Last week, I posted part of my letter to the School Board and
Superintendent Carol Johnson about my experience serving on an
outside review team. These teams were sent to three Minneapolis
Schools that were deemed to be "failing"--- Bannekar (K-5), Folwell
and Northeast Middle Schools. Last week, the district announced that
Bannekar would be closed, and referred to the report of the outside
review team.
All three outside reviews were run by the (state-funded)
Minnesota Academic Excellence Foundation (MAEF).
Quick review: My team went to Folwell Middle School. I can't
speak for Bannekar, nor did I have any agenda for "saving" it because
I don't know enough. But I did say that from what I could tell, the
MAEF process was like Dilbert Goes To School. It was a complete and
utter Total Quality Review Nightmare in which we dragged students,
teachers and administrators out of the classroom and asked them
various, jargon-laden questions about the school mission statement,
etc. Despite four heavily-scheduled days at Folwell, we were never
asked to spend any time in the classroom--apparently MAEF didn't
think what happened in the classroom was all that relevant. On the
fourth day, after many of us protested, we were given the option to
spend 30 or so minutes randomly popping in on classrooms. But the
MAEF's rigid format didn't give us any way to really report what we
saw.
Anyways, I heard from tons of people off list, some of whom
had personal experience with Total Quality Reviews at work; none of
whom had anything good to say about it.
Several people also asked, off-list, how the school district
got involved with something this lame. Well, I think there's a long,
complicated answer behind all that. The reviews were part of a legal
settlement with the NAACP. The district agreed to review any school
where there was a high rate of academic failure. These so-called
"failing schools" are hardly unique to the Minneapolis district. They
are in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Paul, Houston, Los
Angeles, Kansas City, Detroit, Milwaukee, you name it--almost any
place where schools serve students with a high concentration of
poverty.
Everyone wants a simple answer as to why these students are
doing so badly. There's plenty of reasons--but none of them are
simple. I now think one of the main purposes of a MAEF-style review
is avoidance. Because the real issues are so painful, both
politically and socially. So instead, we hire consultants to provide
a lot of smoke and mirrors, fancy jargon, mumbo-jumbo. It all looks
very busy. But it's still just avoidance. And plenty of people--both
liberals and conservatives, public school fans and foes--prefer
avoidance. It doesn't solve anything. But in the short term, it's
easier. And we're a short-term kind of culture.
Mark Anderson from Bancroft posted this on the List: "From
what you say, I agree that MAEF is worse than useless. If you get a
reply from Carol Johnson, please post it to this list....... I've
worked in business for the last 20 years. I've seen similar
consultants in that milieu, and they are just as useless there."
Lynnell writes: I didn't hear from Carol Johnson who is
probably the hardest-working superintendent in the country and busy
with a million other truly more pressing issues. But I did hear from
School Board Members Catherine Shreves, Denny Schapiro, Judy Farmer
and Audrey Johnson. Their basic reaction was: "Oh man, that sounds
awful. We're so sorry." In all fairness, Board members usually don't
make a decision like hiring MAEF--they're part-time office-holders.
They come in to review and consult decisions made by full-time
district staff. Several Board members said I had made it far harder
for the district to hire a Total Quality Review outfit again. If so,
then perhaps my six days of FULL-TIME, yet UNPAID work may not have
been a totally lost cause.
I mention the six full-time, unpaid days because I think the
district asked community volunteers like me and its own staff and
teachers for an extraordinary level of commitment to do this review.
So I wasn't the only one who was appalled by how dumb it turn out to
be. There were plenty of other people rolling their eyes.
By the way, I finally saw MAEF's final report to the board
where I appeared towards the end as the anonymous member --The She
Who Must Not Be Named--who "by openly contesting the process.....was
not a workable match." MAEF reported they subsequently "monitored"
me and concluded I was harmless�..apparently until they learned I had
submitted my own report to the Board several weeks ahead of theirs.
MAEF darkly added that "this member.... eventually left on vacation
and did not complete the feedback preparation work."
Well, I certainly did leave on a family vacation--about three
weeks after completing the site visit and all the interviews at
Folwell. As to not completing the feedback work, oh man, I wish!
Unfortunately, I'm such a cheerful little League of Women Voters
worker bee that MAEF made me one of their team leaders. I hated the
MAEF process, openly protested it, but ever the Good Girl, I followed
it faithfully. I even drafted my three-person team's final report.
Shortly afterwards, I got one of MAEF's highly-scripted, but
personally hand-written notes thanking me for all my many efforts.
And now after my mild, little report to the Board, MAEF
doesn't call. Doesn't write. Doesn't seem to love me no more.
Mark Anderson from Bancroft again: "Actually, I disagree with
your contention that we should not go into these schools and hold
them accountable for the results that occur there.......... I think
the kids and the parents probably have more to do with a failing
school than the staff and teachers. But that doesn't mean we leave
the schools totally unaccountable for the results."
Lynnell: Actually, Mark, you and I totally agree on this
point. We just need to find a better, more direct and more honest way
of holding schools accountable.
Mark from Bancroft again: "I'm also one of those awful
conservatives that thinks competition is the best solution we have
currently. Both public and private competition."
Lynnell: For the record, Mark sounds like a lovely, rather
than awful conservative. And I'm all for the private-public school
competition too. Bring it on��as long as all private schools are
required to work with the same proportion of students who are
chronically poor or non-English speaking or wildly ADD or profoundly
autistic or disturbed or just released from a juvenile detention
facility, etc. etc. I mean, let's take all these students who are
currently being served exclusively by public schools and equally
divide 'em between public and private and see who does best! Go for
it!
Unfortunately, I can never seem to find a conservative, awful
or otherwise, who wants to have this head-to-head, level-playing
field kind of competition. As one of them once told me, "I will never
allow those kind of kids at my (private) school."
Well, damn! There goes that game.
I have far more to say about "failing schools." But I'll save
it for another time.
Lynnell Mickelsen
Ward 13, Linden Hills
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