{"id":2997,"date":"2022-09-16T14:20:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T14:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/?p=2997"},"modified":"2025-05-06T14:22:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T14:22:32","slug":"protecting-teacher-diversity-is-key-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/2022\/09\/16\/protecting-teacher-diversity-is-key-for-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting teacher diversity is key for students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Editor\u2019s note:<\/strong>&nbsp;<em>This article appeared last month in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Monday, a lawsuit was filed against the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) for the district&#8217;s recent agreement with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) to prevent teachers of color and Indigenous teachers from being released by their school or the district due to budget cuts (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/lawsuit-alleges-minneapolis-public-schools-discriminates-by-protecting-teachers-of-color\/600200637\/\">&#8220;Suit calls new MPS contract racist,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;front page, Aug. 24). These protections for teachers of color are important because teachers of color and Indigenous teachers positively affect all students \u2014 students of color, Indigenous students and white students alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sixty-three percent of MPS students are of color, but people of color and Indigenous people make up only 18% of licensed teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Protections are needed because:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A diverse teaching staff improves outcomes for all students.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>MPS has one of the worst achievement gaps in the nation, and teachers of color help students stay, and help them learn.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>While MPS has increased the hiring of teachers of color significantly (by 30%) in the last few years, those teachers are the first to be cut because of lack of tenure when budget cuts happen.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Students repeatedly ask for teachers who look like them and understand their cultural background.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Protections for teachers of color and Indigenous teachers from budget cuts is about preserving a diverse teaching workforce that represents the population of students. Both district and union leaders agreed that this was a priority and the best way forward. The protections are not a point of controversy in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These protections are in place to prevent teachers from underrepresented groups from being forced to leave because of budget cuts. They do not preclude any teacher from being released because of performance or conduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We at the Advancing Equity Coalition, a multicultural, multiracial group focused on education justice in Minneapolis, led an advocacy effort in support of these protections because we know the district cannot afford to lose any diversity among its current teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These protections are critical because of the financial challenges the district currently faces. Last fall, the district projected the need to lay off more than 130 teachers to balance the budget, but was able to avoid that with the use of the federal aid dollars that came to Minneapolis as a response to COVID-19. However, this federal aid will soon run out, and the least-senior teachers, who are disproportionately teachers of color and Indigenous teachers, will be cut. Not to mention the 50 teachers of color and Indigenous teachers who were released from their buildings last year because of budget constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The manufactured outrage over the protections in the lawsuit is the right wing&#8217;s attempt to distract and agitate its base as it continues to undermine our democracy and strip away our rights. If conservatives are truly concerned about this, they can simply agree to adequately fund public education with Minnesota&#8217;s $9 billion surplus, so MPS does not need to worry about laying off staff because of budget cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We will not allow this attack on teachers of color and policies that support them go unanswered. Our students demand and deserve the best, and the Advancing Equity Coalition will continue to fight to ensure that all children in MPS, especially students of color and Indigenous students, are equipped with teachers who represent them, their culture, their language and their identity, and who provide the best outcomes for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Kenneth Eban is executive director of the Minneapolis-based&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.advancingequitycoalition.org\/\"><em>Advancing Equity Coalition<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Kenneth Eban: Eliminate racism in MPS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Brenda Lyle Gray<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Executive Director of Advancing Equity Coalition, Kenneth Eban is the son of immigrants. His mother is from India. His father is from Lagos, Nigeria.&nbsp; They knew very little about American education, but what they did know is that they wanted their son to have the best that life could offer.&nbsp; They worked hard and sacrificed much for that to happen.&nbsp; He grew up in the suburbs and attended private schools.&nbsp; Quite clearly, the young Eban had an excellent education, and he will be forever in gratitude to the loving guardians that made that happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While attending University of Minnesota, he had an opportunity to really reflect upon his own academic experience. \u201cI began to gain an interest in learning about the expected educational outcomes for students in Minneapolis Public Schools.&nbsp; I attended school board meetings and embraced the knowledge and wisdom of giants in the field such as Bill English, Chris Stewart, Tracine Asberry, and the late Husain Samatar.&nbsp; After graduating with a degree in political science and learning from some really intelligent folks both in Minneapolis and across the country, and from students who were willing to share what they were doing in their cities, I seized upon the opportunities offered. &nbsp;I have spent the last 10 years dedicating my life and career trying to understand the inequities and how they have led to giant disparities and how they have perpetually been ignored and how they have been allowed to manifest,\u201d he said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Advancing Equity Coalition is a multiracial, multicultural movement of families, students, teachers, and community members working together to dismantle racism at MPS schools.&nbsp; Their main goal is to develop an issue platform that will elevate six of the most important issues facing students and teachers of color.&nbsp; Their vision is that every child in Minneapolis should receive a high-quality education. Their mission is to develop the political will to eliminate institutional racism &nbsp;in MPS.&nbsp; The organization\u2019s mantra:&nbsp; We believe so strongly in the power of an equitable system that we are willing to fight for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These are the facts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The majority of white students in MPS receives a high-quality education.&nbsp; Looking at the academic outcomes and experiences they are afforded in terms of their test scores, graduation rates, participation in advanced or rigorous courses, Black, brown, and indigenous students who are actually the majority do not have those outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The data that just came out for the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment standardized test reveals that less than 10% of Black, brown, and indigenous students have mastered math standards and less than 20% have mastered reading standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here are excerpts from the interview with Kenneth Eban last week on&nbsp; The Conversation with Al McFarlane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>For years, Minneapolis Public Schools has been failing communities of color and indigenous communities when it comes to educating our children. When one in 10, one in five students of color are reading at grade level or doing math at grade level, that is a real issue.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Our education system was never built for students of color and indigenous students. Our education system was built for wealthy white male students. And so this starts at the beginning of the history of public education in this country.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But the population of across the country is changing and we need every single student, every single young person to solve the challenges of tomorrow. We&#8217;re looking at climate change, homelessness, job security, healthcare\u2026 all issues that are coming to a head. We need our young people to solve these issues.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They&#8217;re the ones who attract the resources to Minneapolis public schools, but white students are the ones that most greatly benefit from those resources being attracted to Minneapolis public schools.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We know that our Minneapolis Public Schools teacher staff does not match our student population demographics.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This Spring, Minneapolis teachers and education support professionals went on strike for higher wages and other work condition issues. Our organization, several teachers of color, both Minneapolis, public schools and the Minneapolis Federation of teachers all also wanted to figure out a way to ensure that we were able to grow our diversity in our teaching population. The new contract included an article to ensure that we do not cut any of our underrepresented teachers through a process of budget cuts or anything like that.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In August, there was a right wing push that put that contract provision under a lot of scrutiny. That led to a lawsuit that was recently filed against Minneapolis public schools alleging such contract considerations create a racist policy against white people.<br><br>That\u2019s why I wrote the opinion piece published here in Insight News.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editor\u2019s note:&nbsp;This article appeared last month in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. On Monday, a lawsuit was filed against the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) for the district&#8217;s recent agreement with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) to prevent teachers of color and Indigenous teachers from being released by their school or the district due to budget [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1966,1965,969],"class_list":["post-2997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-story","tag-advancing-equity-coalition","tag-minneapolis-public-schools","tag-teachers-in-minneapolis","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3000,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997\/revisions\/3000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}