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[The 4 paragraph letter below
was submitted to the Star-Tribune for publication by Doug Mann, Minneapolis School Board candidate]
Adam Platt's op-ed
piece in the Star-Tribune supports the current school board's goal of watering down and eventually stripping away the seniority,
tenure, and due process rights of teachers. "Getting the right teacher in the right classroom" is their new rallying cry.
Platt claims that "Teacher assignments...are determined soley on the basis of seniority." Not true. Seniority is not
the only factor in the teacher job-bidding process. Teachers do not have the right to "bump" less senior teachers. There
are minimal requirements for most jobs that not all teachers possess. And even the "last-hired, first-fired" rule is not rigidly
applied, and should not be followed in cases where to do so would be "unreasonable." The teachers union has agreed to changes
in the contract that protect teachers in some programs from being laid off or reassigned to save the jobs of teachers in other
programs.
Current board members (and candidates) say the administration needs greater power to fire or reassign teachers.
Due process, seniority, and tenure rights are seen as the problem. This is an example of making changes in the governance
of urban school districts called for in the 2001 federal education bill known as "No Child Left Behind."
In my opinion,
the problem of high teacher turnover and questionable teacher reassignments is mainly the result of administrative actions
not required by current law or the teachers' contract. For example, the practice of sending layoff notices to teachers who
do not need to be laid off is arguably a violation of the Minnesota Teacher Tenure Act, which allows the district to layoff
only as many teachers as necessary due to the elimination of teaching positions. A layoff notice motivates a teacher to look
for another job and permits them to accept employment with another school district in Minnesota. This is done to increase
the proportion of teachers who are near the bottom of the pay scale. It is a cost-containment strategy that has produced insanely
high teacher-turnover rates in most programs in which students of color are over-represented.
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