CPRE is one of many organizations that support the K-12 education policy
endorsed by Congress in 2001 and promoted by the GW Bush and Barack Obama
Administrations, which includes the promotion of charter schools, merit pay for
teachers and stripping away union job protections in order to establish a more
equitable system of public education. So or their criticisms of the public
education system are quite valid, including huge test score gaps and the
inequitable allocation of resources in the school system that account for part
of the so-called "achievement gap." Students in the public school system are to
a large degree segregated by race and family income, and conditions for
learning related to resource allocation within the school system are less
favorable to students from low income families and for marginalized people of
color. The public school administration in Minneapolis (and nearly everywhere
else in the US) is engaged in systemic racial discrimination: The schools are
more segregated by race than necessary for implementation of a 'community
school plan,' a large proportion of teachers are fired and replaced during
their probationary period, many of these firings disguised as "layoffs" for
economic reasons or for poor performance. The newly hired and often
inexperienced teachers are heavily assigned to "high poverty" schools with high
concentrations of marginalized students of color. The district has been
resistant to taking the steps necessarily to increase teacher retention, and to
lower and equalize teacher turnover and the exposure of students to
inexperienced and poorly qualified teachers, in part because of budgetary
reasons. Reforms demanded by the administration and allowed by the teachers
union have increased rather than decreased these disparities, particularly
recent changes in teacher placement rules.
I have run for school board repeatedly on a platform of increasing teacher
retention rates and reducing exposure of student to teacher turnover and
inexperienced teachers, including granting recall rights to laid off teachers
and setting limits on the ability of the administration to fire teachers for
poor performance. Firing and replacing teachers to balance the budget must not
be allowed because it has a disparate impact on marginalized students of color
to a lesser degree, poor whites. I am also opposed to "ability grouping"
students into high, medium and low-ability curriculum tracks, especially in
early elementary grade. Guidelines for gifted and talented education should be
applied to the general student population, including maximal exposure to well
qualified and experienced teachers, curriculum enrichment, etc. Shifting to a
gifted and talented education for all will obviously require increased teacher
retention, less teacher turnover, fewer inexperienced teachers in the
Minneapolis School District.
In 1999 the Legislature approved a revised "Desegregation Rule," allowing
districts to operate "racially identifiable schools," provided that educational
inputs of racially identifiable schools and schools that are not racially
identifiable are roughly equal. Disparities in specified educational inputs,
including teacher experience and teacher turnover rates were deemed to be
illegal racially discrimination, but the new rule was and is lacking in
remedies. Differences in teacher turnover and experience were specially
excluded from any evaluation of whether a district is engaged in
discrimination. However, the new Rule, Minnesota Administrative Rules, chapter
3535, related to equality of opportunity in education stated that districts
must submit an annual report to the commission of education that shows whether
and to what degree differences in educational inputs between racially
identifiable and other schools exists, and a plan to eliminate the disparities.
Reports accepted form the Minneapolis School District over a period of several
years lacked that required content. In effect, the State Department of
Education allows Minneapolis to provide an inferior quality of education to
marginalized students of color attending schools that few to no whites attend.
Sarah Lahm has been a voice for those opposed to the School Reform agenda
being carried out by the Minneapolis School District, but who are also
unwilling to demand real, effective steps to eliminate systemic racial
discrimination. It is a coalition that for various reasons is resistant to a
real civil rights agenda, and this allow the corporate education reformers to
pose as Civil Rights activists without much risk of being unmasked by their
opponents in the coalition of which Sarah Lahm is a part.
-Doug Mann, Folwell neighborhood, north side of Minneapolis.