For the first time in a couple weeks there are no letters in the Trib about the Central sale. I suspect the Trib is holding them up until the issue flares again next week. In the meantime it is trying to get onto other news but Jana Hollingsworth’s long story about a major lawsuit goes to the heart of issues roiling the Duluth Schools today with echoes in the story of the Central Sale. Its about paying for public education and making sure its effective for both rich and poor alike. Its about a lawsuit that names the Duluth schools as an example of the failure of public schools to ensure a decent education for poor neighborhoods. Its about teacher tenure laws and how poor kids lose out or may lose out because of it. This worry was on politicians minds when Charter schools were first introduced by Democratic Governor Rudy Perpich thirty years ago. Rudy was a former Hibbing School Board member.
I will tease out the issues involved before I return to the Do Over Fallout series. I also had a friend call out of the blue last night. He’s in town this morning and we will go out for breakfast shortly. After that I’m serving lunch at the Damiano’s Soup Kitchen so finding time to do do justice to all this immediately isn’t possible.
I’ll leave this off for now with a remarkable statement by DFT President Burnham in today’s paper. Compare it with what I just posted last night. And by the way because the story pits Congdon Elementary against Myers-Wilkins I’ll stop being coy. The school in last night’s post with all the insubordinate teachers…….That was Congdon. I’ll have more to say about that when I get back to the computer.
Here’s Bernie today:
Duluth Federation of Teachers president Bernie Burnham said the union has worked hard to build a teacher evaluation plan that ensures teachers get needed feedback.
“Teacher tenure does not protect bad teachers; it ensures good teachers have the ability to use their teacher voice to advocate for students, their families and education as a whole,” she said. “This is yet another step, as we all understand the teaching profession has high turnover due to attacks like this, that discourages our young people and others from wanting to be in this profession.”
ITS NOW 1AM SATURDAY. I AM UP AFTER THREE HOURS OF VERY WELCOME SLEEP. SMALL CLUSTERS OF COLLEGE KIDS ARE MOVING LIKE DEER HERDS AROUND MY HOUSE, SOME HOLDING CELL PHONES SHINING IN THE NIGHT, USING OUTSIDE VOICES TO CALL TO OTHER HERDS HALF A BLOCK AWAY ALL SCOUTING 21ST AVE FOR PARTY HOUSES. SUCH HOUSES CAN BE IDENTIFIED BY BRIGHTLY LIT WINDOWS WITH THE SILHOUETTES OF COLLEGE KIDS OUTLINED ON DRAWN CURTAINS. CARS STOP TO UNLOAD NEW CLUSTERS.
ITS NOT THAT LOUD YET. THAT MAY OCCUR LATER WHEN THE PARTY HOUSES DISGORGE MORE DISSOLUTE KIDS. I WOKE UP BECAUSE A DAY’S WORTH OF THOUGHTS HAD INVADED MY DREAMS AND WHEN I WOKE I REMEMBERED ALL THE POSTS I LEFT UNFINISHED AS “CLICKBAIT.” THAT’S WHAT ONE PERSON EMAILED ME EAGER TO READ ABOUT THE “OFFICIAL COMPLAINT.” WHEN WOULD I ATTEND TO IT THEY WONDERED?”
I GOT DRESSED AND WENT OUT ON MY SUN PORCH TO WATCH THE HUBBUB BELOW. IT WAS BETTER THAN PEERING THROUGH AN OPENED SLAT IN MY BLINDS AND BESIDES NONE OF THE STUDENTS WERE WEARING HEAVY WRAPS. I WAS CURIOUS TO TEST THE WARMER SPRING NIGHT AIR. BUT I’M DONE NOW TYPING THIS TO BIDE MY TIME. MY INTENSE URGENCY TO FINISH THIS POST HAS WANED. STILL I WILL PRESS ON…….
“The lawsuit claims that the state’s teacher tenure law requires administrators to determine permanent employment for teachers after only three years, which it says isn’t enough time to gauge performance; that dismissal policies in Minnesota school districts make it “nearly impossible” to efficiently remove an ineffective teacher from the classroom; and that the “last in, first out” policies force administrators to lay off teachers based on seniority rather than quality and effectiveness.”
I have complicated feelings about this having been let go by schools twice, maybe three times in a row. Shortly after the third time I toyed with writing a book about my experiences called “Worst Teacher in the World.” Even in that self deprecatory title you can see my ego at work. I’m not merely content to have been a bad teacher, I want to have been the penultimate “worst” teacher in the world as though it held some rare distinction.
ONE OF THE PARTY HOUSES JUST DISGORGED A DOZEN STUDENTS WHO TOOK UP SOME ENTHUSIASTIC CHANTING. PROBABLY WOKE UP CLAUDIA. ITS 1:16.
I told the last principal who recommended I not be granted tenure that it was his responsibility to make that determination and that he had an obligation to make the tough calls. At the same time I was “comforting” him about his having axed me I was in a sort of shock that I had so screwed up yet again. There has been an earnest attempt to better prepare teachers in recent decades. Still, teaching is a career that burns out lots of people. Today in Duluth some of our red hot teachers from thirty years ago are finding it a slog to keep teaching. It reminds me of polio.
The friend I had lunch with surprised me when he stepped out of his car and walked up to my door this morning. Joe is one of the nicest fellows I knew back in my college days. He’s got three years on me at 68 and when I inquired he explained that he was suffering from the effects of fifty years of overusing the muscles that had been affected by a bout he had suffered of that 1950’s childhood disease. Our three year difference in age probably saved me because while he was recovering from his bout I was herded into gymnasiums and given shots and later sugar cubes of a vaccine that has given me a lifetime immunity. Scores of polio patients from the fifties are similarly suffering. Their muscles were left weak to begin with and forty and fifty years of pushing them to get around have just left them worn out. I’m not sure I ever knew that Joe had polio until now.
Gosh, that was a long aside – a birdwalk on a birdwalk.
The claim that tenure is a threat to new teachers by letting bad old teachers remain in the classroom is not necessarily wrong. And the claim that unions are obliged to protect teachers of dubious quality is true – not that they always like doing it. The year I lost my job a math teacher at my school who did have tenure was fired for incompetence. I’d forgotten that but in reviewing my notes from 1997 I discovered I’d written about Jim. I remember Frank Wanner the Union chief telling me his members were sick about having to spend $100,000 to defend the teacher. I’m sure ISD 709 spent as much if not even more. Jim had taught math in an elite Eastern school but while in Duluth he had been moved from school to school by principals who were sick and tired of having parents complain about how much their kids disliked him. He was a real nice guy though and he worked hard to help students. But he handed out lots of D’s and F’s as a sort or personal rebellion against “grade inflation.” I never could make up my mind if he was to blame for the poor results of his students or not but I thought he was a little too inflexible and perhaps couldn’t get into the mind of kids struggling with math. I was such a kid myself. Hated the subject – until I got a B in Geometry. Math in 3D made sense to me.
“As a result, the lawsuit claims, the state’s problem with poor graduation rates and academic performance among low-income and minority students continues. Minnesota has one of the country’s worst achievement gaps between poor and minority students and white students.”
This is true and yet at the same time dangerously simplistic. Parents who are well educated themselves … DAMN, FIREWORKS, ITS 1:40….and ambitious for their children are the best indicator of academic success. Even stupid teachers can not really do too much damage to such a child. But children living in chaos, well that’s another matter. Being hungry, sleep deprived, over medicated, neglected, moved willy nilly from place to place is a recipe for a life on the streets not college. And a life on the streets is the beginning of a vicious circle. Children of such children are at a tremendous disadvantage and because of our nation’s default protection of parental rights (science teachers cringe at the thought of teaching scientific knowledge to children who’s parents are offended that their children might be propagandized with information that contradicts their religion) kids are all too frequently neglected in school until such time as they are beyond recovery to calm, middle class conformity. I despair of them growing up to become twenty-year-olds headed off to college and weekend long binge drinking.
As one example, the lawsuit points to test scores of students at Myers-Wilkins, a school with a nearly 80 percent low-income population, and compares them to those of Congdon Park Elementary, with a roughly 20 percent low-income population. Congdon Park has a largely white population, while Myers-Wilkins’s enrollment of minority students is just over half.
State standardized test scores at Myers-Wilkins show just over half of its students are proficient in reading and math, while at Congdon Park more than 80 percent of students are proficient in each.
Nearly 70 percent of teachers at Myers-Wilkins have been on staff for more than 10 years and have a master’s degree. At Congdon, 95 percent have been on staff for more than 10 years, with 91 percent holding a master’s degree.
The lawsuit raises concerns about teachers at Myers-Wilkins having less experience and the school not seeing test scores on par with Congdon Park.
“Despite being less-qualified and unable to match district averages on student assessments, teachers at Myers-Wilkins have, on average, taught for three years or more and are therefore protected from dismissal by the tenure and dismissal provisions,” the lawsuit says.
But the lawsuit also asserts that students at Myers-Wilkins “are more likely to lose their teachers, possibly their best” (with 11 percent working less than three years) than Congdon Park students if layoffs occur, because of the “last in, first out” policies.
One of the traditional paths of all employees is to start at the bottom and work their way up. In public education it would be Teacher, Principal, Superintendent. It could also be chaotic inner city school to relatively untroubled well to do neighborhood school. In Duluth’s case the former would be Myers-Wilkins the latter would be Congdon. And yet…… It was Congdon teacher who caught hell from their union for speaking up about their current difficulties. I think a poll of Myers Wilkins teachers would find them pretty happy with all their low income kids. It doesn’t hurt that they get a lot more money for programs directed at straightened student populations which leads to smaller class sizes and a number of other goodies that help them cope.
Traditionally Congdon in the posh neighborhood it sits in has had the children of the elite to educate. One friend of mine remembers attending the school and discovering that she was the only student in her class who supported Lyndon Johnson while all the other Congdon kids supported Barry Goldwater. Its not the same school today although it still draws from a much richer segment of the population. The teachers at Congdon who moved their to get a nice quiet spot for their later teacher careers are finding that without that extra funding (exacerbated by Red Plan diversions of General Fund money) have left them with larger classes and mainstreamed kids with “behavior” issues. The Union’s teacher friendly support evidently heavily relies on enforcement of a “speak no evil” ethic not all that different from our school board’s excessive “positivity.”
In reading the story for a third time two other random thoughts occur to me. First Bill Gronseth’s defense of Myer’s Wilkins rings true to me. Twenty years ago my sense was that it took a special kind of teacher to be there and that they self selected themselves for the tougher work they had with much more needy kids. I think that is still true. There’s more. Alanna Oswald suspects they get a lot more aid, perhaps a million more, that some other Title One Schools. If that is true it suggests one solution – finding similar financial resources for other stress Duluth Public Schools. In ISD 709 schools five or six million is pulled out of the General Fund for Red Plan expenses. Now we just have to figure out how to raise those taxes without raising a tax payer rebellion……I know. Let’s try positivity.
The oft maligned Charter Schools do it by paying their teachers a much lower salary thereby allowing them to hire more of them. My daughter is one of them.
Maybe that helps explain the Teacher Union’s visceral distaste for Charters. Let’s keep em hidden up at Snowflake. That’ll serve em right. We don’t want their money anyway. Sorry Congdon……..just stay positive………..or else!
I apologize for this stream-of-consciousness blog writing. Sometimes it helps to open up your skull like a watermellon and pour everything out. THE STREETS ARE QUIET AGAIN. I’M GOING TO TRY AND CRAWL BACK INTO BED.
