Good evening internet denizens! This post is not part of my literacy series, but I wanted to get something quick up in response to recent events. Stick with me until the end, there are some action items for those who are interested.
Before I start: Ed Graff, the MPS Board, and MPS’s Teaching & Learning Department are in for some strong criticism in this post. I want to be very clear that I am criticizing them in a professional – not personal – aspect. I won’t attack anyone’s character; I care only about their actions as they relate to Literacy in MPS. I believe that everyone I mention here only wants to help MPS students, but I disagree (very, very strongly) with how some of them are doing it.
To business! This is something I haven’t seen reported anywhere else (correct me if I’m wrong): the Board’s recent evaluation of Ed Graff’s leadership. You can find discussion of the evaluation in the October 13th board meeting, which you can watch in multiple languages here. The discussions starts around the 55 minute mark. The actual evaluation was done in a closed session on October 6th to protect employee privacy.
The Board evaluated Graff on 4 measures: Literacy, School District Finances, HR, and Student Support. Each area could receive one of four scores: Ineffective, Developing, Effective, or Highly Effective. For School Finances, the Board rated Graff as High Effective. He was rated as Effective in both HR and Student Support. I will directly quote what Board Chair Kim Ellison said about Graff’s performance in Literacy:
“On the Literacy measure, the Board determined that the Superintendent received a score of Developing, with the acknowledgement that external factors including the unplanned shift to a new learning model due to the pandemic and the needed responses to several tragic community events greatly impacted progress in this area.”
I don’t think anyone would deny that COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd are huge events that greatly impact our schools. Yet I am perturbed that the school board appended these issues to the end of their evaluation of Graff on Literacy, almost as though they erased the “Developing” score they gave him. It made me wonder: was Graff’s performance in this area an aberration brought on by the events of 2020? Or was there a pattern?
I dug through the Board’s minutes from last year, and found that they discussed Graff’s evaluation last year on November 12th, 2019. Discussion of Graff’s evaluation comes in at around 59:30. Director Josh Pauly discussed the Superintendent evaluation at that meeting, and the four areas he mentioned were: Multitiered Systems of Support (MTSS), Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Equity, and Literacy. So interestingly enough, the only evaluation area that is the exact same from 2019 to 2020 is Literacy. I’m going to quote Pauly here:
“If the Superintendent met 80% of deliverables, then he met expectations. If he fell below 60%, he did not meet expectations. If he fell in between, he would be Developing. Evaluation Domain 5 of the tool was added for directors to provide comments related to District operations and was qualitative, not quantitative. For Domains 1, 2, and 4, [Akiva’s note: that would mean MTSS, SEL, and Literacy] the majority of the directors found that the Superintendent met between 60 and 80% of the deliverables identified in the evaluation tool [Akiva’s note: Developing]. For Domain 3 [Akiva’s note: Equity]the majority of directors found that the Superintendent met 80% or more of the deliverables in the evaluation tool [Akiva’s note: Met Expectations]. For Domain 5, the majority of directors provided positive comments about the operations of the District, with each director providing specific areas that needed focus, but no consensus on those areas.”
Based on Pauly’s later comments, I think that SEL translates to Student Support in the new evaluation, though that wasn’t clear to me based on the Board videos. Pauly also said that “the midyear evaluation should be in January,” but I wasn’t able to find any mention of a midyear evaluation in the minutes for Board meetings from January to March. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, just that I couldn’t find it. (MPS, please, if someone is reading this, send me an email and tell me where it is. I am not watching 28 hours of Board meetings to find it).
Anyway! What’s the point of all this? The point is that Graff has been rated as “Developing” in Literacy two years in a row by the Board. So though we are living in very difficult times, it appears the Board has been aware of Graff’s (and by extension, his team’s) lackluster performance on Literacy for quite some time now. Yet from what I’ve seen with discussion around the CDD’s Academic Plan, and in Board meetings in general, the Board does not appear to be forcing Graff to make concrete steps to remedy this. And no, advocating “Balanced Literacy” does not count. (See my previous post on why the district’s focus on “Balanced Literacy” is a horrible idea. Go directly to Part 2).
I want to be very clear about my word choice: the Board does not appear to be taking a hard line with Graff on Literacy. That doesn’t mean that individual Board members aren’t putting pressure on him (they might be), and it doesn’t include what is said at those closed meetings where they evaluate him. I don’t know what’s said during those times.
But that’s the point: I don’t know. I want to hear more from the Board on this issue. Oh yes, I’ve heard some Board members – Caprini, Inz, and Pauly spring to mind – say in passing at Board meetings that they think there needs to be a harder look done at academics. But when? Sure, now is a tough time, but why wasn’t this done last year? Why hasn’t this been a thing that the Board is putting front and center? We’ve spent a lot of time yelling about where students will go to school (boundaries), and what kind of special programming (magnets) some schools will get, but what about what every single MPS student will be taught when it comes to reading?
I have a lot of questions. The Superintendent has been consistently rated as “Developing” in Literacy, so what’s being done about that? What staffing and curricular changes are being made to remedy this? After all, organizing instruction is specifically named in Graff’s contract, which expires in 2022. What metrics are place to measure his effectiveness in this, specifically, not just as an “area” on a rubric that I can’t find? (I did search for any evaluation tools on the website, in the Board’s section, in the Superintendent’s section, and generally, but couldn’t find anything. Maybe it’s there, maybe it isn’t, but even if it is, I can say that I’m getting fairly tired of spending hours digging for things in that darn website).
What information about Literacy is the Board being given from the Teaching and Learning team? What outside experts are being consulted by the Board about Literacy? It’s not enough to just trust that Balanced Literacy is the be-all-end-all of Literacy instruction, because it isn’t. Don’t believe me? In some big news last week, Lucy Calkins, one of the largest figures in wrong-headed Reading approaches in this country (golly I’m heated today), is actually changing her views.
I know, I know. Somewhere out there, someone at the Davis Center is yelling at their computer about how Benchmark is different. Nope, not really. Sure, Benchmark has some phonics. And that’s great! Know what it doesn’t have? Much phonemic awareness at all. Know what else? K-1 students get 15-30 minutes of phonics a day in Benchmark’s recommendations. How many minutes are recommended by world-renowned expert Louisa Moats, citing a consensus in the research? 30-45. Guess how many MPS does? 20 minutes, according to their most recent update. In just grades K-2. (What happens to struggling readers in grades 3, 4, and beyond? Nothing good).
So MPS students are losing between 30% and 66% of the phonics instruction they should be receiving to make appropriate gains. Just typing that sentence makes me feel quite heated. And the Board seems to know that Literacy is an area where their Superintendent and his team could stand to improve. So, I ask you, MPS Board, what is the plan? How will you hold the leaders you have selected, and the individuals those leaders have delegated power to, accountable? How will you put our students first and guarantee them the right to read?
If you feel strongly about this issue, I encourage you to take the following action steps:
- If you’re up for a read, check out this article by Pamela Snow in the International Dyslexia Association’s journal about why Balanced Literacy is problematic. I particularly like this line: “BL advocates claim that the importance of phonics instruction is acknowledged in contemporary reading theories and ITE. In reality, however, phonics […] is typically paid token acknowledgement by BL advocates without requiring any meaningful shifts in teacher knowledge or practices.”
- Contact the school board. Click the link and look in the upper right hand corner under the green “Contact Us” page. Send them this piece if you feel like it, or my earlier one, or these excellent posts by Emily Hanford. Tell them that you are concerned that the Superintendent has been rated “Developing” in Literacy twice. Tell them you want to know what concrete steps they will take to deal with this issue. Ask them how they will ensure all MPS students have access to strong reading instruction.
Leave a comment or shoot me an email if you have a comment, question, or just want to talk about Literacy. Look for Post 1 in my Literacy series coming soon!
MN Edu Obsession 