Just passed was the deadline for principals in the Minneapolis Public School (MPS) system to turn in their budgets for next year.
Even amid a potential strike, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 (MFT59) members face another round of layoffs and excessing. A disproportionate number of them are teachers of color. Already, multiple teachers of color have been notified that they’ve been excessed. Union and district leaders have the power to protect them by signing a targeted Memorandum of Agreement outside of Master Agreement mediation. Instead, MFT59 has refused to protect teachers of color until demands for increased pay and smaller class sizes for all members are met.
This problem is not new. Since the mandated integration of Minneapolis schools in the 1970s, the recruitment and retention of Black educators has been deprioritized in the face of budget cuts and union negotiations. The first group of Black educators in Minneapolis protested this issue in 1978 when the union chose to protect senior white teachers over newly hired teachers of color. Although MFT59 from the 1970s is clearly not the same as today, the same vestiges of white supremacy remain in our policies.
MPS is caught in a dangerous cycle of losing teachers of color. Universal policies, such as pay increases – while sorely needed – are not, and have not been, enough to maintain a diverse educator workforce. The question is simple: How can we diversify the profession if educators of color keep getting caught in layoff and excessing cycles and are not offered the protection of their union?
We need a targeted, equity-based Memorandum of Agreement to protect teachers of color now.
I can’t shake the feeling that we are trapped between two predominantly and historically white institutions. Educators of color don’t even make up a quarter of the population of teachers in Minneapolis, compared to a whopping sixty-two percent of non-white students. Research shows that diverse teachers are good for all students, not just students of color, but MPS and MFT59 have chosen instead to prioritize the same policies that have resulted in the same lopsided outcomes.
Each school submitted a budget, which will determine which positions get cut. While both MPS and MFT59 have publicly stated that they are negotiating on our behalf, it has come to my attention that negotiations won’t continue until after the deadline. How can you negotiate on our behalf and not meet this urgent deadline that is directly related to the future of our jobs?
[image_caption]Nafeesah Muhammad[/image_caption]
I am certainly not arguing against the merits of the teachers’ strike – livable wages, smaller class sizes and safe schools are important. However, the racial discrimination and stereotyping that we face in our schools and a lack of respect for our expertise among our colleagues won’t get better until policies that center our needs are passed. Pay increases alone won’t address this crisis, but intentionally protecting educators of color will.
I am a teacher. I am a Black woman. I am a union member. If the system is not working for people like me, then it is not working at all. By not supporting policies that protect, retain, and increase the number of teachers from diverse backgrounds, we are sending a dangerous message to our student body and we tell Black, Hispanic, Asian and Indigenous teachers that when push comes to shove, our worth ceases to exist.
Nafeesah Muhammad is an education activist and English teacher at Patrick Henry High School in Minneapolis. She is a candidate for Minneapolis Federation of Teachers president.
I assume like all union workshops, teachers fall into last in-first out, as far as letting folks go from the job. It would be illegal to fire someone for skin color. If a teacher, with 8 years of service, gets let go in MPS before a teacher with 2 years of service, the union is there to stop it. Nobody is stopping people of color from getting an education degree, as a matter of fact, people are encouraging it. Hard to make someone, in a free country, pick a profession, no matter the skin color. It appears not enough people of color are looking to get education degrees and join the Teachers Union.
Actually, a number of people of color are getting degrees. But they are caught in the situation the writer, a teacher of color, describes.
Fortunately for me, I grew up and went to school in the 50s and 60s because you can trace the decline of the government education system to about 1970 when the NEA devolved from an association of professional educators devoted to sharing pedagogical best practices, to a labor union devoted to workers rights, putting its members on par with auto workers and electricians, only held to lower standards.
Dennis, this is utterly simplistic nonsense. This does nothing to move the discussion forward.
What you are saying is that your 50s and 60s education was not only infinitely better than a kid can get these days, but yours was delivered with “pedagogical best practices.” You also state that the NEA has abandoned those lofty heights and is now only concerned with its workers’ right and has a low bar for professionalism. Hogwash.
I was educated in the 60s and into the early 70s and I had great teachers and lousy ones. The great ones still inspire me in memory and the lousy ones would be recognized as criminals today.
I don’t know the particulars of your educational upbringing, but what teachers are called upon to do is much more complicated today, at least for the urban teacher. The students come to us from all manner of background, from homes that were nothing like mine. Our (thankfully) integrated schools are far more complicated than when we were in grade school.
Those venerable pedagogical masters of yesteryear would have floundered in the demands put on educators today.
What I want to avoid is ever EVER sounding like an old fart blathering on about how simple and pure and right and better “the old days” were. Far better to recognize the complexities we face today and offer constructive ideas.
“I don’t know the particulars of your educational upbringing, but what teachers are called upon to do is much more complicated today, at least for the urban teacher. The students come to us from all manner of background, from homes that were nothing like mine. Our (thankfully) integrated schools are far more complicated than when we were in grade school.”
I grew up in the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, a working class, multi-racial place where black people were in the majority. I went to Maxfield School for grade school where my kindergarten teacher was Ms. Katie McWatt. If you don’t know who she was, Google her sometime. I went to Marshall Jr. High, which was in the Selby-Dale neighborhood in St. Paul after we moved due to the freeway construction. Among my teachers there was Katie McWatt’s husband, Arthur, and Mr. Ben Zachary, a legendary music teacher and principle in St. Paul for 40 years.
The point is, there were Black teachers in those days, teaching kids who came from mixed backgrounds, who are so legendary that I can recall conversations I had with them and things they said to me over 50 years ago.
This idea that Black teachers are some new phenomenon that must be protected at all costs is nonsense and is being advanced by young people who don’t know their own history.
Agree with both comments above. You legally can not say just because you are a different race you get to go to the front of the line. Maybe it would help if BLM would devote some of their millions to helping black youth who want to go into teaching. Instead of the 3 organizers siphoning off millions of dollars for themselves. It’s time for BLM to go into communities to help residents get jobs and further their educations instead of trying to get on TV and complain about discrimination.
Considering that the population of Minneapolis is about 19.2% black according to the census bureau, one should expect that black teachers would make up less than a quarter of the teachers. And to say that 62 percent of the non-white students are black means nothing. This is comparing apples to oranges and is dishonest. What matters is the percentage of black students compared to the total of all students. I hope Ms. Muhammad is not teaching this kind of distorted logic to her students. If so, she is in the wrong profession.
“Educators of color don’t even make up a quarter of the population of teachers in Minneapolis, compared to a whopping sixty-two percent of non-white students.”
The author’s numbers are correct-yours are not. Not sure if you struggle with reading comprehension or are trying to discount what Ms. Muhammad is saying here. Either way, here is MPS’s own data from their REA dept:
https://studentaccounting.mpls.k12.mn.us/uploads/racial_ethnic_oct1_2021_grades_kg_12_2.pdf
Anita, the number for teachers of color are what they are because not enough people of color are getting education degrees. Nobody is stopping people of color from getting education degrees. My problem with this article is the claim that racism is somehow involved, it is not. The bottom line is simple, more people of color get education degrees, more people of color will be teachers. It is really hard for anyone to convince an 18 year old that being a teacher is a better job than being in a STEM workforce.
Thanks for making the point.
MFT59 uses BIPOC as a bargaining chip again-how is that not racist?? You can’t solve problems you call out by actively pushing down those whose presence are needed as a major part of the solution! My family is and always has been a union family (MFT, SEIU and NPMHU) with board service ongoing and I believe in the role of unions as power broker and change agent.
Organizational leadership experience has taught me the necessity of tearing down and replacing cultural assumptions like “last in; first out” if we are ever to evolve our institutions to reflect the values we espouse. We are not merely making seats at the table for BIPOC, we need to take away the whole damn table and start with a grounded plan to make institutions reflect our values and the people they serve. ALL the research clearly shows not just what we’ll gain by doing this, but more so, the HARM we continue to do with this status quo. Politically, not signing the MOA has been a bad policy and MFT’s duplicity won’t float long before the truth publicly sinks community support and resolve for teachers.
Anita, again you can do all the talking you want about more teachers of color unless more people of color get education degrees, nothing changes. Your fight is not with status quo but with low numbers of people of color with education degrees.
The problem would seem to be that too many young people of color are getting education degrees, getting hired and then being first out the door because the teaching workforce has an imbalance of young teachers of color to older teachers that are not.
The fundamental problem is that pay and layoffs are all based on seniority, instead of job performance. Poor performing teachers should be laid off 1st, not the youngest teachers, who might actually be better at relating to their students than their gentrified colleagues.
Which makes the assumption that school administrators will make employment decisions on what is best for the kids and not just what is best for the budget. A dangerous assumption. I left teaching after a few years when I looked at my colleagues who had been on the job for 30 years: some were going great and could not have been happier with their career choice 30 years later. Others were disillusioned and bitter, wondering “what could have been”, although often very successful and happy in their early teaching years. Not an easy proposition to manage.
I hope the District and MFT sign a targeted, equity-based Memorandum of Agreement to protect teachers of color NOW. And I hope every district and every teacher union in this state signs a similar MOA, NOW!!
The strike reveals Minneapolis Schools are paying their teachers less that the surrounding suburbs and St. Paul (who settled).
What could be more effective in improving Mpls schools and performance gaps than paying teachers a better wage?
The legislature should get the per-pupil funding up where it belongs and start taking their work seriously and stop trying to refund tax monies while BASIC state needs are not met.
I support schools. I work hard for schools. I pay taxes for schools, and I support the raising of taxes for schools. And then I am told what an awful person I am. Really, is it any wonder why we lose elections?
Why does Muhammed say that she doesn’t have any input? As a union member, is she not allowed to attend and speak up at general membership and contract meetings? Is she not allowed to vote on her contract? Is she not allowed to vote in union elections?
Those actions are input. Input is not synonymous with getting what you want.
A number of the comments defending last hired, first fired help explain why thousands of families have left MPS for schools with significant representations of BIPOC educators.