Tag Archives: Nellie Stone Johnson

Top Down Change in Minneapolis, Part 2: When they look up, it will all be in place

Minneapolis’ Nellie Stone Johnson school, a high poverty K-8 site in north Minneapolis, was named after a pioneering African-American woman who had a “long and distinguished record of public service in support of the advancement of minority concerns.” Johnson was in fact a labor activist and the first “Black person elected to citywide office” in Minneapolis. 

But, will the school named after her survive a bout of “autonomy”?

On Tuesday, April 14, the Minneapolis school board will vote on whether or not to allow Nellie Stone Johnson (NSJ) school to become one of four “autonomous” district schools in the city. This is being pushed forward under the Community Partnership Schools (CPS)  concept, which the district and the Minneapolis teachers union agreed to embrace during 2014 contract negotiations. (The CPS model is intended to pair district schools with outside partners, as the schools are given more “freedom” in how they structure their days and hire staff members, etc.) 

In the fall of 2014, Nellie Stone Johnson school had a new principal and a mostly new staff, after a few years of leadership change and the loss of some experienced teachers. The school also had a new relationship with a nearby community organization called the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), which is run by Sondra Samuels, wife of current Minneapolis school board member Don Samuels. NAZ won a federal “Promise Neighborhood” grant in 2011, worth $28 million. (It is important to note that this five-year grant is set to expire in 2016, or before the three-year “trial” period would be up for NSJ’s experiment with autonomy, should it become a CPS site.)

All of this “newness” is making it harder to document the community’s involvement in the push to turn Nellie Stone Johnson into a “partnership” school, which would further connect it to its proposed partner, NAZ. If this goes through, NAZ’s “scholar coaches” would be placed in classrooms throughout the school, as support staff.

In fact, behind the scenes and under the cover of anonymity–which seems to be the only way to puncture the “Come on get happy!” promise of these partnership schools–employees with inside knowledge of Nellie Stone Johnson are speaking out and raising questions.

Yesterday, I published a post that included excerpts from a NSJ staff member, who has sent an emailed list of concerns to school board members. The email included this blunt statement:

“This movement was forced from the district down. From a Union meeting I attended at NSJ, it should have come from the community up. It did not.”

These assertions are backed up by recent conversations I have had with other people from the school, including another employee who isn’t satisfied with the plan to “autonomize” NSJ:

  • People at NSJ “don’t seem to understand the concept” of the Community Partnership School model
  • The presentation to families about converting to a CPS site was “not professional” or thorough, and included leading questions, such as: “Do you want your children to go to a better school?”
  • The budget for next year is uncertain for NSJ, as it will depend on how many students actually show up at the school (because of MPS’ requirement that all CPS sites also pilot a new “student-based” funding model).
  • “A lot of positions at the school have been cut,” and people were told it was due to seniority. But, this employee is suspicious of that because of the proposed partnership with NAZ and their “scholar coaches,” who will be paid half of what the district pays associate educators to work at the school. 
  • The whole NAZ connection is worrisome. The organization’s presence at Nellie Stone Johnson has been growing since last year, leading to the impression that the “whole partnership thing has been in the works for a while.” Still, this employee maintains, “Nobody can explain what NAZ’s role is in the building.”
  • Another concern: there is no engaged, informed parent body at Nellie Stone Johnson (the principal herself made this clear at a fall 2014 staff meeting, when she introduced the CPS model). “Parents don’t really know” what CPS is about. This employee’s fear? “When they look up, everything’s going to be in place, and they (parents) won’t have a say in it.”
  • Final question on this employee’s mind: “Is CPS a pretty package with an empty box inside?”

The tricky thing is, if NSJ becomes a partnership school, it won’t really have autonomy, as in, independence. Instead, it will be bound to the same accelerated, test-based “accountability” guidelines laid out by the district’s new strategic plan, Accelerate 2020. (I believe this is what former MPS Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson used to call “bonded autonomy.”)

Nagging questions: What happens if Nellie Stone Johnson becomes a Community Partnership School but can’t meet the “accelerated” pressure from MPS to boost student test scores? What are the consequences of “failing” at autonomy? 

Reflection time: Why might MPS be pursuing this? Is it because Minneapolis became a “portfolio district” back in 2010, under the guidance of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE)? The CRPE was started by Paul Hill, and is built around a market-based reform model of school choice (autonomous, independent schools as far as the eye can see).

Here is a video of Hill describing the portfolio district concept, in which he states, among other things, that “diversity is a problem that districts have to solve in new ways,” that the purpose of schools is to serve the economy, and that “collective bargaining agreements further constrain schools.” It also says that districts should be “seekers of the best schools for children, no matter who runs them” (This starts with “flexibility” in hiring practices, and requests for deviation from the union contract–kind of odd for a school named after a labor activist….)

Inline image 1This is the language of the market-based, privatization movement for public schools (privatization=independent, non-public entities managing public schools and public money). And this is the guiding light and structural framework for the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Community Partnership School model. 

Don’t believe me? Just watch.

(Side note: The union may have signed off on this for a variety of reasons, including a documented preference for alternative school models, such as the “Site-Governed Schools” concept it helped bring to MPS in 2009. To date, however, there has been only one site-governed school in Minneapolis, Pierre Bottineau French Immersion. This school will cease to operate as an independent school this fall, after just a few rocky years in existence.)

All That Glitters: Top Down Change in Minneapolis

Top down reform is all the rage in education these days, from Arne Duncan on down to individual districts, like Memphis (taken over by the state), Little Rock, AK (wrestling with an attempted takeover by the Walton family and their Wal-Mart money), and New Orleans (all charter schools, all the time). 

Panic button? Image from Alternet

And, it is set to sink in further, here in Minneapolis.

Under the guise of wanting to provide schools “more autonomy,” the Minneapolis Public Schools is set to roll out four “autonomous” Community Partnership Schools (CPS), including north Minneapolis’ Nellie Stone Johnson (NSJ) K-8 School. In this CPS model, traditional schools will become more “autonomous,” and partner with a community organization. In Nellie Stone Johnson’s case, the presumed partner is the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), which is run by school board member Don Samuels’ wife, Sondra (lingering question: will Don recuse himself from the school board’s vote regarding this intended partnership, from which his wife’s organization stands to gain?).

Autonomous schools–which promise greater freedom and independence to a school, in theory, in exchange for more “accountability”–do have an appealing, “rugged individualism” sound to them. Many schools, in Minneapolis and beyond, are of course being suffocated by too many mandates, while simultaneously being starved by too little funding (public funding for schools in MN has declined significantly, since 2000, when, surprise!, demands for greater accountability began ramping up).

And, I can imagine that many schools desperately want and need greater flexibility in how they run things, given the constantly shifting demographics and needs of today’s public school students, staff, and families.

Thus the PR appeal of Minneapolis’ intended shift to a decentralized school district, with the big dream of lots of empowered, individualized school sites throughout the city. The problem, however, is that in an era of school district CEOs and politician-friendly top down management schemes (and “what if we dismantled the Minneapolis Public Schools” queries), this proposed push towards “independence” may not be as liberating as it seems.

Case in point: Nellie Stone Johnson. This K-8 school, which serves a population of “high needs” kids, is slated for big changes next year: 

Nellie Stone Johnson demographic info from ProPublica
Nellie Stone Johnson demographic info, from ProPublica
  1. It is supposed to become a Community Partnership School (the school board will officially vote on this at an April 14 meeting; let’s hope we see democracy–and not rubber stamping–in action).
  2. It will become a K-5 school, and will therefore lose staff members and send older students to a different site. (This is it’s own form of upheaval, of course).
  3. It will also have to pilot a new, more “autonomous” funding model, called Student-Based Allocations (this has connections to an ALEC bill, where public school $$$ is supposed to “follow” a student–this is ALEC’s way to undercut funding for public education). 

All of these changes are to be made all at the same time, and a clear question that should be asked is, “Whose idea was all of this?” The Community Partnership Schools’ “MOA” (Memorandum of Agreement) between MPS and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers states that a key purpose of CPS sites will be:

Creating conditions where mutual respect is demonstrated by local decision making, effective collaboration, shared trust and meaningful relationships.

The MOA also states that any school wishing to become a CPS site must submit a detailed plan that documents the following:

Parent and community involvement in developing the plan; (ii) Staff involvement in developing the plan; (iii) Collaboration to establish buy-in and commitment to the model;

Recently, however, an email written by a Nellie Stone Johnson employee was sent my way, and it definitely raises serious concerns about whether or not Nellie Stone Johnson staff and community members were actually involved in the decision to become a Community Partnership School. (The email was also sent to school board members, I have been told.)

This could deal a serious blow to the claim that the Community Partnership Schools model is being designed from the ground up for all four of the schools slated to try this model on for size next year.

Here are some excerpts (tweaked by me, for clarity and privacy) from the email, which outlines concerns about the CPS model and how it landed at Nellie Stone Johnson school (NSJ):

  • This movement was forced from the district down. From a Union meeting I attended at NSJ, it should have come from the community up. It did not.
  • The principal sent in the letter of intent without direction from her staff. Less than thirty minutes after introducing it to the licensed staff, she told them she was going to send in the letter of intent. She asked for no discussion or feedback on this decision.
  • This CPS “opportunity” was announced at the very same time that the staff was told their school was going to go from a K-8 to a K-5. This information shocked staff, as they dealt with the blow that half the members would be gone at year’s end. (Several of those teachers were tenured teachers,  removing even more teachers of experience.)
  • The only people that the principal consulted with (on the CPS proposal) were licensed staff members.  Non-licensed staff members had little opportunity to discuss this plan or have a say in it.  
  • The CPS design team consisted of primarily new staff members, and some have questioned whether they were given all of the information to adequately understand the CPS model.
  • NSJ staff were told that the school was going to be a CPS no matter what and that questioning the plan would cause undue unrest amongst teachers.
  • At least two staff members were reprimanded for asking questions.
  • Most of the staff members can not adequately tell you what it means to be a CPS or autonomous school.
  • The principal told the staff just prior to the vote that if they voted No, she and the design team would revise the plan and hold another vote and another until they voted yes.
  • Many are worried about the quality of the Scholar coaches that NAZ will bring to the table. They are worried they are going to be in their way.  They will have to train the NAZ members. They worry about the school not having any say in who NAZ hires.
  • There was little to no parent involvement in the plan.  
  • No public/parent meeting was held that was specifically about CPS. A survey given to parents had questions that led to positive answers.
  • There is no parent/staff site council at NSJ. Community Partnership Schools are supposed to be parent and community focused and should have strong community support.  

I wonder if these concerns will be enough to stop the “autonomous” PR machine and compel the school board to pause and consider this: What will a Community Partnership School that has been designed without community input look like?

John Kline in the Minneapolis Public Schools: Strange bedfellows?

Worlds are colliding–or aligning–in the Minneapolis Public Schools right now, as Republican Minnesota Congressman John Kline, chairman of the federal government’s Education and the Workforce Committee, is set to visit Nellie Stone Johnson Community School in north Minneapolis today. 

John Kline, education guru

Why would Kline–a Republican who represents a suburban and rural swath of southeastern Minnesota–be coming to Nellie Stone Johnson elementary school, today? 

It is not entirely clear who invited Kline to Minneapolis, but it seems he is coming at the request of the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), an Obama administration “Promise Neighborhood in north Minneapolis. Promise Neighborhoods were launched in 2010, with funding provided by the federal government, to establish, among other things, “cradle-to-career solutions of both educational programs and family and community supports, with great schools at the center.”

NAZ became a Promise Neighborhood in late 2011, with a five-year, $28 million dollar federal grant. Sources say that, today, NAZ is running short on funds and in need of a reauthorization of their status as a Promise Neighborhood, in order to get more federal grant money. (The federal government, in turn, has been reluctant to assess whether or not Promise Neighborhoods are functioning effectively.)

Hence Kline’s visit.

An email exchange between Nellie Stone Johnson principal Amy Luehmann and NAZ employee Pa Thao shows Luehmann asking Thao for information about Kline and his visit. Thao works under NAZ Executive Director Sondra Samuels, who is married to newly elected Minneapolis school board member Don Samuels, and had this to say about Kline’s visit:

I can give you my understanding of the purpose for the visit: Rep. John Kline serves the Burnsville area and serves in the U.S. House of Representatives. He chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce so he is the biggest player in Education Policy on the national level. Rep. Kline is fiscally conservative and sees Promise Neighborhoods as too expensive. On top of that, Promise Neighborhoods is an Obama project. With partisan politics, even Republicans who do support the work that Promise Neighborhoods will not confirm that they do. Kline is one of our biggest opponents. We’ve heard from several groups and partner orgs that they have been trying for a while to get him to visit their sites. So, we are very fortunate that he has agreed to visit us as we are outside of his district. This visit is hugely important. It could have potential to lead to additional federal funding. 

Emphasis added.

What is also “hugely important” here is that NAZ is hoping to become Nellie Stone Johnson’s “partner,” under the Minneapolis Public Schools’ new “Community Partnership Schools” plan.

Becoming Nellie Stone Johnson’s partner would clearly provide NAZ with a reason to exist, and a justification for receiving more federal funding. This could be good for NAZ, but will it also be good for the students and staff at Nellie Stone Johnson?

Let’s consider some aspects of the proposed NAZ/Nellie Stone Johnson partnership that should raise questions–especially for the Minneapolis school board members who will decide at their April 14 meeting whether or not to allow the partnership to go forward. 

To ponder:

  • First, consider this: Nellie Stone Johnson was a pioneering African American labor organizer in the early to mid 20th century in Minneapolis. She was also the first black person elected to office in Minneapolis. She was so distinguished that she has a school named after her. 

    Labor activist Nellie Stone Johnson
  • But, by agreeing to “partner” with NAZ, Nellie Stone Johnson school will be agreeing to replace (I hear pink slips have already been sent) many of its current unionized, support staff employees with NAZ’s own “scholar coaches.” Privatization alert: NAZ will be providing these “coaches” to Nellie Stone Johnson at no cost to the district. The NAZ coaches will also not be unionized employees. (Support staff employees in MPS are often the district’s greatest source of staff-level diversity). 
  • Serve Minnesota, which utilizes temporary AmeriCorps reading and math tutors, will also provide staff to Nellie Stone Johnson, in place of unionized, more permanent support staff members (AmeriCorps volunteers usually serve for one or two years). It is also not clear what expertise or background in child development and education that either Serve Minnesota or NAZ would bring to Nellie Stone Johnson students and staff members.
  • NAZ also has become the training ground for the TFA corps members who are part of the University of Minnesota’s new partnership with TFA. Will TFA recruits then be placed in Nellie Stone Johnson? This seems possible, as both Samuels and her husband, Don, have been vocal advocates for TFA in the past.
  • If NAZ does get more funding and is allowed to become Nellie Stone Johnson’s partner, why would they not use some of their funds to support MPS getting more licensed, permanent teachers of color–perhaps from the ranks of the support staff who are slated to lose their jobs should this partnership go through? Getting a teaching license can be prohibitively expensive in Minnesota.
  • Will Don Samuels recuse himself from the vote for this partnership, from which his wife and her organization stand to profit?

There is much more to the proposed Nellie Stone Johnson/NAZ partnership that should be fully considered–such as the plan’s reliance and insistence on more “data days” for staff members (versus access to excellent, developmentally appropriate resources for the school’s students and staff). Hopefully, school board members are putting serious thought into this and will not simply rubber stamp the “partnership” between NAZ and Nellie Stone Johnson. Anything less would be a serious dishonor to the legacy of the woman for whom the school is named.

And, hopefully, John Kline’s ideas for what constitutes a great school system are not the only thing that will matter.