Floating in the ether of public discourse in Minneapolis at present are the notions that you, city voters, care a great deal about public education — and that Mayor-elect Betsy Hodges can do a great deal about the state of our K-12 schools.
You don't and she can't.
I am skeptical when I read assertions that the electorate in the recent mayoral contest was greatly concerned about public education. We have now traversed 30 years since the federal government published "A Nation at Risk," which in 1983 sounded the alarm about the sorry state of education in the United States.
During this time you sat in a haze of confusion as "outcome-based education," "total-quality management," the Profile of Learning, Minnesota State Standards, the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, No Child Left Behind, "best practices" and (now) the Multiple Measurement Ratings System have filled the jargon-infested world of K-12 education — without your taking time to investigate the exact nature of any of these. Any perception that now, after all of this time, you are finally getting religion on the need to educate all our precious children is dubious.
What's clear is that you have no idea where the locus of change is right now in K-12 public education in Minneapolis. It is not in the office of the mayor. Hodges's proposed initiatives to promote healthy prenatal experiences are worthy, but they are only tangentially related to favorable change in the Minneapolis public schools.
The amazingly good news is that change is taking place — right before your eyes. Minneapolis Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson has articulated a highly promising program to attract, retain and reward truly excellent teachers — particularly at high-priority schools (those with the highest percentages of students on free or reduced price lunch and chronically lagging academic performance). She is also moving forward with a liberal arts curriculum of much higher quality, ably assisted by such first-rate talents as Mike Lynch, director of teaching and learning, and Sara Paul, associate superintendent for school innovation.
Officials are training teachers in the delivery of this curriculum through "focused instruction," whereby teachers throughout the district impart coherent skill and knowledge sets to students at each grade level.
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a rich liberal arts curriculum in logical grade-by-grade sequence. Johnson and her staff are right on target.