This is a continuation of the topic, Nekima Levy Pounds joins fight against
teacher tenure rights
http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mpls/messages/topic/K1GewBT93OxuuPSgnL7Rr/
The focus of the discussion here is not on Nekima Levy Pounds, but on the
lawsuit itself.
For Sarah Lahm's take on the Education Justice lawsuit against the state of
Minnesota, see
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/19112/the_billionaire_funded_lawsuit_against_teacher_tenure_happening
Sarah Lahm writes ". . .This raises a compelling point: if teacher tenure rules
are not to blame for the chronic “underperformance” of students of color, than
who or what is?
"This may be the question the lawsuits are designed to sidestep."
Actually, the lawsuit is about unequal access to strong teaching, which is an
injury to members of a protected class under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that
requires a timely remedy. Education Justice is on solid ground there. Just how
much unequal access to strong teachers contributes to the chronic
"underperformance" of students of color is another issue. Test scores are
typically the yardstick by which performance is measured, and student scores on
standardized tests correlate to income as well as to access to strong teachers.
The lawsuit clearly blames unequal access to strong teachers on tenure
laws which protect career teachers too well, resulting in hordes of
ineffective, tenured teachers who can't be weeded out aggressively enough to
level the playing field. But is this actually the reason that marginalized
students of color don't have access to their fair share of strong teachers?
It is well documented that marginalized students of color are much more
heavily exposed than other students to newly hired and inexperienced teachers,
who are often not strong teachers. This has something to do with very low
retention rates for teachers during their multi-year probationary period. How
do tenure laws drive up turnover rates of probationary teachers. Are the
probationary teachers fired to preserve the jobs of tenured teachers, or is it
more often the case that they are fired and replace with newly hired teachers?
Given the fact that about 50% of teachers leave the profession within 3 years
of the time they enter it, it is logical to conclude that high turnover of new
teachers is primarily caused by the dismissal or resignation of teachers during
their multi-year probationary period, and in most cases they are not being
pushed out to preserve the jobs of tenured teachers.
Perhaps the problem of unequal access to strong teaching lies with tenure
laws that make it too easy to fire probationary teachers. Job protections for
probationary teachers provided by tenure laws are commonly weak to
non-existent. Minnesota has two tenure laws: One for big city schools, and one
for everyone else. The two laws differ in only one respect: The degree to which
they protect probationary teachers from dismissal without good cause. The
tenure law for big city schools offers far less protection than the other. That
allows big city school districts to maintain large pools of inexperienced
teachers. The lion's share of the newly hired teachers are assigned to schools
where marginalized students of color are greatly over-represented. You fix that
problem by making it harder, and not easier for school districts to fire and
replace probationary teachers, not by making it easier to fire all teachers.
School districts often try their best to increase the pool of newly hired
teachers in order to save money. It costs money to allow teachers to climb a
steep pay ladder. This is a cost containment strategy that invariably has a
disparate impact on marginalized people of color. Part of the solution is to
curb the power of management to indiscriminately dismiss teachers.
Sarah Lahm praises the MN commissioner of education for noting that
current tenure laws allow school districts to fire teachers for good cause,
including poor job performance. However the press release, and possibly the
lawsuit itself do not dispute this fact. Their contention is that the tenure
law places an excessive burden on school district managers to exercise their
prerogative to fire all of the ineffective teachers who ought to be fired.
Minnesota's tenure laws, especially the general tenure law is an obstacle
to implementation of what is marketed as a teacher quality improvement
strategy: The aggressive culling of ineffective and less effective teachers
according to performance evaluations which rely heavily on student scores on
standardized tests to "rank and yank" teachers. This strategy is recommended
and in some cases mandated by federal and state governments, and followed by
the Minneapolis School District. The tenure law for big city school districts
is an obstacle to applying this strategy to tenured teachers. However, the
general tenure law, which offers more protection to probationary teachers is
also in the cross-hairs.
The Minnesota commissioner of Education is someone I do not trust to
adequately defend tenure laws. The tenure laws are being challenged as an
obstacle to implementation of a strategy to improve teacher quality that has
not been rejected by the Minnesota Department of Education. Teachers unions
chose to become parties to the Education Justice lawsuits in New York and
California, and did not refrain from blaming those in charge of the school
system for unequal access to strong teachers. Education Justice may have a
better chance of winning their lawsuit in Minnesota if the teachers unions
don't intervene.
And it is not just white teachers who are intended victims of the Education
Justice lawsuit. Poor working conditions and weak job protections can be blamed
for the under-representation of people of color in the teaching profession, as
described in the article, "Where have all the black and brown teachers gone?"
http://hechingerreport.org/black-brown-teachers-gone/
This article cites a study which found that 82% of teachers are white, a
percentage that hasn't changed since the 1980s, despite increased recruitment
of teachers of color. There is no further breakdown by racial or ethnic
identity, however, another study found that not only the percentage but also
the absolute number of African American teachers has declined since the late
1960s. What is the reason for the lower-than-average retention rates for
teachers of color? It seems that the biggest factor contributing to very low
retention rates for teachers of color is that they are more heavily assigned to
schools where low-income, non-white students are greatly over-represented, and
retention rates in these schools are low for teachers regardless of race and
ethnic background. Poor working conditions are cited as a reason for teachers
leaving these schools and the profession altogether, though the article doesn't
address the issue of to what degree newly hired teachers are separated from
their first teaching job because they quit or because their employer chooses to
not retain them. The effects of stereotyping and a hostile work environment are
also cited as reasons by many teachers of color for leaving the profession.
The article states that students do better when they have teachers who look
like them, though having some teachers who don't look like the students is also
beneficial. According to some studies on this issue, the positive effect of
having teachers who look like the students on measurable outcomes for students
is quite small. However, a racially diverse body of both teachers and students
at a school can be a potent antidote to racial stereotyping. But that was not
always the result of court-ordered school desegregation. When Court-ordered
racial integration of public schools began in the late 1960s, many school
districts kept students of color out of their more elite schools, and in other
schools kept students of color out of college-bound curriculum tracks.
Unequal access to a quality, public education reinforces and is reinforced
by persistent discrimination in employment, housing and other fields. In
response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, racial discrimination in employment,
housing and other fields went out of sight. Overt discrimination became rare.
However covert discrimination has been widespread and has largely gone
unchecked due to token enforcement efforts. Ending systemic racism will require
more aggressive action to detect and prosecute those who covertly, as well as
overtly violate Civil Rights laws.
-Doug Mann, candidate for Minneapolis School Board, citywide. Folwell
neighborhood.
teacher tenure rights
http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mpls/messages/topic/K1GewBT93OxuuPSgnL7Rr/
The focus of the discussion here is not on Nekima Levy Pounds, but on the
lawsuit itself.
For Sarah Lahm's take on the Education Justice lawsuit against the state of
Minnesota, see
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/19112/the_billionaire_funded_lawsuit_against_teacher_tenure_happening
Sarah Lahm writes ". . .This raises a compelling point: if teacher tenure rules
are not to blame for the chronic “underperformance” of students of color, than
who or what is?
"This may be the question the lawsuits are designed to sidestep."
Actually, the lawsuit is about unequal access to strong teaching, which is an
injury to members of a protected class under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that
requires a timely remedy. Education Justice is on solid ground there. Just how
much unequal access to strong teachers contributes to the chronic
"underperformance" of students of color is another issue. Test scores are
typically the yardstick by which performance is measured, and student scores on
standardized tests correlate to income as well as to access to strong teachers.
The lawsuit clearly blames unequal access to strong teachers on tenure
laws which protect career teachers too well, resulting in hordes of
ineffective, tenured teachers who can't be weeded out aggressively enough to
level the playing field. But is this actually the reason that marginalized
students of color don't have access to their fair share of strong teachers?
It is well documented that marginalized students of color are much more
heavily exposed than other students to newly hired and inexperienced teachers,
who are often not strong teachers. This has something to do with very low
retention rates for teachers during their multi-year probationary period. How
do tenure laws drive up turnover rates of probationary teachers. Are the
probationary teachers fired to preserve the jobs of tenured teachers, or is it
more often the case that they are fired and replace with newly hired teachers?
Given the fact that about 50% of teachers leave the profession within 3 years
of the time they enter it, it is logical to conclude that high turnover of new
teachers is primarily caused by the dismissal or resignation of teachers during
their multi-year probationary period, and in most cases they are not being
pushed out to preserve the jobs of tenured teachers.
Perhaps the problem of unequal access to strong teaching lies with tenure
laws that make it too easy to fire probationary teachers. Job protections for
probationary teachers provided by tenure laws are commonly weak to
non-existent. Minnesota has two tenure laws: One for big city schools, and one
for everyone else. The two laws differ in only one respect: The degree to which
they protect probationary teachers from dismissal without good cause. The
tenure law for big city schools offers far less protection than the other. That
allows big city school districts to maintain large pools of inexperienced
teachers. The lion's share of the newly hired teachers are assigned to schools
where marginalized students of color are greatly over-represented. You fix that
problem by making it harder, and not easier for school districts to fire and
replace probationary teachers, not by making it easier to fire all teachers.
School districts often try their best to increase the pool of newly hired
teachers in order to save money. It costs money to allow teachers to climb a
steep pay ladder. This is a cost containment strategy that invariably has a
disparate impact on marginalized people of color. Part of the solution is to
curb the power of management to indiscriminately dismiss teachers.
Sarah Lahm praises the MN commissioner of education for noting that
current tenure laws allow school districts to fire teachers for good cause,
including poor job performance. However the press release, and possibly the
lawsuit itself do not dispute this fact. Their contention is that the tenure
law places an excessive burden on school district managers to exercise their
prerogative to fire all of the ineffective teachers who ought to be fired.
Minnesota's tenure laws, especially the general tenure law is an obstacle
to implementation of what is marketed as a teacher quality improvement
strategy: The aggressive culling of ineffective and less effective teachers
according to performance evaluations which rely heavily on student scores on
standardized tests to "rank and yank" teachers. This strategy is recommended
and in some cases mandated by federal and state governments, and followed by
the Minneapolis School District. The tenure law for big city school districts
is an obstacle to applying this strategy to tenured teachers. However, the
general tenure law, which offers more protection to probationary teachers is
also in the cross-hairs.
The Minnesota commissioner of Education is someone I do not trust to
adequately defend tenure laws. The tenure laws are being challenged as an
obstacle to implementation of a strategy to improve teacher quality that has
not been rejected by the Minnesota Department of Education. Teachers unions
chose to become parties to the Education Justice lawsuits in New York and
California, and did not refrain from blaming those in charge of the school
system for unequal access to strong teachers. Education Justice may have a
better chance of winning their lawsuit in Minnesota if the teachers unions
don't intervene.
And it is not just white teachers who are intended victims of the Education
Justice lawsuit. Poor working conditions and weak job protections can be blamed
for the under-representation of people of color in the teaching profession, as
described in the article, "Where have all the black and brown teachers gone?"
http://hechingerreport.org/black-brown-teachers-gone/
This article cites a study which found that 82% of teachers are white, a
percentage that hasn't changed since the 1980s, despite increased recruitment
of teachers of color. There is no further breakdown by racial or ethnic
identity, however, another study found that not only the percentage but also
the absolute number of African American teachers has declined since the late
1960s. What is the reason for the lower-than-average retention rates for
teachers of color? It seems that the biggest factor contributing to very low
retention rates for teachers of color is that they are more heavily assigned to
schools where low-income, non-white students are greatly over-represented, and
retention rates in these schools are low for teachers regardless of race and
ethnic background. Poor working conditions are cited as a reason for teachers
leaving these schools and the profession altogether, though the article doesn't
address the issue of to what degree newly hired teachers are separated from
their first teaching job because they quit or because their employer chooses to
not retain them. The effects of stereotyping and a hostile work environment are
also cited as reasons by many teachers of color for leaving the profession.
The article states that students do better when they have teachers who look
like them, though having some teachers who don't look like the students is also
beneficial. According to some studies on this issue, the positive effect of
having teachers who look like the students on measurable outcomes for students
is quite small. However, a racially diverse body of both teachers and students
at a school can be a potent antidote to racial stereotyping. But that was not
always the result of court-ordered school desegregation. When Court-ordered
racial integration of public schools began in the late 1960s, many school
districts kept students of color out of their more elite schools, and in other
schools kept students of color out of college-bound curriculum tracks.
Unequal access to a quality, public education reinforces and is reinforced
by persistent discrimination in employment, housing and other fields. In
response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, racial discrimination in employment,
housing and other fields went out of sight. Overt discrimination became rare.
However covert discrimination has been widespread and has largely gone
unchecked due to token enforcement efforts. Ending systemic racism will require
more aggressive action to detect and prosecute those who covertly, as well as
overtly violate Civil Rights laws.
-Doug Mann, candidate for Minneapolis School Board, citywide. Folwell
neighborhood.
