If a bunch of students don’t do well, do we ever stop and think the tests might be bad? Instead, we are blaming students, but maybe the tests aren’t good.
  • MAP tests (given up to 3 times a year purportedly to show growth) are the worst because there is no stopping. The test keeps getting harder if you get a question right, but then it drops you right down if you get a question wrong. Right away you feel like “I’m doing bad.” It’s a negative mentality.

Tell me more.

  • If 100 was a perfect score on the MCA tests, and 50 was passing, then they’ll focus on the kids who are getting 40 points, and ignore the kids in the 20 range. Those kids, getting a 20, will keep getting lower and lower if you ignore them, and then the higher scoring kids don’t get attention either. It’s all about the kids close to passing, and having them boost their test scores.
  • Teachers should test us on what they’ve been teaching us in class. 
  • After the tests are over, a lot of kids just think school is over. It’s like school doesn’t matter once the tests are done. One kid didn’t bring his math book to class after the tests and when the teacher asked him about it he said, “We did the test! I thought we weren’t learning anything anymore.”
  • High test scores equal a good school in parents’ minds, but schools shouldn’t be judged this way.
  • Tests won’t be part of our lives when we’re older. Taking tests is not a job skill.

And…

  • Tests are draining. We have to sit for an hour and a half at a time, silently.
  • Some students miss lunch because they can’t get up and leave if they are in the middle of a test section.
  • Afterwards, your brain is mush. Fried. You need to run around and have a break, but we have to go to another class. Then that teacher can’t really do anything useful like an essay or project because we are all so tired.
  • Taking these tests means staring at a computer screen for an hour and a half straight. Last time, I had to ask my teacher for a break afterwards because my eyes hurt and were stinging. 
  • I actually miss the paper tests because of this. 
  • The computer lab and the library are closed during testing season, so we can’t use them to do our other work. And some kids don’t have a computer or Wi-Fi at home, making it hard for them to do their homework.

What do you think should be done instead?

  • I think testing uses the wrong incentives. It’s all negative because the message is, if you don’t do well then the school will lose funding, and teachers will get fired, and your parents won’t be happy. There isn’t any joy or inspiration this way.
  • It’s better when teachers know us and know why we did or didn’t do well on something. 
  • I read about these schools in New York that use essays and projects to assess students. That seems good. 
  • Yes! We’ve seen the science classes give presentations, and it’s amazing to see. The presentations are actually showing a student’s passion and it’s great. 

    Alternative assessment in action, at a private school.
  • You could learn how students are doing without ranking them.
  • Maybe there’s a different way we could fund our schools so we wouldn’t have to have these tests.
  • One option would be to just reduce the number of tests. There are a lot of useless tests given that could be taken away.
  • I see so many problems with testing, like the Pearson glitches we’ve had this year. Now they’re saying that maybe none of the tests this year will count. If testing has all of these unnecessary consequences, why are we using them?

What about opting out? Has that caught on at Northeast Middle School?

  • We’ve just started talking about it, in April of this year, so it’s a very new topic here.
  • Seven students, total, opted out at our school. A lot of students just don’t know anything besides tests, so opting out is a really new idea.
  • Some students think they have to do the test to get into high school or college. Students don’t have enough information.

Smart kids. Come to Northeast Middle School on May 20, and listen in as they burst the bubble (sheet, that is) around the promise of high stakes standardized testing. 

When: Wednesday, May 20, 7 p.m.

Where: Northeast Middle School Auditorium, 2955 Hayes Street NE, Minneapolis

Roosevelt Rising

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I’m in Chicago right now, for the 2nd annual Network for Public Education conference, but I left my heart in Minneapolis, at Roosevelt High School. 

RHS Kids 1
“I Am Roosevelt”: Shahmar Dennis, Lewis Martin, Saira Rivera, Maria Sanchez

Right now, students (estimated to be 175-200 of them) at Roosevelt are raising their voices and engaging in some good old-fashioned democracy in action, by walking out of school to protest what they say is a “lack of equity” in their school’s budget for next year. 

This is significant.

I interviewed many of the students and parents leading this protest last week, just before the April 14 Minneapolis school board meeting (where Roosevelt advocates were headed to voice their concerns), and one thing that stood out to me was pride.

Roosevelt students, parents, and staff care deeply about their school, and they’re ready to stand up and fight for it. Displaying RHS Walk out.jpeg

The budget details are gnarly, but the students, many staff members, and Roosevelt parents contend that their school has been given an inadequate budget, just as the school is on an upward swing. 

Note: MPS was contacted for their perspective on Roosevelt’s budget issues on Friday, April 17 but they have not yet responded with an official statement.

Here are the main issues, according to a press release and information provided by Roosevelt parent Jeanette Bower, who is a member of Roosevelt’s site council:

  • Without enough funds, Roosevelt will not be able to meet the needs of its DCD students (Developmental and Cognitive Delays) who need significant support. Right now, the program is understaffed, according to a Roosevelt teacher.
  • Staff positions have been cut, and the school may lose its librarian.
  • Roosevelt is short over $240,000 and won’t be able to adequately continue the Spanish Immersion program the district placed at the school in 2013.
  • Roosevelt switched from a 6 period day to a 7 period one a few years ago, in order to more fully implement their IB model. They did this without financial help from MPS. Now, MPS has made 7 period days mandatory for all MPS high schools, and has provided funds for this, but not to Roosevelt. (MPS Interim Superintendent Michael Goar called this an “error” at the April 14 board meeting, but I have not heard yet how–or if–this error has been corrected.)
  • Roosevelt is the only high school in Minneapolis without a theater program. (To be fair–well, actually, it’s not really fair–no high school in Minneapolis that I am aware of has a district-funded theater program. They might have a theater teacher, but that’s it. Everything else comes from parent/booster club support, partnerships, grants, or other outside sources, but Roosevelt does not have these, and some might say every kid should have access to a theater program–no matter what.)
  • The school wants to offer a well-rounded, viable program to its students, with adequate arts and world language classes (currently, the Roosevelt population is 80% students of color and 76% qualify for Free and Reduced Lunch).

This is what the Roosevelt community is saying about their budget. What the “facts” are may be up for debate, but what the students are feeling and saying about Roosevelt is what has really caught my ear. Displaying 20150424_142338.jpeg

Here are the voices of four students I interviewed on April 14, as they prepared to head to the school board meeting:

Lewis Martin, 9th grade

  • Roosevelt High School is seen as a ghetto school, but we’ve changed. We’ve changed internally, but the district hasn’t changed.
  • We’re losing our community liaisons, but that’s how we’ve changed the Roosevelt story. They would go out into the middle schools and talk about Roosevelt, so people would want to come here.
  • We headed to the school board so they can see we do have a voice, and we’re not afraid to speak up.

Shahmar Dennis, 12th grade, president of the Roosevelt student body

  • We’re a school on the rise, but we’re losing our theater program. We have no teacher, even though there will be a new auditorium at Roosevelt next year.
  • Our music program will suffer with these budget cuts. We can’t buy new instruments, even though we’ll have our biggest class ever next fall (100 new students are expected in Roosevelt’s 2015 freshman class).
  • Our students shouldn’t be punished for doing well.
  • We’ve only received vague explanations for our budget and why its low. We got the lowest bump of all Minneapolis high schools, at 3%. We want to know why.
  • I’m going to the University of Minnesota in the fall. I won’t be here next year, but I want to see Roosevelt growing, and doing well academically. I want to see it have a good theater program.

Maria Sanchez, 10th grade

  • I want the school board to realize Roosevelt isn’t ghetto.
  • Our percentage of graduates is increasing.
  • It’s a nice community here, vs. the stereotypes and preconceived ideas about our school. 
  • Roosevelt High School has a voice, and we’re not going to take whatever they (the district) say. 

Saira Rivera, 11th grade

  • This is important to me because my school is my life. This school is going to get me places.
  • It’s such a tight community here. High school has been the best for me, and we shouldn’t have to lose programs or have 45 students in a class. 

Roosevelt, rising, looks good–even all the way from a hotel room in Chicago.

From the media release for today’s walk out, provided by Jeanette Bower:

Students at Minneapolis Roosevelt High School have planned a peaceful walk-out of classes on Friday, April 24 at 2:10 p.m. to express frustrations over the Minneapolis Board of Education’s 2015-16 budget. In it, the school district allocated $11 million to Minneapolis high schools. At the high end, South High received 24 percent of the budget or $3 million and Roosevelt received the lowest at 3 percent or $324,136.

Displaying 20150424_141144.jpeg
Roosevelt, on the rise

School to Students: Shoot for the stars, but don’t expect to get there

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By Sarah Lahm

Testing, from the inside out: I recently sat down with five Minneapolis Southwest High School students to find out why they–along with over 500 of their classmates–had chosen to opt out of the annual, standardized MCA test. I assumed, like another Minneapolis education writer has, that these students were opting out only because their evaluation-fearing teachers told them to. What I found out instead, by actually talking to them, was much more interesting and much more uncomfortable. 

If I had to boil my conversation with these five students down to one sentence, it would be this: It’s not the MCAs, stupid; it’s everything else. 

Just Kids
Just kids

The students I spoke with–Makenna Kirkeby, and her friends James, Emma, Harrison, and Will–are all juniors at Southwest High School, which is consistently ranked, by the people who love to rank things, as a top performing high school. And they are all top performers, or striving to be. 

And that is the problem. They are not anxious about the MCA test; they don’t have time for it. If they miss class time to take a standardized test, then, they told me, they would have to somehow find time to make up the class work they had missed.

And they don’t have time–that much is clear. Here is a snapshot of my conversation with them, which took place on a weekend afternoon, as they sat around doing homework. My questions/prompts are in bold; their responses are the bullet points that follow:

Tell me about the MCA test. 

  • The MCA test is really a low priority at our school. It’s not hyped at all; there’s no test prep for it, not like there was in middle school. 
  • The tests we care about are the ACT and the SAT because that’s how we get in to college. The MCA test doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a graduation requirement, it’s not about getting in to college.
  • We don’t learn anything from the MCAs.
  • Honestly, a lot of students just click through it, to get it done. Some students have even had races to see who could finish the test first; I think the record is one minute and forty-five seconds.
  • Yeah, some students have used it as an excuse to get out of class, because it’s not a timed test, so they’ll just sit there in front of the screen, getting out of class.

Dumb question time: So, why are there so many kids opting out of the MCA test this year?

  • Because we found out we could from our teachers, and the school’s “test guy,” who comes around to round people up to take the test.
  • As soon as we found out, we were like, “Great. Where do we sign?” 
  • Also, we’re supposed to take the MCAs close to the end of the quarter, when we have finals. It’s like sliding another test in, right when things are really stressful in our classes. That’s why.

As we talked, one thing was very clear: the MCA test is the least of these students’ worries. They are the most tested generation ever, but that’s just the tip of the rigorous homework/grades/college prep iceberg that’s always straight ahead.

First, the students did not seem to know what the MCA test was supposed to be for. Funding? No one was sure. 

Testing industry to Congress: Do Not Disturb Us

Then, they started to talk about their lives and what it means to be a “good” student today:

  • Testing is stressful; they make it seem like it will determine your life.
  • Being a good test taker is emphasized.
  • 11th graders want good grades, and to know the content of what they’re studying.
  • Retaining knowledge is more important to us. Homework and tests are so much stress; we’d rather be sitting in class, learning.
  • Getting a good grade is so important. That’s what we are always told.

What is the purpose of all of this?

  • There is so much pressure to get in to college, and to think about how we will pay for it.
  • We have to be well-rounded, doing everything. We work, play sports, have to have the grades, and do community service.

What is the impact of this, on your lives?

  • It is difficult to stay healthy. Mental health issues are a really big problem.
  • Our families never see us. If our families are going out to dinner or doing something fun, it’s like, “Oh well, I can’t go.” There is always so much to do.
  • We have to choose between sleep and cramming in homework.
  • I have struggled with my mental health.
  • We go to school, then go to work, then have soccer, and get home at 10 p.m. Then,  we can either sleep or do homework. And getting behind is not really an option, because It takes a lot to make up work.
  • Skipping the MCA test is a matter of prioritizing; the test just doesn’t matter.

The MCAs don’t matter, because everything else matters so much in these students’ lives. They are taking tests all the time, and described often having to miss lunch to take a test or do homework. 

  • Lunch feels really short. We have maybe 30 minutes. If we leave to get food, we have to come right back.
  • We have a lot of projects booked at the same time, like a 7 page essay, a quiz, a biology lab, Spanish–all due at the same time. 
  • We are IB students, and we take AP classes.

These students sometimes get the message that being average or getting a C is okay, but they are not convinced:

  • Teachers have a different idea about grades than we do. They will say a C is average, but for a student, it’s deadly. A ‘C’ means we’re not going to college.
  • If we get a GPA below 2.0, we can’t play sports, and a lot of good colleges won’t take a 2.0 GPA student.
  • We are expected to have high grades, jobs, and fit in volunteer hours. A 4.0 GPA is what everyone is supposed to have.

And then there are the tests that really matter to these students, because they are truly high stakes. For example, the ACT:

  • Some of us take a Saturday morning ACT prep class, which is basically a class about how to cheat on tests like the ACT because we’re told how to do the test.
  • The ACT is not about life skills and has no value, but it’s high stakes.
  • If you don’t learn test-taking strategies, you won’t do well on the ACT.
  • But, the ACT doesn’t really determine how smart you are.
  • If you are not from a family with lots of resources, to help you prepare for the test, it’s almost unfair. People who have more money can pay for tutors.
  • Kids without resources don’t get the same chances. And not everyone can do well on a timed test like the ACT.

Therefore, in light of all of this, the MCA test–which, again, doesn’t determine if students will graduate or where they will go to college, seems redundant and ridiculous.

  • The MCA test is not even statistically correct, because so many students don’t take it seriously.
  • I don’t want to be compared to other kids.
  • It’s upsetting to have a number determine who you are.
  • The tests are not about being smarter or getting smarter.
  • There is so much pressure and competition at our school, and in general. 
  • One time, my stepsister (who goes to a different high school) and I were both up doing homework until 2 or 3. Then, I went to bed, but when I got up in the morning, she was still up, doing homework. She never went to bed.

The purpose of all of this seems lost on the students, who seem to feel as though they are on a roller coaster and cannot get off:

  • I know someone who has a 3.95 GPA at our school. I think she’s ranked 49th in our class.
  • At the end of the quarter, I’m so stressed and anxious. I just shut down.
  • I have mental breakdowns at least once a month.
  • My parents ask me, “Why are you so stressed out?” But then, I also have to keep up with my room and my laundry, and that makes me more upset and stressed out.
  • Yes, you just have to know your limits, and when to take a break. 

    Are we there yet?

The general feeling the students expressed is one of feeling unsupported by the adult culture they are dependent on, aside from their families, which they each seemed to feel close to:

  • We are stressed out, overwhelmed. If we miss school, the school is so strict about it. We have to have a doctor’s note, or we are told we’re truant. 
  • No one understands. People tell us to balance our lives better, but how?

Ironically, the MCA test seems like the one test they are allowed to make up. 

  • If we miss a Chemistry test or something, we can’t make it up. But if someone misses the MCA test, they will come looking for you, and say, “Come on, come take the test.” So, we can’t make up the things that really matter.

Wait. Aren’t the MCA tests supposed to tell everyone who the good or bad teachers are? Turns out the students have some pretty clear ideas on what they consider good teaching and learning:

  • There are some teachers who understand, but we have big classes, of 30 or 40 kids, and that’s hard for teachers. They don’t get to know us. All they know are our grades or test scores, or whether or not we turned in our homework.
  • We respect teachers when there is trust and communication, and when a class seems interactive. 
  • We like the teachers who remember what it was like to be in school. 
  • We like it when we’re more than a test score, and more than a list of things that need to get done.
  • Some teachers will notice what’s going on with students, and offer individual help. This is better than when teachers have black and white rules, or show favoritism.
  • Having enough resources, or relationships, is hard. Sometimes, we don’t have enough desks.
  • We have seven classes, all with homework piled on. A lot of students don’t know their learning styles; some don’t do well with lectures.

Somehow, despite the Testocracy’s best efforts, these students have learned to think critically about their lives and the world around them:

  • There is a clear boundary between the haves and have-nots, but opportunities should be there for everyone.
  • We know bright kids without high GPAs; a high GPA doesn’t exactly equal intelligence. But we are told a high GPA equals a good future.
  • High school is getting increasingly hard. More difficult. We get the message that we’re not going anywhere unless we have all A’s. 
  • We are told to shoot for the stars, but it feels like we shouldn’t expect to get there.
  • Life is a three-step thing: High school–College–Job.
  • College costs vast amounts of money, but we don’t have time to reflect on what we want to do with our lives.
  • But, I think about it a lot. And I think, we’re only 17.
  • We have good memories, too. We’ve grown up together. We’re lucky to have the opportunities we do have. Southwest is still a good school.
  • It’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t all work out.

Yet, it is clear these kids don’t feel free to be kids. They are guilt-ridden, because enough never seems like enough.

  • I feel guilty for having fun.
  • It’s always in the back of my head…what do I have to do?
  • When I’m out with friends, I think about all I should be doing.
  • School completely shapes your life. 100%. 
  • School seems pointless. Friendship, being a good person should be more important. I mean, in 20 years, will this stuff matter?

Sure, kids, complain away. But what do you really want, then?

  • Having a job and playing sports has taught me a lot of things, like life skills and people skills. I work with senior citizens, and I’ve learned how to talk with them. That’s really important, too.
  • I’ve learned more outside of school.
  • What about a class on how to do taxes or about what a mortgage is? I want to know how to pay my bills. 
  • I would like real-life scenarios in my classes, like how to do a job interview. Sometimes groups come in, after school, to talk about this stuff, but the students are so tired.

These students have gotten another message loud and clear: they are being sorted and ranked all the time.

  • We took the Explore and Plan tests (part of a three test package, along with the ACT). It was ok, but it doesn’t go into depth, and people always try to manipulate it. 
  • They always show us charts about which jobs make the most money. People tried to get those jobs, like “Business Analyst,” as their future career.
  • But, we can’t think of job possibilities. Being asked to be creative is a foreign concept. If someone’s interested in world history, it’s like, “What job goes with that?” 
  • We have been geared to not be creative. There is no room, no time, to explore what you’re interested in.
  • I have taken 3 years of hard IB classes, and just last week, I asked my teacher: What is IB? I don’t know. I’m just doing it because it looks good.
  • I feel like we’ve been conditioned to be like this. 
  • I’ve learned, “How can I bullshit my way through this?”

Finally, I asked if they ever studied things like how to get a handle on climate change. They said, bluntly, “We don’t have time to solve problems.”

The MCA test is really a blip of nothingness to these students, and being allowed to skip it, they said, felt like a little taste of freedom in an otherwise very controlled life.

Danger! More autonomy straight ahead

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Today I got a notice from Pinterest in my email. It’s tagline goes like this: “Boring living room? How to liven things up.” 

Immediately, it struck me as an apt parallel to the attempt to introduce “Community Partnership Schools” into the Minneapolis Public Schools. (I am imagining a behind-closed-doors PowerPoint pitch that went something like this: “Boring public school system? How to liven things up with autonomous schools!”)

The PR promise of the school district’s community partnership plans drips from the MPS website–“Community Partnership Schools are collaborative, innovative, site-based, educational models that meet the unique needs of their students, accelerate learning, and prepare them for college and careers”–but will it be able to deliver on this promise?

The concept for this new model of public school was cemented during 2014 negotiations between MPS and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. The idea was that school communities could choose to become “partnership” schools, and become more autonomous, in exchange for “greater accountability.” 

These schools are supposed to be designed with lots of community input (meaning actual parents, teachers, maybe even some students) and fresh ideas (just like the Pinterest email) for how a newly liberated, autonomous school will be able to quickly boost student achievement.

That mostly means test scores, in the parlance of MPS’ new strategic plan, Acceleration 2020 (buckle up, kids), which is calling for all schools–autonomous or not–to produce large gains in student test scores:

  • 5% annual increase in number of students meeting or exceeding state standards on standardized reading & math tests
  • 8% annual increase in the number of “low performers” who meet or exceed state standards in reading and math

So, the district sets the overall standardized test-based targets for each school (this may be the “bonded” part of autonomous schools that former Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson used to talk about), and the Community Partnership Schools get to…innovate on their way to achieving those goals, while other schools do not? I am not entirely clear on the promise and premise of this new way to jazz things up in MPS, or why a school would have to become “autonomous” just to do what it thinks is best for its students and staff.

How does one “unlock innovation”?

Also, MPS already has an “autonomous” school model in place, which the teachers’ union brought to the table, back in 2009-2010, after getting legislation passed allowing for “Site-Governed Schools.” The language surrounding the purpose of Site-Governed Schools is almost exactly the same as that being used now for Community Partnership Schools, and focuses on greater “flexibility” for these schools in several areas, such as how budgets are spent, what curriculum models are used, and who works at the schools. 

Since the Site-Governed Schools law went into effect more than five years ago, MPS has–or had, rather–just one such school: Pierre Bottineau French Academy (the school will no longer exist next year, as I understand it, and will instead be absorbed into Cityview Elementary School). The story of Pierre Bottineau, which started with the glow of community-led innovation, is a troubling one, and calls into question MPS’ ability to carry out such autonomous schools that have been “freed” from district-created shackles. (I did a whole series about Pierre Bottineau for the Twin Cities Daily Planet last year; the articles can be found here.)

MPS’ “Office of New Schools” was originally tasked with running the Site-Governed Schools and bringing greater autonomy, as well as market-driven choice and competition, into the district, under the guidance of the Center for Reinventing Public Education (MPS–like Memphis and New Orleans–is one of the Center for Reinventing Public Ed’s “portfolio“ districts).

In fact, the Office of New Schools was created within MPS when the last strategic plan–written by McKinsey and Company consultants back in 2007–promised to bring accelerated success and greater flexibility and freedom to the district. Since then, the Office of New Schools has had at least five directors–most of which have had a charter school background but little else in the way of public education experience. Today, it is being run by 2009 Rice University graduate Betsy Ohrn, who is a TFA alum and now serves on the board of directors at Venture Academy (a “blended learning” charter school in Minneapolis) with Jon Bacal, who was the first director of the Office of New Schools.

These days, the Office of New Schools has been tasked with implementing MPS” latest push to bring “innovation” into the district, as it has been overseeing the Community Partnership Schools application process. So far, the first round of contenders for this more autonomous (I must remember to get that word accurately defined) school model are:

  • Ramsey Middle School (which, by the school’s own admission, already enjoys a fair amount of autonomy)
  • Bancroft Elementary School (which would like to go further in its mission to become an IB school)
  • Folwell Arts Magnet (also would like to go further with its magnet school mission)
  • Nellie Stone Johnson Elementary School, which is currently a K-8 school in north Minneapolis, but will become a K-5 next year.

All four of these schools–should the Minneapolis school board allow them to become partnership schools at the board’s April 14 meeting–will also be expected to pilot MPS’ new, more autonomous and decentralized funding model, called “Student-Based Allocations.” (This topic requires its own separate blog post). Why should they have to become Community Partnership Schools and try out a new funding model at the same time? Good question.

Ironically, or perhaps, forebodingly, the Office of New Schools was rated MPS’ least effective department by district principals very recently. Just 22% of MPS principals–who are slated to become the “entrepreneurial” leaders of their schools, as the district tries to become more decentralized–identified the Office of New Schools as satisfactory; in contrast, the English Language Learner department was considered the most useful, according to 79% of principals.

If the Office of New Schools could not effectively manage the one site-governed, autonomous school it has authorized, and today’s principals do not consider it an effective department, how will it handle implementing the Community Partnership School model?

And how will any of this serve the district’s most vulnerable students and schools, who are perhaps in need of more support and less autonomy?

Could it be…?