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 REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
