Tag Archives: superintendent search

Minneapolis superintendent update: Paez seeks coffee, input

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January 4, 2016

Dr. Sergio Paez is coming to town, and he wants to have coffee with you.

In an email sent on December 31, Paez–the current candidate of choice for superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools–announced that he will be in Minneapolis for two days, starting January 4. 

Dr. Sergio Paez; Photo by Don Treager

In the email, Paez said he plans to hold “2 coffee hours” while in Minneapolis. The first will be on Tuesday, January 5 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Avenue Eatery on West Broadway Avenue. The second will be Wednesday, January 6 from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. at Fireroast Cafe in south Minneapolis. 

Paez says he is coming to Minneapolis to “be able to talk to people about anything they have in mind and to learn more about MN in the process.” His email makes no mention of the fact that, although the Minneapolis school board chose him as the district’s next superintendent in December of 2015, he is now in the unexpected position of having to fight for the job.

Immediately after the board named Paez their top choice at a December 7 meeting, troubling reports surfaced from Paez’s days as superintendent of the Holyoke, Massachusetts schools. The reports, completed by the Massachusetts Disability Law Center, detail allegations of abuse at Holyoke’s Peck School program for special education students.

Paez was not directly implicated in these allegations, and maintains that he and his staff acted properly when informed of the reported abuse. Also, the Holyoke teachers union has questioned the law center’s report, and recently told a Massachusetts news station that “low staffing levels and limited resources” are part of the problem at Peck.

Still, it seems Paez is coming to Minneapolis–on his own dime, I am told–to salvage his chances of becoming Minneapolis’s superintendent.

Maybe it will work.

If Paez creates a lot of warm fuzzies by learning “first hand what the community believes is important to transform the district”–a goal he expressed in his recent email–then perhaps the board will be persuaded to forget their cold feet and go ahead with contract negotiations, which were suspended after the Holyoke allegations surfaced.

Meanwhile, my thoughts keep returning to a late December MinnPost piece by local writer and teacher Nicole Helget about the “leadership crisis” in our schools. It isn’t specifically about Paez, but is worth considering as Minneapolis tries to move forward.

Nicole Helget; Photo by Jason Miller

Helget’s piece starts with a bang, hitting readers between the eyes by zeroing in on the “crisis in administration from K-12 to higher education.” She continues on, calling school districts “kingdoms” where predetermined decisions are made behind closed doors, and subsequently “fobbed” upon “teachers, students, and communities.”

There are many blows that sting in Helget’s piece, including the idea that putting a woman or person of color in charge should bring about meaningful change, but often doesn’t–thanks to hidden gatekeepers who are seeking to perpetuate, and not alter, institutionalized racism and sexism.

Helget then ends with this: schools need new leadership styles, and not just new leaders. “We have to change the culture of education,” she writes, in order to achieve this:

Our goal in education includes preparing people who can work, of course, but our goal…is to prepare people to adapt to all the changing aspects of our world and to help build the next economy, not become slaves to the current one.

The Minneapolis school board is scheduled to decide Paez’s fate at a regular January 12 meeting, which will include the standard public comment period. If you’ve got time this week, you know where Paez will be.

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Goar is out, Paez is in: Education politics shift in Minneapolis

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December 8, 2015

Welcome, Dr. Sergio Paez, to the Minneapolis Public Schools.

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Dr. Paez

Many people were shocked to learn that Paez was chosen to become Minneapolis’ next superintendent, over interim candidate and hometown favorite (for some), Michael Goar. 

The decision was announced at an exhaustingly drawn out special school board meeting on December 7, where a long list of desired superintendent characteristics was sweated over in great detail by the board, with almost no indication–until the very end–that Paez would get the job.

The board room was mostly quiet throughout the nearly three hour meeting, despite sign-wielding protestors, who were demanding the board restart the search. These protestors were–randomly–clustered in seats right in front of the silently observing, stalwart Students for Education Reform (SFER) crew that has been present at many recent MPS meetings.

It was an interesting and telling mix, as well as a preview of the various factions Paez will encounter here in Minneapolis.

SFER is a national education reform organization, started in 2009, supposedly by a couple of nice college kids out of Princeton University. Fact check, please! SFER is simply another super spongy Astroturf group seeking to cash in on, and remake, public schools by declaring them failures, and then heavily promoting market-based “fixes,” such as more school choice, more “innovation,” less tenure, etc. 

CT SFER kids rallying for charter schools. Edushyster photo.

SFER has outposts at colleges around the country, kind of like the Sierra Club or Amnesty International, where they’ve been able to attract (and financially reward) young, idealistic students who will, perhaps unwittingly, carry water for the very adult interests that are pulling SFER’s strings. 

I am sure the young people who get hired by SFER to put tape over their mouths during union-district negotiating sessions, or to shill for certain candidates during school board elections, or to march in favor of judging teachers by their students’ test scores, are probably sucked in by a desire to do something about the real educational inequities and institutionalized racism that exists in our schools, and, of course, our society at large. 

Their activism and youthful desire to change the world provides a nice cover for SFER’s behind the scenes machinations, which revolve around a top-down campaign funded exclusively by very wealthy adults who know how to put their best foot forward, in order to conduct business as usual (with some help, of course; SFER, the national org, has a fancy New York PR firm on a retainer).

Conneticut blogger Jonathon Pelto has written two recent investigative pieces on SFER. Here’s Pelto’s take on what this group is all about:

Dedicated to promoting the privatization of public education, more taxpayer funds for privately owned, but publicly funded charter schools, the Common Core, the Common Core testing scheme and a host of anti-teacher initiatives, Students for Education Reform, Inc. (SFER) was created in late 2009,  according to their narrative, by a couple of undergraduate students at Princeton University.

Claiming to have over 100 chapters across the country, the ‘student run’ advocacy group has, as of late last summer, collected more than $7.3 million since its inception to fund their ‘education reform’ activities.

Oh! That explains how they can pay students to camp out at excrutiatingly long school board meetings. 

SFER was a presence during the 2014 Minneapolis school board race, and they will be present again, in 2016, along with their compatriots from MinnCAN, Educators for Excellence, Teach for America, and other well-heeled, decidedly non-populist reform groups.

But who else will be present? The group of local activists seated in front of the SFER crew at Monday’s school board meeting hopefully will be. Restart the Search

This group was small, and consisted of parents, teachers, and school support staff–and at least one student, who looked far too young to be part of SFER. Despite its small size, the group came wielding a petition that circulated through Minneapolis over the weekend, declaring all three finalists for Minneapolis’ superintendent inadequate, and too, well, too SFER or MinnCAN-like. Too corporate. Too big business. Too wedded to the money and priorities of outside entities with a scripted agenda.

Without any hedge fund cash, or any design help from an out of town PR firm, this local petition gathered 918 signatures in just a few days, asking the school board to restart its superintendent search.

Now, I see, it is up to 950 names.

The petition didn’t work, in one sense, because the school board did not vote to restart the search process.

But that goal was a long shot, at this stage in the game. The school board members themselves are clearly exhausted, and stretched thin by the months-long search. They are only human, after all, and paid virtually nothing to wade through the politics, policies, and shifting priorities that are part of the job.

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Michael Goar

And to start over would look fractious, and perhaps further feed the failure and dysfunction narrative that spins so constantly over our public schools. (Remember Netflix CEO and billionaire Reed Hastings’ call to end democratically elected school boards? He is not alone in wishing for this.)

But it did work, in another, perhaps more important sense: Michael Goar was not chosen to become superintendent (the petition is full of quite pointed commentary on Goar’s tenure in MPS). Just three of the nine board members–Siad Ali, Carla Bates, and Josh Reimnitz–voted for Goar; all of the other board members wanted Paez. And this is significant, as Goar’s year-long trial run as interim superintendent was controversial, and disruptive, in the eyes of many.

Paez is undoubtedly only as human as Goar is, and will probably not offer any immediate, magical fixes for what ails the Minneapolis schools. And what ails it most, according to last night’s board meeting, is a loss of trust in MPS’s leadership, and a need for some relationship repair.

“We need someone who can bring our community together,” and “rebuild trust,” Tracine Asberry told MPR News last night. She did not seem to be alone in that sentiment.

And, not insignificantly, Paez was favored by at least two board members–Rebecca Gagnon and Nelson Inz–because they were impressed with his knowledge of teaching and learning, and what they saw as Paez’s commitment to educating the “whole child,” and not just the portion of the child who may or may not perform well on test day. (Board members also touted his success with ELL students).

We don’t know yet what Paez will do when he takes over as superintendent. Will he make shocking missteps (data walls, anyone?), or will he build bridges? While Paez was superintendent in Holyoke, MA, the district was taken over by the state. Could that happen here? Some people in Minnesota would love to see MPS go down, and be replaced by a New Orleans-style network of “high performing seats,” rather than schools. We should all be aware of this.

And will he know–or learn–how to put a racial and social justice framework first, without bowing to the hidden demands of groups like SFER?

Proceed with caution, Dr. Paez. 

While Students for Education Reform (SFER) will pontificate that they are “all about the children,” their political activities in Minneapolis, Denver and elsewhere tells a very different story.

–Jonathon Pelto

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Noah Branch for Superintendent

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Whiz kid Noah Branch

December 3, 2015

Kids say the darndest things. Take Noah Branch, for example. Branch is the first student to have a spot on the Minneapolis school board, and some of the adults who let that happen might be regretting it.

Today, during the final throes of the interview process for the three Minneapolis superintendent finalists, Branch dropped this question on interim superintendent Michael Goar:

You have squandered the past year. Why should we chose you and not someone who has educational background who can fix things?

Wow. This question seemed to make Goar visibly upset, and led him to declare that, if he is allowed to become the permanent superintendent, he will need to hire a CEO to help him get the job done. I am sure the job is tough, but a CEO sounds expensive, and very business-like. Didn’t they used to call this job “Assistant Superintendent”?

Branch’s question also launched Goar into a defense of a presumed weakness: He has no teaching experience. 

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John Deasy in the board room. Or is that the Broad room?

There are lots of other urban superintendents who haven’t had teaching experience, Goar stated. He then used New York, Los Angeles, and Memphis as examples (he also referenced them during a community meet and greet on December 2).

If those are his trailblazers, then we’re in trouble. Los Angeles is currently looking for a new superintendent, after John Deasy–the one with no teaching experience–resigned under a cloud of iPad-fueled scandal. LA is also having to fight off a virtual takeover by billionaire Eli Broad, and his plan to put “half of LAUSD students in charter schools in eight years.” (Don’t worry–Deasy enjoyed a soft landing after being forced out of LA. He now works for the “Broad Center for School Management Systems,” funded by Broad himself.)

Memphis does have a superintendent, Dorsey E. Hopson, with no teaching experience. Instead, Hopson is a lawyer who helped guide Memphis through its conversion from an independent district to a member of the “Achievement School District.” See this article: “When Outsiders Take Over Schools.”

And then there is Joel Klein, the former New York superintendent that Goar mentioned by name as also having no background in teaching. In a review of Klein’s 2014 book about his educational prowess, education professor Aaron Pallas offers this insight:

What…are the lessons that Klein offers to the rest of the country? If U.S. schools in general are failing, as he asserts, what are some possible action steps? Recounting the endless reorganizations in New York City, the expansion of charter schools, and the positioning of school principals as mini-CEOs provides little guidance for the typical school district or school leader.

Branch has also asked another pointed, “Emperor’s New Clothes” question during these weeks of superintendent candidate interviews: “How do you know the Acceleration 2020 plan will work?” Acceleration 2020 is the oft-cited, “get our numbers up” strategic plan for the Minneapolis schools.

Maybe Branch would consider becoming Minneapolis’ next superintendent.

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Michael Goar: Heir Apparent in Minneapolis?

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November 23, 2015

I am not one to get between Michael Goar and his dream job, but maybe the Minneapolis school board should.

Since being ushered in as Interim superintendent in February, 2015, Goar has spoken in lofty terms of his desire to be the real deal superintendent for the Minneapolis Public Schools. Example: In a February interview with StarTribune education reporter Alejandra Matos, Goar had this to say:

“My career path has led up to a superintendency…It’s a calling, and I love this school district because I know what is possible.”

Pause. It is odd to think that someone who has never been a teacher or principal in any capacity would say that his “career path” has led to becoming superintendent. Is this about being the boss, or leading a school district?

Still, the school board did undertake a months-long search for a new superintendent, perhaps to show that Goar was not the shoo in he has probably been set up to be. 

Mini History Lesson:

  • Goar returned to Minneapolis from Boston in 2012. A short time later, he became head of Generation Next, which is funded by the United Way and organized around closing the “achievement gap.”  (Generation Next had just come to Minneapolis then.)
  • After seven months with Generation Next, Goar left to become CEO of the Minneapolis Public Schools. Why? How? At whose request? So many questions! Was this CEO position ever posted? Or was it handed to Goar?
  • Fortunately for Generation Next, Goar’s departure to MPS in July, 2013, didn’t leave the group with a troubling leadership “gap,” as former Minneapolis mayor RT Rybak was ready and willing to take over for him. At the time, Rybak  was in need of some legitimacy, after stating he wished he had “done more” about education during his twelve years as mayor. Today, he is still leading Generation Next, and getting paid close to $200, 000 to do it, which is as much as Minneapolis’ superintendent makes.
  • Therefore, Goar was in a good position in MPS when former Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson announced her resignation in late 2014. Of course, Goar was there to step in as interim, which he did in February, 2015. Rybak approved, and told Minnesota Public Radio in January, 2015 that he wanted Goar to get the job, permanently.

And, now he is one of three finalists for the job, after skating through a mostly weak pool of candidates gathered by search firm Hazard, Young, and Associates (HYA). Bonus: he is also the preferred candidate of five of the nine Minneapolis board members: Siad Ali, Jenny Arneson, Carla Bates, Josh Reimnitz, and Don Samuels.

But Tracine Asberry, Kim Ellison, Rebecca Gagnon, and Nelson Inz did not select Goar as their top candidate. 

And that’s telling.

Goar undoubtedly has his strengths as a candidate. He’s local, he’s a graduate of the Minneapolis Public Schools, and he has a compelling backstory as an orphan and non-native English speaker. He has clearly done well for himself and there’s much to admire in that. 

But is this enough to recommend him for the role as leader of the Minneapolis schools? In a recent blog post, I pointed out some of Goar’s record as an administrator in Memphis and Boston, where he seemed to hone an ability to land on his feet, no matter what.

More than this, we have his current record as interim superintendent to examine closely. Here are some concerns regarding Goar, his current legacy, and how it stacks up with the “Summary of Desired Characteristics” created for MPS as part of the superintendent search process.

  1. “Lead with a depth of pedagogical knowledge.” Goar has never been a teacher, not even for a year or two. Sure, non-teachers can have a “depth” of pedagogical knowledge, but does Goar? His leadership during the Reading Horizons debacle–when he, or his office, continued to insist that this flawed company’s products were to be used in all K-2 MPS classrooms–should raise questions about how profound his understanding of teaching and learning is. Also, the push for more “autonomy and accountability” for some schools within MPS–and not others–seems more about free market reform (competition, choice) than about an equity-based plan for lifting up all MPS students.
  2. “Nurture and maintain an organization in an environment of mutual trust.” Multiple sources have said that MPS, under Goar, has become a tougher place to work, with numerous long-time, top-level employees walked out of the district’s central offices for thinking too, ah, independently. Destabilization, mysterious restructurings, jobs seemingly handed to people–all of these things should be closely investigated by the publicly elected school board members that Goar is supposed to answer to. (And, there is still no publicly available org chart for MPS.)
  3. “Listen and discern information from a multitude of sources.”  There have been a slew of Goar-led changes dropped on the staff and families of the Minneapolis Public Schools. Examples include the secretive changes to the district’s citywide autism program, the immediate adoption of a required seven period day for all high schools and middle schools, along with mandated changes in school start times. Under Goar, the district has also canceled the Area meetings where parents came together to more closely address district-level staff, and altered the District Parent Council. Particularly disturbing: Goar has been allowed to preempt the public speaking portion of school board meetings by addressing issues from the district’s perspective before parents, staff, and community members are permitted to express their own concerns. This has had a stifling effect on community involvement, which was chillingly paired with a misbegotten attempt to silence anyone who had a negative comment at the November 10 school board meeting. These trends are worth further examination.
  4. “Possess business acumen and is knowledgeable of sound financial management.” The latest MPS budget, which was finalized in June, 2015, was over budget, despite Goar’s frequently cited cuts to central office staff (someone should insist on seeing a list of who was cut, and which jobs were then reposted at a lower salary). The district had to borrow from its own reserves to even things out, thereby jeopardizing its good bond rating. Additionally, Goar has paid out big dollars for consultants’ contracts, including one that advised MPS to adopt a “student-based” funding model, which district staff then struggled to explain to families during a series of budget info sessions in 2015. Goar’s administration was also implicated in a misuse of district-issued credit cards. The employee who reported this left the district, after twenty years of service.

Goar’s competition for the top spot includes Charles Foust, who is a “School Support Officer” for the Houston schools–a district with a neoliberal education reform rap sheet a mile long. From Teach for America recruits to “no excuses” charter schools, the Houston schools seem to have never met a top down, quick fix that they didn’t like. Foust is all about school transformation, but from what vantage point? And, would he stick around Minneapolis when the transforming got tough?

Then, there is Sergio Paez, who lost his job as superintendent of the Holyoke, Massachusetts schools when the state took over the district this past summer. Paez is strong on the ELL side, which is good, but has yet to explain his “data wall” policy, where he required Holyoke elementary school teachers to publicly display children’s progress–supposedly anonymously–on assignments and tests. Here is Paez’s perspective on this, according to a 2014 New England Public Radio report:

Holyoke Superintendent Sergio Paez says the charts are used throughout the school district, and says they keep students anonymous.

“Obviously [we are] preserving the privacy, and ensuring that it is productive, and is progressive, and is helpful to our students,” Paez says. “If it is not following those conditions, then it is not being implemented correctly.”

Paez says data walls are a common practice in public schools around the country. Paez is in his first year in Holyoke, and has stressed the use of data to help turn around the struggling district.

Of course, Paez has one advantage: Holyoke, MA is one of the District Management Council’s “Member Districts,” just like Minneapolis, so, if he comes here, he will be familiar with the Council’s attempts to accomplish a businessy rejiggering  of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

So, what’s next? The school board has a few options:

  1. Give Goar the job, which makes sense in some ways. He’s familiar and several MPS board members seem to appreciate that he has experience in large school districts.
  2. Hire either Paez or Foust, which seems less likely. Does either one of them have enough experience or insight to rise above Goar? 
  3. Restart the search process, and perhaps find some more candidates from within.

In this climate of upheaval, when the niceties surrounding our “progressive” city are falling away, Minneapolis citizens are understandably otherwise engaged. The Fourth Precinct protest in north Minneapolis is persistent, and about much more than one man’s story. It is about systemic oppression, racial and economic segregation (historically and currently), and lack of equal access to the “good life” many of us take for granted in Minnesota. 

It is about the people pushing back against the powers that be and the promises they use to maintain their status. Will Minneapolis’ superintendent search be about the same thing? Or will Goar be given his dream job?

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