Think the Reading Horizons “issue” is over for the Minneapolis Public Schools?
The protest shut down the Minneapolis school board meeting
Not quite.
A loosely knit group of around 25 protesters–armed with a game show script, homemade signs, and a band of colorful ribbons gathered byMillion Artist Movementreps–brought down the September 29 Minneapolis school board meeting.
On a sheet plastered with images from the “Little Books” Reading Horizons initially sold to the Minneapolis Public Schools, the protesters called for “Change Now!” and demanded the district end its relationship with Reading Horizons. The sheet also called for interim superintendent Michael Goar to publicly apologize, and stated that Goar–or someone–should be fired over the district’s business deal with Utah-based Reading Horizons.
After first gathering in the light filled space outside the Davis Center board room, the group trooped into the official meeting room, chanting, “Whose tax dollars? Our tax dollars!” and “Whose children? Our children!”
Getting ready to march in
The protesters then took over the board meeting (which was a business meeting where a key levy vote had to be made) and began rattling off questions in mock game show format.
First up was this: What is the gender and race of all members of the Reading Horizons board?
The answer? All white males.
Another question: Is there any independent research that shows that Reading Horizons is a successful program?
Answer: No! The research that proves Reading Horizons works was made by…Reading Horizons!
The board quickly voted to adjourn the meeting and retreat, with District 6 representative Tracine Asberry choosing to remain seated. Board members Rebecca Gagnon and Nelson Inz filtered in and out of the board room as well, with Inz eventually sitting down with the protesters to listen to their demands and concerns. (Goar also returned to sit on the edge of the protesters for a few moments, but made no public comment.)
A reference to a letter sent by protesters Shana Dickson, David Boehnke, and Chaun Webster. Click to access it.
As the board members shuffled out of the room, a stunned hush fell over the meeting room, with Minneapolis Public Schools staff members–some of them clearly outraged, and some of them intrigued–lingering on the fringes of the protest circle.
What happened next probably won’t make it to the evening news, but it should: the protesters sat together, introduced themselves, and explained why they were there.
One woman said her white children, who attend school in Minneapolis, have had “every privilege box checked” so far. They need anti-racist classroom books and curriculum as much as anyone else, she stated.
A current Minneapolis teacher was also there, and said she had just come from a Reading Horizons training session, where K-2 teachers were being shown how to use the company’s phonics curriculum. The teacher said she was not impressed with the training, and described another problem: some teachers at the training had to be called back to their classrooms, as MPS lacks enough subs to cover so many teacher absences at once.
Here is a snapshot of what the protesters were discussing (Including arts educator Barbara Cox’s input);
Further video from the disrupted board meeting shows why the Reading Horizons story has not just blown away with the reassurance that the offending books have been removed (and the accompanying consolation that no children were exposed to them):
The evening ended with board members pushing through their required levy vote, amid a screeching sound system and the further shouts of protesters:
The protesters dissipated long after the board members did, with promises to return for the next regularly scheduled board meeting on October 13.
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Reading Horizons redux: What’s happening now with the Minneapolis Public Schools’ controversial dealings with Utah-based Reading Horizons? Read on. If you would like to start at the beginning of this story, here is a link to the first blog post I wrote about it:Phonics or indoctrination? Minneapolis teacher training takes a step backwards
Shaun Walsh was the first person to speak out at the September 8 Minneapolis school board meeting. Walsh used her three minutes of public comment time–which the district does not record–to assail the Minneapolis Public Schools’ problematic $1.2 million deal with the Reading Horizons company.
Now, Reading Horizons would like to meet with her, to clear the air.
At the board meeting, which Reading Horizons officials apparently wanted to attend, until Minneapolis interim superintendent Michael Goar’s office told them not to, the school board votedto sternly chastise Reading Horizons, but also to continue working with the company (perhaps because the district will lose the $1.2 million it has already spent on this).
That night, the degree of forgiveness some board members and district officials were willing to grant Reading Horizons led one parent in attendance to ask–in frustration–whether Reading Horizons was being treated like a person and not a for-profit company. Also, board member Tracine Asberry wondered aloud why the same level of forgiveness and consideration was not being shown to district staff and families who were upset over the Reading Horizons deal.
The forgiveness has continued since then, with Minneapolis officials busily trying to arrange meetings with disgruntled community members, on Reading Horizons’ behalf.
Here is the email Walsh received from school board administrator Jesse Winkler, on September 17:
Dear Community Member,
Reading Horizons has requested to speak individually with community members who spoke at our last Board of Education Meeting. They would like to offer you the opportunity to hear directly from someone on the Reading Horizons team. Please let us know by 5:00 p.m. Monday, September 21st if you would like us to share your contact information with a member of the Reading Horizons team.
Interim superintendent Michael Goar; photo from StarTribune
Walsh responded to district officials and board members on September 18, letting them know that a meeting with a Reading Horizons team member is not what she is looking for. Here is her email, which I have edited for length:
Jesse, Superintendent Goar, and members of the Board,
While I appreciate that Reading Horizons has made a commitment to improving their curriculum, my central issue is not with Reading Horizons and I have no interest in taking time from my family or my job to meet with them.
…my issue is not with Reading Horizons – my issue is with Minneapolis Public Schools and the Board. Not only did MPS invest 1.2 million dollars without adequately vetting the material or company, but MPS spent tax payer dollars without a contract to protect those dollars. MPS administration are the ones who did not stop or interrupt a training when offensive things were being implied about MPS students. MPS administration did not disrupt when the books were initially passed out. The Superintendent’s initial response was the books are only a small part of the whole. A significant number of Board members expressed that either this was the right company to keep working with or that now MPS is in a position to help heal this company and improve resources for other districts. MPS administration sent the email to teachers informing them that you will be moving forward with Reading Horizons. And now, MPS is using more resources to have various staff meet with Reading Horizons.
…My issue is with MPS because you are ignoring community members, a portion of your board, your student representative to the Board, and I believe your own ethical compass….
As I said in my comment at the Board meeting–I am asking you to walk away from this contract. Not doing so is clearly telling the community that you will give our money to a company that produces racist materials. Now, you are wasting even more of our money by spending staff hours working with this company to improve their work. Like only having a purchase agreement, this is horrible business practice, they owe us money and should be paying us to consult with them.
I would like to close my long-winded email with two main points:
1) You put a student representative on the Board for a reason. You should be listening to him.
2) You should not be contacting us on behalf of Reading Horizons. You have missed the message. You should be contacting us because you, MPS, wants to meet with concerned citizens/educators/business owners/parents who are taking their time and energy and would like to help you do better. Please review the letter written by Shana Dickson, Chaun Webster, and David Boehnke and signed by many, many community members for the full message.
Shaun Walsh
Noah Branch; photo from Kare 11
Parent, community member, youth worker
In her email, Walsh sings the praises of student board representative Noah Branch, who clearly asks why the district would even consider keeping Reading Horizons around. A video of the September 8 board meeting can be found here.
A further, lingering issue here is that there is no publicly available copy of a current organizational chart for the Minneapolis Public Schools. For months, a noticeon the district’s website has said the org chart is “currently being revised.” The problem? Who is responsible for what in the district? Who initially pushed the Reading Horizons contract through?
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Background: If you are new to the Reading Horizons/Minneapolis Public Schools debacle, or would like a review, please start with my first post on this topic,Phonics or indoctrination?
In the wake of the September 8 Minneapolis school board meeting, a Salt Lake City newspaper has picked upthe Reading Horizons story, bringing new heat–and new information–to this explosive topic.
During the school board meeting, board members grappled with whether or not to cut ties with Reading Horizons, now or in the near future, and risk losing the $1.2 million dollars already sent to the company. At the board meeting, interim superintendent Michael Goar admitted this contract with the Utah-based provider of reading curriculum and software had been “rushed”, and referred to it as “not a standard contract.”
Goar partially blamed the situation on staffing “shifts,” or the layoffs that have been a key tenet of his leadership thus far. He also said that some of the people responsible for bringing on Reading Horizons no longer work for MPS, meaning there are few who can further explain this decision.
Reading Horizons statement; click for a better view
The Reading Horizons contract (you can find it here), unfortunately, appears to be nothing more than a purchase agreement, with no protections built in for the Minneapolis Public Schools, should the goods and services they purchased be deemed–as they have been by many–unworthy of district use.
In the middle of the board’s September 8 discussion, Reading Horizons suddenly issued a carefully worded, lawsuit-proof statement to the board, in which they take “full responsibility for our role in the issue.” Which issue? Whose issue? This is never made clear.
Instead, the statement says Reading Horizons only recently became aware of the “issue,” and since then has been working “around the clock” to rectify the unnamed problem, which centers around the “Little Books” they provide to school districts.
But the Salt Lake Tribune article makes it clear that Reading Horizons believes the “problem” resides with MPS, and not with their products. Reporter Rachel Piper got the low-down by interviewing Reading Horizons employee, Laura Axtell:
Reading Horizons’ implementation coordinator Laura Axtell said the focus on these titles — there are 54 in the “Little Books” series — ignores the context of how they’re intended to be used. “Lazy Lucy,” for example, takes place in the safari unit, she said.
“But if people perceive that they’re culturally insensitive, then they’re a distraction to reading success.”
Axtell said the company, based in North Salt Lake, has been working with the district “around the clock” to make things right in Minneapolis and everywhere the books are being used.
Though “Lazy Lucy” never made it into Minneapolis classrooms, the series has been available for three or four years, Axtell said. She said she couldn’t say whether the books are used in any Utah schools.
Here are two important takeaways from this article:
Reading Horizons prioritizes decoding words–or learning how the English language works–above what the language is saying. This is the “value neutral” stance that some within MPS have also adopted as they express support for sticking with Reading Horizons. (To which school board member Tracine Asberry declared at the September 8 board meeting: “Children decode pictures, too.”)
The “Little Books” series were not specifically created for MPS, as some within the district have said. Instead, they have been in use–and, presumably, available for review by any district employee–for years now.
Then there is the matter of how to “fix” this situation, and who should be paying for the fix. In the article, Axtell has this to say:
“The thing that has become very apparent is that we need diversity,” Axtell added. Although the Little Books look like storybooks, she said, they were produced by a small team with a specific technical focus: making sure each word could be “decoded” for pronunciation and comprehension with the tools taught in the wider lesson.
More people will be reviewing material going forward, she said, both inside the company and outside it, including teachers and parents.
“Our goal is to affirm cultural competency and equity,” Axtell said.
So, it seems the Minneapolis Public Schools chose to give a significant contract to a company that is lacking in diversity.
And now, the district is, essentially, paying Reading Horizons to learn how to be more “culturally competent.”
Chaun Webster and his wife, Verna Wong in a City Pages photo
At the board meeting, the 45 minute public comment period–which MPS has not videotaped since 2010–was partially shut down by board chair Jenny Arneson, who became flustered when northside resident and public personality Al Flowers insisted on being allowed to address the board. (Flowers challenged MPS’s apparent policy of requiring people to sign up to speak ahead of time, online. On Tuesday, Minneapolis resident Shaun Walsh spoke out strongly against Reading Horizons; then, a string of three MPS reading specialists addressed the board in favor of Reading Horizons’ phonics curriculum.)
Arneson’s actions prompted Minneapolis parent and business owner Chaun Webster–who has been vocal about his opposition to Reading Horizons–to stand up and chastise the board, saying, “I did not come here, as a parent, to have you all walk out on me.”
The meeting resumed and lasted 5 more hours, finally ending at 11 p.m. It was not until the very end that the public could, again, weigh in on the Reading Horizons deal. By then, only a handful of MPS employees and a smattering of citizens were left in the board room.
Overall, the mood was that of frustration and exhaustion. Board members Don Samuels and Josh Reimnitz seemed most in favor of sticking by Reading Horizons and giving them a chance to mend their ways. Samuels said MPS has an opportunity to “create transformation around educational materials,” by requiring Reading Horizons to “change all the old white guys” on their board, among other things.
Reimnitz praised Reading Horizons for “removing offensive content” from their materials, saying he would be open to working with them again because they have a “great curriculum” and seem willing to change.
Board members Siad Ali, Rebecca Gagnon, Kim Ellison, and Nelson Inz seemed far less supportive of Reading Horizons, with Tracine Asberry most explicitly decrying not only the company’s performance, but also MPS’s decision to partner with them in the first place. Student board member Noah Branch also spoke out against Reading Horizons, saying he found it “breathtaking that we are not cutting the contract right away.”
Tracine Asberry
Asberry counteracted the positive reviews MPS employees, such as Amy Jones, director of elementary education, and some board members were giving to Reading Horizons, saying the literacy needs of MPS students are now being used as an excuse to keep doing business with the company.
“There is no silver bullet,” Asberry reminded the board. We are being told, she said, that “Reading Horizons will, all of a sudden, help our kids with literacy.” But, she emphasized, “I believe kids can learn to read and decode, and have a sense of their beauty.”
At last, Chaun Webster got the chance to address the board, expressing disgust and dismay with MPS and their treatment of those who are unwilling to overlook Reading Horizons’ deficits.
“We are not going away,” he told the board and interim superintendent Goar. “Our kids and students are still impacted by this.”
Piper’s Salt Lake Tribunearticle includes a full reprint of a September 9 resolution regarding Reading Horizons, which she attributes to the Minneapolis Public Schools. I can’t find this document on the district’s website, however, so I am not certain that it is a finalized statement. However, it appears that MPS is calling on Reading Horizons to “apologize” at the next school board meeting.
MPS also wants some money back, which may be tough to procure, given the non-standard purchase agreement/contract the district signed, as well as the fact that these Reading Horizons products have apparently been available and in use for years, implying that a diligent employee or two could have viewed the materials before signing on the dotted line.
Board member Carla Bates even wondered aloud whether or not MPS had been the victim of a bait and switch move by Reading Horizons, as teachers and MPS administrators are saying that no one saw the offending Little Books until after the contract was signed.
Perhaps no one will ever know exactly how MPS agreed to part with such a large sum of a money, in exchange for a phonics curriculum and a public relations disaster.
As for Reading Horizons, this whole episode, or “issue,” has prompted at least one immediate change for them: their website no longer prominently displays “Faith” as the company’s number one “Core Value.”
A screenshot taken on September 9, 2015 provides a pre-edited look at the page:
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Dickson teaches first grade at north Minneapolis’s Elizabeth Hall Elementary School.
Sarah Lahm
August 31, 2015
Minneapolis teacher Shana Dickson is “Roxanne Berger.”
Last week, I wrote a series of blog posts chronicling Dickson’s reaction to an early literacy training session, provided by the Minneapolis Public Schools, and hosted by the district’s new phonics curriculum provider, Reading Horizons.
The training had a profound and upsetting impact on her, but Dickson was afraid to go public with her experience. Yes, the training was off-putting and offensive, to Dickson and others who were there with her, and the “little” accessory books handed out by Reading Horizons, intended for classroom use by the district’s K-2 students, were filled with shockingly dated, racist, sexist, and oppressive images and stories.
An attempt at diversity
Still, Dickson was worried that revealing her name would jeopardize her job, and her relationship with some of her fellow teachers. And so I shared her story, and identified her as “Roxanne Berger.”
But the blog posts took off, forcing the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) to respond to questions and anger from the public. At first, it seems MPS tried a “shoot the messenger” approach, by claiming that my original blog post, “Phonics or indoctrination? Minneapolis teacher training takes a step backwards,” contained “inaccurate and misleading information.”
Original MPS response, posted on Facebook by Brian Hayden
Very quickly, MPS backtracked and removed the part where they imply my blog posts are false. Here is the beginning of MPS’s revised statement, which is attributed to interim Superintendent Michael Goar:
A lot of questions have been raised about parts of Minneapolis Public Schools’ early literacy program. Interim Superintendent Michael Goar helps answer those questions:
I have become aware that there is great concern among some parents and other stakeholders in the Minneapolis Public School district about an early childhood literacy curriculum MPS is launching this school year. I’d like to take this opportunity to address these concerns and share in the outrage of our diverse communities.
The whole statement, along with parent, staff, and community comments (including some who support Reading Horizons), can be found on the Minneapolis Public Schools’s Facebook page. Basically, the district is insisting that Reading Horizons be allowed to redo the accompanying “Little Books,” because their approach to phonics is so powerful:
Here is an important consideration. Reading Horizons works. Research shows this program has been successful in improving student outcomes across the country, including outcomes in diverse districts like ours.
But we are as concerned about the culturally inappropriate material as everyone else and we quickly addressed and removed the materials, as we should have. We will continue to explore options regarding this issue.
Let me say again, kids who read grow up to succeed, and early literacy is key to the future of our kids. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have further questions or concerns.
If anyone out there can find research about Reading Horizons’ curriculum that has not been produced by Reading Horizons itself, please send it to me. So far, all I can find to support the claim that “Research shows this program has been successful in improving student outcomes…” is research done by Reading Horizons, which might just have a stake in this whole thing (see thispost about the $1.2 million contract they secured with MPS).
In the wake of Goar’s statement, more media coverage followed:
First, MPR reporter Bob Collins picked it up for his “Newscut”blog.
Then, StarTribune education reporter Alejandra Matoswrote about it.
According to Dickson, this groundswell of coverage and support helped her decide to publicly identify herself:
“…because I feel like enough people are in support of the cause, I have noticed so many people passing along your blog and I felt like even if there are those who disagree with me, there will also be many who stand with me. “
Up next: Minneapolis teachers, parents, and community members demand that MPS cancel the Reading Horizons contract
Start with Part One of this series: Phonics or indoctrination?
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So, a group of Minneapolis Public Schools’ administrators, along with a school board member and a state senator, take a $25,000 trip to Boston for a PELP fest. (PELP=A Harvard sponsored Public Education Leadership Program, sort of a reform-soaked summer camp for public school districts).
But that $25,000, of course, is just a drop in the bucket, considering PELP is co-chaired by John J-H Kim, who is also the CEO of the Boston-based consulting company, District Management Council (DMC), that has contracts with the Minneapolis Public Schools worth up to $2 million.
$25,000 here, $2 million there–it has a nice way of adding up. Especially when the Minneapolis Public Schools are constantly emphasizing–or creating–the need for budget cuts and “right-sizing.”
Don’t forget–the “right-sizing” concept, along with a new scarcity-driven “student-based budget” model–has all been brought to MPS by Kim’s District Management Council. Austerity measures and layoffs for regular folk, summer trips for the rest?
Or, as the DMC website puts it:
As school districts are faced with dwindling budgets and increasing needs–smart and strategic allocation of resources is imperative to maintaining and improving performance.
Back to the Boston junket.
Patricia Torres Ray
Patricia Torres Ray, D-Minneapolis, is the state senator who went along on the trip. Her airfare and PELP costs were not covered by the school district, which would have of course been unethical, but instead by AchieveMpls, the non-profit “partner” (in which private corporations get to pull strings) of the Minneapolis Public Schools, run by one-time school board member Pam Costain.
Interesting.
AchieveMpls provides MPS’s superintendent–even an interim one, it seems–with a pot of discretionary funds. This fund was in the spotlight recently, when it was revealed that former school board member Dick Mammen had been paid $10,000 from the AchieveMpls fund, for “poring over contracts,” in connection to a community pool project.
On some level, no one needs to know how the hot dogs are made. But in an ever-increasing era of “accountability” and test-based ranking of teachers and schools, perhaps everyone should have a better idea of where district funds–secret or not–are going, and how policy decisions are being made.
The focus of this PELP trip to Boston was MPS’s English Language Learners (ELL) program.
In 2014, Senator Torres Ray helped secure an extra $5 million dollars for MPS’s ELL program (how? I’d love to know). Sources close to the situation say a good friend of Torres Ray’s, Elia Bruggeman, was then hired by MPS–in a no-bid sort of way, as the job was never posted–to manage this $5 million.
Some MPS staff–who have asked to remain anonymous for fear of being right-sized on out of a job–are saying that the executive director of MPS’s English Language Learner program has been cut out of discussions about how this money should be spent.
Bruggeman makes over $140,000 per year for MPS, as a “Deputy Education Officer.” She also went along on the MPS trip to Boston, to study how to manage, in a Harvard Business School kind of way, the district’s ELL program.
Trying to find her name and place on MPS’ org chart is not easy these days:
In an interview about the trip to PELP, Torres Ray said she was invited along to help MPS develop a “comprehensive plan” for ELL students. She said the district is seeking “heavy duty advisors, like Harvard” in order to find a “scientific approach” to serving ELL students.
Torres Ray called the PELP experience “excellent,” and said it provided a “really different lens” through a “business-driven model.”
Politically, she said, implementing it will be a challenge. One area of difficulty she mentioned is that “some people don’t want change.” Specifically, Torres Ray spoke of “teacher hiring, training, and evaluations” which are “out of the control of the district.”
Union policies, she said, “control” problems with teachers (as in, “What do we do with this teacher?“), not the district.
It’s not so easy, perhaps, to get rid of teachers who may not agree with a PELP-driven reform plan.
Her goal on the trip, as a community representative, was to figure out “how to support MPS through policy.”
How that will happen and what that will look like is not yet clear.
And, while MPS’s ELLnumbers continue to grow, it is not yet clear who will be driving change, and who will be held accountable for it.
Good news. The Minneapolis Public Schools has hired a new Communications Director to replace the iconic Stan Alleyne, who resigned (I’m told) in the wake of Michael Goar’s ascendancy to interim Superintendent status. (Stan’s second in command, Rachel Hicks, also left MPS in recent months.)
Now, MPS can do their spinning in-house, I presume, and maybe cut loose the “outside public relations consultants” Goar has been working with, according to the rather flattering “tough guy” portrayalof him in the June 29 Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Outside PR consultants? Sounds expensive. I wonder if they helped write the piece in the Star Tribune. Consider this:
“Goar’s willingness to implement significant changes is a departure from previous interim school leaders.”
Translation: MPS should really hire this guy, asap. Look what he’s doing, even as interim Supe.
And this:
“At the end of each day, his secretary gives him about seven folders with copies of e-mails he needs to respond to, appointment requests, his calendar and other pending matters. He said he takes them home, makes dinner, watches some basketball and goes through each task.”
Translation: He works really hard. MPS should hire him.
There’s more:
“Goar is rethinking other long-held practices. He instructed staff to meet with various branches of the military who want to be able to recruit in Minneapolis and offer students scholarships and job opportunities.”
Translation: Military service! Why didn’t we think of that?! MPS should hire this guy, and quickly.
College is so expensive anyway, and lots of kids are probably dying–no pun intended–to join the military. Especially since it seems like thiswhole war thing won’t be ending anytime soon. More grunts are certainly needed, and of course they’ll be treated like champs when they return–great health care, jobs, peace of mind…right?
There may have been very good reasons for restricting military recruiting in our high schools–such as the data-driven evidence that says the military’s youngest soldiers are the most at risk for mental health problems, alcohol abuse, and anxiety disorders, etc.
And then there is this warning from a commentary piece in that radical publication TIME magazine:
“In its rush to find the next generation of cyberwarriors, the military has begun to infiltrate our high schools and even our middle schools, blurring the line between education and recruitment.”
But we certainly don’t want to take away from Goar’s hireability index. And, the PR consultant who may or may not have planted the pro-Goar piece in the Star Tribune made sure to throw a few zingers at the Interim Supe, for that all important air of neutrality:
He’s so tough he even makes RT Rybak “uncomfortable”
He’s a “micromanager.” (Boo! And he wants to head up a bureaucracy?)
There have been some “setbacks in gaining the community’s trust” for Goar
Matt Groening
But, Goar has the last word, in true PR fashion:
“’There are always going to be people who will still be unhappy,’” he said. “’This is not a popularity contest.’”
Becoming MPS’ next Supe may not involve winning a popularity contest (especially when you are the kind of person-in-charge who is fond of “not holding back“). But the help of a few well-placed PR consultants probably never hurt, either.
