It’s about time that we call out the current Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) union leadership for what it is: Racist.
As part of the BIPOC Caucus within MFT, we at the Coalition of Truth are fed up with the lies and the gas-lighting that gets thrown in our faces when we point out that there are real systemic issues with how teachers of color are treated in the district and by current union leaders. The recent grievance that was filed against Greta Callahan, president of Minneapolis Federation of Teachers’ teacher chapter cited “cruelties,” which “set a precedent that racism and white supremacy can exist and persist in our union.”
We do not take this action lightly. Teachers of color were lied to throughout the strike to keep our voices and use our bodies for public fodder. We were constantly reassured that protections for our jobs, through the Memorandum of Action, were part of negotiations when in reality they were not even introduced at the negotiating table with the district. When the teachers at Patrick Henry spoke up against the lies from MFT leadership, those teachers were ostracized and shunned from all union activity.
The union went as far as to send white union members to a Black board members’ house without thinking about the trauma and optics surrounding their actions. This was considered OK because “non-white strike captains” were OK with the decision. As educators and as a union, we need to understand that diversity does not equal inclusion.
A union is supposed to be a team. When we work together we win. This strike was not a win. Years of experience is still a factor when determining layoffs for many teachers of color and as a whole we have only achieved a 2% salary raise. Inflation is at 8%. That amount isn’t even a drop in the bucket and we could have achieved that without losing three weeks of pay, and without keeping our students out of the supportive school environment. Additionally, the funding that is necessary is simply not there. What is our union doing to leverage their power to pressure the Minnesota legislature to allocate funds towards education?
We support the House Education Omnibus Bill HF3401 and the supplemental budget bill, HF3400, because of what they do to appropriately and equitably allocate funds to our district and solve systemic gaps in spending on special education services and English learners. Why is it that legislators at the state level can recognize the need for more professional support for teachers of color but our union cannot? In the Omnibus’ current form, the “Grow Your Own” program gets funded so that those who want to become licensed education support professionals (ESPs) or school counselors have a pathway. Many of us were ESPs before we became teachers.
Our current leadership is suggesting that we “cut from the top” instead of cutting teachers to account for the cost of the contract the union agreed to.
The reality is, even if we did that, a well-run school system still needs an administration. Taking from Peter to pay Paul never did anyone any good; the shortage is still there and the state is still responsible for providing adequate funds. Attacking our administrators with non-collaborative and divisive rhetoric does not solve the problem.
Our union should know better and should be lobbying our state legislators to pass this bill. Instead they waste time by pointing fingers in the wrong direction and sitting on their laurels.
Alexis Mann, Charles Luter, Sharita Benson, Marcus Washington, Steven Montgomery, Arielle Rocca, and Alvin Johnson are members of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and running for leadership positions within the governing board of the union.
The Teachers Union and their taxpayer money moving machine- teachers get tax dollars, teachers give dues (tax dollars) to Union, Union gives tax dollars to Democrats (98% of Union political donations goes to Dems), Dems push for more money for teachers- are more worried about maintaining their monopoly on tax dollars than improving a bad situation.
In fighting doesn’t surprise me because when a group is more worried about power than getting results, their demise is eminent.
Teachers freely chose to have a union, to negotiate better pay, benefits and working conditions. It is their right. They also have the right to disagree and run for union positions.
This time they bargained for better pay for classroom assistants, smaller class sizes and more social worker and psychologist support for students, to help them succeed despite their poverty. For this, I thank them and believe they deserve a lot of credit.
It seems that conservatives dislike them and perhaps resent that. they are paid enough so they are middle class. In nonunion states, teachers often take second and third jobs to make ends meet, which helps explain larger class sizes with less personal attention and worse educational outcomes.
Most of us received a quality public education, which we did not pay a dime for. It is now our turn to pay for the next generation. You can figure other places to cut to pay for your tax cut fix.
Wrong again stegner… In MN we are NOT a right to work state and you will join the union or pay an assessment or as the union calls it “fair share” and your dues are deducted out of your paycheck by the local school board. I have been there and done it, what say you??? When I taught we were part of the AEA MEA NEA and a professional orginization and we acted like professionals. As for the current union, if you draw breath and have a paycheck for the deductions to be taken out of, you are a union member. But tell me about how it’s all about the students. MPLs has the highest paid teachers in the state and more is spent on each student than any other school district in the state.
Let us fund kids – all of them. You cannot get more public than that.
Hmm, you’re too right, bet you can’t wait to push out a few more rinos like McCarthy, can you?
Yeah OK Joe, just like Corporations give money to Republicans, who give them more tax breaks that they use to give more money to Republicans, etc. etc.!
Ok people follow the money trail. Teachers get paid with tax dollars, teachers pay union dues with the same tax dollars, the union gives the same tax dollars to Democrats, the Democrats then push for more tax dollars for the school….. Repeat, repeat and repeat. Corporations are paid by private money. Notice the difference?
Right on Joe, I paid my debt to society and taught for seven plus years and even negotiated one contract for the local MEA/NEA. People need to understand that when the union says that it received a 2% increase, that figure is an across the board Mean average. What happens when the money is being distributed to the membership the money is NOT evenly divided. Instead the salary structure is that there are up to 20 steps dependent on years of service on and up to 10 lanes dependent on continuing education on the teachers behalf. When a new, inexperienced teacher is hired on the bottom of the pay scale with no addational training beyond the basic requirements, they will be on step one, lane one which is the lowest pay on the scale. The following year the teacher will automatically receive a step the following year, step 2 lane one. As a result these individuals may receive less than a 2% increase because of the automatic step structure appears as a wage increase. If the individual reached a lane change goal they are also granted a lane change. The teacher must look out for themselves and decide if they are being paid fairly. When an individual reaches the top of the steps and no longer eligible for the automatic step raise, the local union will allocate a much higher percentage raise to compensate for the lack of a step being available. This is a percentage of the maximum salary, compared to the new teachers basic salary. If the experienced teacher has also maximized the lane changes the percentage increase also includes this amount. What this amounts to is the experienced teachers take most of the increase and is compounded when backpay is calculated.
Also consider that until a teacher is granted tenure the the union is incapable of doing anything for the new hires. Their response to a concern is come back when you have tenure. The best thing that could ever happen would be for MN to become a right to work state and let the individual determine whether to be a part of the union or not. Smart money says you can do a better job of representing yourself. The union only cares about itself and the cash cow it has become.
Good grief, it’s good you quit teaching. It takes a fair amount of arrogance to believe that one is capable of negotiating for themselves against the general public. Or were you under the impression that school administration would somehow intermediate between you and the taxpayers when layoff time came? There’s a reason tenure exists, without it, every teacher in the state would find themselves laid off as soon as their pay scale reaches a certain level, or some local crank decides they have a grudge and takes it to the school board. Such is the nature of public service.
When I saw the headline, I actually thought the writers were going after the union leaders for promoting the strike. After kids have been stuck at home for so long. But no, I forgot I’m back in the Twin Cities, and it’s all about blacks being discriminated against. The grievances here are beyond ridiculous, A white person went to a black persons house. What??? Next, the pay. Salary has nothing to do with color, and yes it is seniority. As it is in every other union. Otherwise, you have the people at the top choosing their favorites.
And finally, teachers in the Twin Cities are among the highest paid teachers in the entire country. And yes, you get summers off. So stop whining and be thankful you have a good paying job. If it’s so awful, find a different career. Which is what everybody else does.
Wow. Calling people racists without any proof just never stops.
If you belong to a union, this is what you get. They have specific rules they follow. There is no regard to race in them.
If you don’t like it, get on the inside and make the changes. But just calling people racist is just sad now. It has lost its meaning because it is thrown around to everyone no matter the issue.
Maybe if you come out with specifics on what is going on instead of pathetic unrelated labeling, you would have an argument that people would be interested in. Instead it loses all credibility.
It’s encouraging to see that there are teachers who want to get new blood into the union leadership. Hopefully, if they are successful, they will fix what really ails the profession and makes it difficult to expand the number of non-white teaching professionals:
1. Increase the pay for entry level teachers.
2. Make it easier for potential teachers with non-traditional or out of state backgrounds to get licensed to teach in MN.
3. Provide merit pay so that good teachers are amply rewarded and bad teachers are weeded out of the system.
4. Get rid of the seniority system. There should be financial incentives for good teachers to teach in challenging schools. Layoffs, if necessary, should be based on job performance, not last in first out.
5. Quit strikes that only hurt student achievement and further alienate parents who then take their kids out of the public school system and then no longer support funding for our schools.
Mike, Minnesota becoming a “Right to work state” will address all your concerns and the teacher will get a raise not paying $100 per month union dues which are used to finance the DFL
How do you measure ‘good job performance’–what is some teachers have more challenging students and do not perform well on tests, who decides. And then wouldn’t there be a bias against older teachers? I agree with much of what is said in the article, but again it is more complex. Also due to the US Supreme Court ruling a year or two ago; people no longer are mandated to be fair share, you can opt out of unions.
I wish this were a better written article. I was interested to see some clear examples of racism but that was not forthcoming and half the article ends up being what appears to be some kind of complaints about the school budget and strike resolution that doesn’t clearly have a connection to the racism accusation. I can see the authors are running for positions within the union but they seem to have forgotten this a general public publication, they seem to be conflating at least two different subject matters.
I’m disappointed with this article as well. It’s kind of an incoherent rant.
Firstly, MPS teachers are not the highest paid in the state. That is incorrect and the information is widely available. While I believe that our union can do better on the question of equity and inclusion, we went to bat for equity and made some huge compromises in our new contract, to make sure that that language was included.
Alexis Mann is a lovely person but this slate has deep ties to anti-public education groups. (Also, information that is easily found and is widely available). Groups like E for E have no business in any aspect of public education as they show shiny objects in the short term and drain public resources in the long term.