From: "Michael Atherton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 1:43 PM
Subject: RE: [Mpls] responsibility for layoffs and realignments
> These two major dynamics have resulted in a situation in which
> there are fewer students, who in turn require fewer teachers.
> Although the District's solution may not be ideal, we shouldn't
> fault them for making necessary changes. The alternative is
> to continue to fund a bloated, inefficient, ineffective,
> and inequitable school system.
I'm going to let you hang there for a while with that point of view you
claim is a global perspective, the one that includes the beautiful aphorism,
"just an operational adjustment within the context of a much larger wave of
social and institutional
change" and first acknowledge that you have agreed with the point of my
previous post, that the primary responsibility for the teacher layoffs and
realignment rests with the district administration.
And I, of course, agree with you, that we wouldn't fault them for making
necessary changes. The question at hand is was the number of teacher
layoffs necessary, and is the realignment necessary. Does 4600 less
students mean 600 less teachers are necessary? That would imply that those
600 teachers taught 7 or 8 students each last year. Nobody who set foot in
a Minneapolis school last year will buy that. Is assigning someone who has
never taught an art class and doesn't want to teach an art class but is
considered by all to be excellent at teaching 3rd and 4th graders how to
read really just an operational adjustment within the context of a much
larger wave of social and institutional change? If the answer is that the
layoffs weren't really necessary and the realignment will only further
exacerbate the two big problems facing the district today, the achievement
gap and declining enrollment; then, we won't need to even consider the only
alternative you suggest, against which most reasonable observers would argue
solidly. We will ask the school board to simply wake up and do something
right.
Dan McGuire
Ericsson
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