[Mpls] Teacher placement in MPS schools

[Socialist2001 at cs.com]

In a message dated 9/5/2004 9:28:23 AM Central Daylight Time, 
brioharder at msn.com writes:

<<  You state that there is a high concentration of probationary teachers in 
the "hardest schools," meaning schools where the poverty rate and transciency 
rate are very high and teacher turn-over also high.  (I am not disputing this. 
. . this is reality.)...">>

What could be done to change the situation?

Part of the solution to the high concentration of teachers in the "hardest 
schools" (your words) is to distribute probationary and tenured teachers within 
an area of licensure evenly throughout the schools.  For example, if 
one-fourth of the district's K-3 teachers are on probation, then about one-fourth of 
the positions for K-3 teachers at every school should be reserved for 
probationary teachers. When a teacher completes the probationary period, they would have 
to bid for an open position reserved for tenured teachers (If a position and 
the teacher holding it are converted from probationary to tenured status at 
the same time, the teacher should have the option of keeping that job, in my 
opinion, for the sake of promoting stability). Some tenured teachers would have 
to be bumped when this policy is first implemented and during periods where 
there are big increases in the share of probationary teachers employed by the 
district, new school openings, etc.
 
In other respects, I advocate following procedures for assigning all teachers 
that the district is supposed to follow for tenured teachers. The district 
should not reassign teachers from one year to the next without their informed 
consent unless their jobs are eliminated (And even then the teachers should be 
allowed to file a grievance in order to force the district to show that the job 
is really being cut.) If a job is going to be substantially modified, the 
teacher holding it should have the opportunity to modify their skills set and 
licensure that will be needed to hold the job (in its modified form). 

The district must also stop laying off excessive numbers of teachers. Laying 
off about 33% of the teachers in anticipation of an 8% decline in enrollment 
is certainly excessive. 
By the end of June, the district should have determined the number of teacher 
positions to be filled on the first day of school. And except for a little 
fine-tuning, the process of assigning teachers should be done before the end of 
June. At that point only teachers whose the district didn't plan to keep on 
the payroll should be getting layoff notices. Assuming the district is trying to 
keep class sizes the same, the district should have only laid off about 8% of 
the teachers in anticipation of an 8% decline in enrollment.    

If the district were to follow the rules set forth in the teacher tenure act, 
the teacher turnover rate would be much lower. The district can ignore the 
rules because the teachers union is letting the district administration 
disregard the rules. The district is not supposed to lay off more teachers than 
necessary. The district is not supposed to reassign teachers without their consent 
unless the teacher's job is being eliminated or the teacher is on probationary 
status and is being laid off to preserve the job of a tenured teacher.

Teachers may not hop from a teaching job with one district to a teaching job 
with another district without giving notice by April 1 to the district where 
they are employed. Teachers who plan to retire also have to give notice by 
April 1 in order to collect full retirement benefits.  Teacher who quit or retire 
for good cause and can convince an administrative law judge that they quit or 
retired for good cause are generally not penalized for giving notice after 
April 1.

Cutting down the turnover rate and distributing probationary teachers more 
evenly through the district will make it possible to properly supervise tenured 
teachers. The district should measure the performance of teachers by academic 
achievement (such as growth in reading and math) and other measurable, 
education-related outcomes. All probationary teachers (and some of the tenured 
teachers) should have teaching improvement plans. Those who are ineffective teachers 
and do not make satisfactory progress toward becoming effective teachers 
(using objective, measurable criteria) should be fired (which is allowed under the 
teacher tenure act).  

I am also for eliminating tracking, which is the assignment of students to 
classes on a part-to-full-time basis by perceived ability in reading (and / or 
other subjects). And I believe that untracking cannot be done successfully 
without cutting down teacher turnover and distributing probationary teachers more 
evenly throughout the district.  It is generally easier and requires less 
skill to "ability-group" and get good results with the "high-ability students. The 
problem is that the results you get with "low ability" students are generally 
very poor when you ability-group. It requires greater teaching ability in 
some areas in order to teach a "gifted and talented" curriculum to the general 
student population without holding back the high achievers and watering down the 
content of whole classroom instruction to some degree, i.e., "teaching to the 
middle."  

-Doug Mann, King Field 
Mann for School Board 
www.educationright.com   
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