Now will it make a difference? Last night, KyKy, The Madster and I attended a Minneapolis Public Schools board meeting. Why? Because the Principal of Emerson Spanish Immersion Learning Center has determined in her infinite wisdom that grades 6-8 should function as a middle school with 5 teachers instead of 6. Right now grades 7-8 are taught by the Gang of Four - Armbrecht, Weil, Sommers and Skendi. They are outstanding. I cannot tell you how pleased we have been with KyKy's academic performance the past two years, and this is directly attributable to these teachers. Grade 6 is team taught by Dwight and Eastlund both excellent teachers. Both KyKy and The Madster had them. Well, Armbrecht is moving back to cheesehead land to be closer to his ill father. Eastlund just had a baby and is on leave next year. Dwight is only licensed for K-6 so she can't teach upper grades of middle school. That leaves 3 of the Gang of Four, plus the loss of the grade six teachers at least temporarily. I believe at least one of the Gang of Four is threatening to leave if the proposed changes go through. Essentially, the upper grades, where academic rigor is extremely high, would be wrecked.
FYI, Emerson, with 300 students K-8, has a Principal and an Assistant Principal. 8 out of the last 10 years the school has functioned just fine without an Assistant Principal.
The School Board has final say over the budget and can overrule the Principal's proposal, so Emerson supporters came out en mass to the board meeting. There were 40 to 50 students, parents, former students and parents of former students at the meeting to tell the board, "Don't mess with this school." This school out performs its peers in terms of test scores. It has a waiting list to get in. It draws students from outside Minneapolis, which brings in badly needed money to the district. Graduates from Emerson consistently report how well prepared they are for high school, most saying that high school is a breeze compared to 7th and 8th grade at Emerson. This school teaches English speakers Spanish and Spanish speakers English. Hello? Drive up and down Lake Street and see who your neighbors are. There is a tremendous need for second language acquisition for English and Spanish speakers. Finally, there is a cultural component to a dual language immersion school. Immigrant kids are rubbing elbows with kids like mine who were born and raised here. These interactions are not something you can learn from a book or a 1 week exchange program to another country. These kids are learning to live and work together, and isn't that part of what public education is all about? They are creating citizens who will be able to function in a changing world.
The school's Site Council proposed in the form of a petition to cut either the Assistant Principal or a Community Liaison staff member to free up the money to keep current staffing levels in the upper grades. They also had a petition saying, "If you make these changes, we're pulling our kids from Minneapolis Public Schools." The board heard comments from a dozen of the attendees, very passionate, eloquent statements from parents, students and graduates. I'll be writing letters to voice my opinion. Will it make a difference? I don't know. I truly hope so.
All this being said, I have the highest respect for the Board and Superintendent Green. They chose to serve the schools and care deeply about public education. After the meeting, I tracked down a couple of them to thank them for their service. I really am grateful for what they are trying to do. They are in the unenviable position of having to deal with declining enrollment, fewer funds, a student population that is disproportionately poor with a large number of English as a second language students, plus the negative press from nit-wit, conservative lickspittles like Katherine Kersten who has not set foot in a school like Emerson, but feels free to bash public education at every turn. No doubt there are things about MPS that are broken, but Emerson school is not one of them
5 comments:
You think Katherine Kersten is a nitwit, conservative lickspittle? Truly, you are being much too kind in your characterization...
Agreed. She's really an embarassment to the StarTribune (not that it takes much for that to happen). Is she there to "balance out" all those hippy left-wingers at the paper? Is that the best the Strib could find, or are they trying to make a point about conservative (non) thinking?
Jen do you really look at her column online?
What's your excuse? At least we who get the paper cannot avoid that picture of a repressed Catholic smarmily staring at us from the front page of the B section. If they ever re-make the Wizard of Oz, she could win an Oscar playing Elvira Gulch. Wouldn't have to act. (enormous shudder) I rarely read her columns anymore because she writes the same thing over and over, "_________" (insert private school or home schooled child) is so vastly superior to urban schools because either a) they have Jesus in their hearts or b) their Stalinist rules can be enforced because they are a private school and don't have a mandate to teach all children. This is the only thing she writes about apparently because she's under the impresssion that she knows something about education. We hear it over and over and over, broken record. We get it babe. You want to destroy public education. Amazingly enough, these columns are better than what she wrote on on
editorial page. She would read a book and literally do a book report for her editorial piece. I always wanted to write a letter to the paper saying that she gets a smiley face on her project because she did such a good job of summerizing someone else's thoughts. What a marooon.
You bet I look at her column online-- ya gotta know the enemy, right? And to punish myself even more, I read the comments in her blog. Of course, if you think she's ridiculous, you should read some of the editorials & columnists/blogs (minus Pulitzer Prize winning Cynthia Tucker) out of the Atlanta JournalConstitution. Thank your lucky stars you don't live down here. At least the comments in KK blogs are somewhat articulate... if you want knee-jerk, reactionary far right "thinking", just read the comments section on just about article/blog/column in the AJC. It's positively mind-boggling. And really, really depressing.
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