Tag Archives: Multilingual Department

Minneapolis Administrator Forced Out For…Being Successful?

November 8, 2015

Irony can be cruel.

This weekend, in a Bloomington, MN hotel, the state conference for English as a Second Language teachers was held. At the conference, I am told, several of the breakout sessions highlighted the work of Jana Hilleren.Jana Hilleren

Ouch.

Hilleren, until very recently, was the director of the Minneapolis Public Schools Multilingual Department. She became head of the department five years ago, and was tasked with managing both the World Languages division, for foreign language teachers, and the ELL side, which provides English language programming to district students.

Those familiar with Hilleren’s work say it has brought about measurable, worthwhile structure and progress to MPS’s once floundering ELL department.

But just two weeks ago, Minneapolis’ Interim Superintendent, Michael Goar, announced to Davis Center staff that Hilleren was being removed from her position. Sources say she has also been pushed out of the district altogether Why? To make room for a new “Global Education” department, and a new boss: Elia Bruggeman.

After almost two weeks, a message about this was finally sent to staff, on behalf of Bruggeman:

To staff:

In order to gain efficiency and better align programs for students, Interim Superintendent Michael Goar is moving the Multilingual Department of Minneapolis Public Schools under the Office of the Deputy Education Officer. This move includes the elimination of the position of Multilingual Department executive director.

The email goes on to list “some exciting initiatives and events,” and states that the “mission of the Multilingual Department is to empower educators and leaders to develop language-rich learning environments that raise the achievement of English Learners, making it a natural fit for the Office of the Deputy Education Officer.” That would be Bruggeman, of course.

But frustration on the ground is boiling over, with district EL staff expressing dismay and anger over Hilleren’s ouster. Why? Because they say that Hilleren is the one who should be credited for turning the Multilingual Department from chaos to the “language-rich learning environment” it is becoming.

To avoid participating in unnecessary hagiography, I have asked for specifics regarding Hilleren’s work. In response, I received a deluge of detailed answers. Here, an experienced MPS teacher, who asked not to be named, expounds on Hilleren’s legacy:

Before Jana became director, ELs were nearly invisible to district leadership (and most administrators). Jana came into the district to respond to an Office of Civil Rights complaint. We weren’t exiting students who were ready to be exited. We weren’t providing service to dual eligible (special ed students are also ELs) students). There were other compliance issues as well. Jana developed systems to bring us into compliance.

Student placement for ELs still isn’t perfect, but in recent years, many of the issues have been ironed out, such as assessing students so the school knows what type of service they need. There are now around 215 ESL teachers in MPS. Over half were hired in the past 5 years since Jana took leadership. She’s made a huge investment to ensure there is programming at nearly every school and much more adequate staffing to ensure all ELs are getting service.

In the area of EL service, under Jana’s leadership the district developed a program framework, defining what service students at each grade level, at each level of proficiency, receives. She worked with HR to ensure that each school was adequately staffed to provide service to each and every EL.Many schools such as Green Central have seen steady gains in test scores due to investment in the co-teaching model, which benefits all students. And, the co-teaching model has been implemented as a way to develop academic language for students who aren’t new-to country but still have gaps. 

With the EL staff often doubling at most schools in recent years, a Lead Teacher structure has also been established, so there can be a point person at each site to handle the Title III compliance, and to ensure that all ELs are getting the proper level of service. The Lead Teachers also sit on the Instructional Leadership Team at their school, and keep their principal up to speed about EL issues.

Jana worked with the communications department to get Language Line into the district. Now any staff at any school can communicate with parents in any language (no need for an interpreter).

There has been a lot of work of the past 5 years,and it’s been exciting to be part of the change and implementation. Meaningful change does not happen overnight. We still have a long way to go. ELs are still invisible at most of the high schools. Goar thinks it is politically prudent to act with impatience over MCA scores being lower for ELs….but people don’t get that if they were proficient on the MCA, they would not be ELs!

Take a look at the district Multilingual website. None of this was in place before Jana took over. http://multilingual.mpls.k12.mn.us/.

…Speaking of outcomes, our English learners exceed the state target for progress in academic language and proficiency rates each and every year the ACCESS results come out. 

Another point this teacher wanted to make: EL graduation rates were up 8% last year.

Perhaps these are the points of success and progress that were discussed at this weekend’s state ESL conference. How long will it be until another district snaps Hilleren up?

Ongoing end note: With reader input, here is a list of MPS departments that have been shut down, reformed, or destroyed–depending upon one’s point of view–in recent memory:

  • Student Support Services
  • Special Education
  • Office of Equity and Diversity
  • IT
  • Human Resources
  • Communications
  • Curriculum and Instruction

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The Road to Rigor for Minneapolis’ Multilingual Department

November 5, 2015

Background: The Minneapolis Public Schools’ Multilingual Department is unraveling and becoming part of a new Global Education Department. On Monday, November 2, I wrote a blog post exploring this unfolding situation. I will get to what some MPS teachers are saying about now-departed Multilingual Department director, Jana Hilleren. But before I do, a little more context….

This much we know for sure: Jana Hilleren is gone, and so is the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Multilingual Department.

Starting in 2010, and ending very recently, Hilleren was the Executive Director of MPS’s Multilingual Department, which housed both a World Languages division for foreign language programming, and the district’s ELL staff and services.

Multilingual is now the Global Education Department, and all staff will now be answering to Elia Bruggeman, a former rural school principal and state education official. Bruggeman was hired by MPS in 2014 to manage a sudden budgetary allocation of $5 million that was destined for MPS’s EL programming, but not for the EL staff.

Instead, Bruggeman was charged with spending the one-time $5 million windfall. The money arose after a strongly worded letter was sent to then-MPS Superintendent, Bernadeia Johnson, in late May, 2014. The letter was signed by a group of Latino political and civic leaders, including legislators Patricia Torres Ray, Carlos Mariani, and Melisa Franzen, and outlined a list of new and longstanding concerns regarding how MPS allocates its state ELL dollars, and how it treats ELL students, staff, and families.

The letter cites “consistently poor test results and low graduation rates” for MPS’s ELL students, and questions where the money these students generate–from the state’s education budget–goes. It states that MPS allocates $2, 000, 000 to the Multilingual Department, to be spent on ELL programming, and calls this amount “grossly inadequate.” 

The letter pushes for an “urgent meeting”–before the 2014-2015 budget was to be finalized–with Johnson, then-CEO Michael Goar, and Chief Academic Officer Suzanne Griffin-Ziebart.

Enter the $5 million budget drop, and Elia Bruggeman, who is said to be an associate of Torres Ray.

Bruggeman became a “Deputy Education Officer” within MPS, and was given a six figure salary, along with seemingly sole authority over the new EL funds. In fact, sources within MPS say that Hilleren and the rest of the EL staff were shut out of any discussions for how the money should be spent. 

Instead, a separate EL Task Force was set up beside the Multilingual department, and a narrative of crisis, failure, and the need for drastic change seems to have taken root.

By the summer of 2015, Bruggeman and Torres Ray were off on a $25, 000 MPS-funded (except for Torres Ray, whose trip was paid for by AchieveMPLS) trip to Boston, along with Goar, MPS administrator Steve Flisk, and a handful of Multilingual staffers, including Hilleren.

Their destination was the Public Education Leadership Program, or PELP–put on every summer through Harvard. The MPS contingent was there to get schooled in business-like strategies for the district’s ELL department, per PELP’s “business-driven” model of school reform.

Pause: PELP is co-chaired by John J-H Kim. Kim is also CEO of Boston-based District Management Council (DMC), a for-profit education reform consultants group that has its hands in MPS’s cookie jar, in the form of special ed and budget department audits.

Kim is, or was, also part of a group calling itself “Leaders for Education,” which promoted the usual grab bag of top down, market-based reforms, including: more “rigor,” more charter schools, more use of standardized test scores, targets, timetables, metrics, “differentiated compensation” for teachers, etc.

While at the PELP summer excursion, a framework for Minneapolis’ ELL department was crafted:

Problem of Practice. The EL Blueprint addresses a significant MPS “problem of practice.” The problem is summarized in the English Learner Blueprint as follows:

Minneapolis is increasingly rich with diverse students, however:

  1. EL students feel invisible, with few exceptions
  2. EL students’ language and cultural experiences are not viewed and developed as assets, with few exceptions
  3. EL students are not being challenged and engaged with high expectations, again with few exceptions.

At the PELP Summer Institute, a six-prong plan was developed to address the problem and to work towards a system in which English Learners are recognized and see themselves as powerful contributors to the MPS learning environment who bring powerful cognitive and cultural assets to the educational environment.

Six Strategies of the EL Blueprint

1.        Human Capital

2.       Improve Customer Service

3.       Develop Tomorrow’s Global Leaders

 

4.      Mind Shift to a Growth Mindset

5.       Flip the Script to an Assets-Based Narrative

6.      Rigor & Relevance

This plan was referenced at a contentious September 25, 2015 meeting of Bruggeman’s EL Advisory Task Force. The meeting was convened so that task force members–including Torres Ray–could hear an update from Bruggeman regarding how the $5 million was being spent.

Bruggeman began the meeting on a hopeful note, outlining an upcoming trip to Harvard and Boston for some MPS ELL students that she was co-hosting with Project Success, a Minneapolis non-profit focused on helping students get to college.

But very quickly, Torres Ray expressed frustration with the meeting, and instead insisted on hearing an update on the academic progress of MPS’ ELL students.

Bruggeman could not give her one, and she eventually had to admit that she had not asked Hilleren to prepare one. 

Hilleren was not at the meeting, and could not be reached for input. Bruggeman instead sent a staffer to go look for Goar, who eventually made an appearance at the meeting, looking equal parts exasperated and resigned.

This is where, it seems, Hilleren’s fate was sealed.

As Goar defended MPS and recalled his own beginning as an ELL student, Torres Ray and others continued to express frustration with the outcomes and progress of MPS’s ELL department. At one point, Torres Ray made the following demand:

We want to know who is in charge and what is going to happen when those individuals that are in charge of increasing academic outcomes for…children don’t do it.

On October 7, Torres Ray sent a follow up email to Goar.  Members of the EL Task Force and the Minneapolis school board were copied on the message, which continues to seek clarification on where the Multilingual Department is headed:

Dear Superintendent Goar,

Thank you again for your time during the ELL Taskforce meeting last Friday. I wanted to follow up on the possibility for a meeting to review the outcomes for ELL students that go beyond the 5 million plan. This is an important conversation that we need to have in order to discuss the future of the Multilingual Department and most importantly the future of our ELL Children. Please let us know when you would like to meet so that we can prepare the community and submit questions prior to the meeting.

Thank you in advance and I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

Patricia

Senator Patricia Torres Ray

State & Local Government Committee

Capitol Building

A few weeks later, on October 26, it was announced to Multilingual Department staff that Hilleren was gone, to be replaced by Bruggeman.

Stay tuned: Testimony from teachers and others familiar with how the EL Department has operated under Hilleren

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