Minnesota Department of Education: Who works in the agency (The following information was a response and rebuttal to a FOIA request)
Click here to read my report .
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Part 1: There are no Hyperpolyglots In Cultural Proficiency: Culture trumps Strategy because they do not speak the same language
By Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT “ As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task. ” ~Diogenes Laertius, (c. 404—323 B.C.E.) Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 35. He “Diogenes of Sinop, (Turkey)-School of Cynicism ”, is labeled mad for acting against convention, but Diogenes points out that it is the conventions which lack reason citing that most people, he would say, are so nearly mad that a finger makes all the difference. “For if you go along with your middle finger stretched out, someone will think you mad, but, if it’s the little finger, he will not think so” (Diogenes Laertius). Logic and common sense scare many good natured foundational folks in education. When you look at challenges in our public educational system, it’s even more scary to see the actions of good natured people that have generationally ignored best practices outside of their own cultures and just simply put, b
Cultural Proficiency A Manual for School Leaders (Chapters 5, 7 Resources D/E) Response
How can understanding the “continuum” be helpful to planning Culturally Responsive work with individuals within your organization? When I opened up chapter five to start reading, the pull-quote by Ellis Cose from his book, The Rage of a Privileged Class has me rethinking everything, and I cannot move past it; he wrote, “If we tell ourselves that the only problem is hate, we avoid facing the reality that it is mostly nice, non-hating people who perpetuate racial inequality” (Cose 1998, p. 20). In my organization, as well as in the state of Minnesota, we know the ‘nice’ people are at the center of some of the most horrific, disabling, and learning-killing proposals and policies from the Minnesota Department of Education granting over $245 million to a non-existent agency for feeding children and families during the 202o COVID-19 quarantine, to its lack of diversity, inclusion, and color in the agencies upper leadership . These ‘nice’ people make sure the status quo is never disrupted