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Strib Question: What specific steps would you advocate to reduce or eliminate
the racial achievement gap in Minneapolis schools?
Why are 21 of the district's 23 "racially isolated schools" (at least 93%
students of color) poor performing schools? Perhaps it has something to do with a
high concentration of inexperienced teachers and extraordinarily high teacher
turnover in "racially isolated" schools. Whites are also better represented
in "high-ability" curriculum tracks. I advocate the following 3 steps to reduce
the gap:
1) Distribute teachers on probationary status (hired within 3 years) evenly
through the district. In 2004 the district laid off 608 teachers employed for
up to 5 years, including 455 probationary teachers. That's an awful lot of
probationary teachers, given that there were fewer than 1,700 full-time teacher
positions in regular and special Ed programs (includes prep-time) budgeted for
2003-2004. I have asked the district administration and board members for a
breakdown of probationary teachers by program and grade level. My best guess is
that more than one-fourth of the teachers in regular Ed programs were on
probationary status last spring. And probationary teachers are heavily concentrated
in the district's racially isolated schools.
2) Reduce the number of teachers laid off each year. The district
administration certainly should not lay off teachers it plans to rehire or replace before
the first day of school. Recent end-of-the-school-year layoffs have been
excessive. The district laid off 608 teachers in 2004, but couldn't have justified
laying off more than about 200 for the following reasons. There were 210
fewer teacher jobs in the 2004-2005 budget than in the 2003-2004 budget. However
it is likely that some teacher jobs were not filled in the fall of 2003 because
the district doesn't rehire or replace some laid off teachers until after
school begins, and student enrollment was 1600 below the estimate upon which the
2003-2004 budget was based. And some teachers gave notice of plans to not
continue their employment with the district in 2004-2005 by April 1, 2004.
Based on incomplete information, it appears to me that the district massively
realigned teacher from one program / school / grade level to another in order
to save the jobs of probationary teachers. The district has failed to provide
evidence necessary to evaluation the accuracy of its contention that the
realignment process was done to save the jobs of tenured teachers, such the number
and distribution of probationary teachers in the spring of 2004, and a break
down of teacher positions that were budgeted for 2004-2005 and teacher
positions that were filled prior to the start of school this fall.
3) Untrack the schools. The district has a duty to monitor the effects of its
ability-grouping practices, and especially the outcomes for students assigned
to separate classrooms according to ability in a subject area, including the
practice of dividing elementary students into classes for basically low-
medium- and high-ability students. We can close the gap to a significant degree by
phasing out low-ability curriculum tracks, and it can be done without watering
down the curriculum of the high ability tracks into which most students will
be integrated.
-Doug Mann, King Field
write-in "Doug Mann" for school board
www.educationright.com
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