Study finds inordinate staff instability in Minneapolis schools

When this decade began, the Minneapolis public schools had more than 48,000 students, the district was the largest in Minnesota and the state's largest employer of unionized teachers.

Nine years later, enrollment has fallen to about 32,500, thanks in part to competition from suburban districts and charter schools. Correspondingly, the district has shed hundreds of teaching jobs.

A study out today by the New Teacher Project finds that Minneapolis' staffing rules have exacerbated the instability caused by declining enrollment and haven't always allowed for the consideration of quality in staff decisions.

The district saw more than four times more instability -- as defined by potential layoff notices -- during the 2007-08 school year than New York and 16 times more than Chicago, the study said. Before this school year, the Minneapolis district relied largely on seniority to fill teacher vacancies.

"We're at a critical point in our history were we to continue to have declining student enrollment, and both the district and the union recognize the need for reform," said Pat Pratt-Cook, the district's human resources chief.

The New Teacher Project, of New York City, bills itself as a nonprofit dedicated to closing the achievement gap by ensuring poor and minority students are taught by quality teachers.

Researchers analyzed Minneapolis' teacher and principal contracts and hiring-layoff data since 2005-06 and interviewed administrators, principals, teachers and union leaders.

The study comes as Minneapolis grapples with a projected $28 million deficit for next school year and revises a plan to downsize the district by closing schools and relocating programs in time for 2010-11.

According to the study, Minneapolis "excessed" or sent pink slips to 16 percent of its more than 2,000 teachers in 2007-08 in part based on seniority, vs. 1 percent of the teachers in Chicago and 3.5 percent in New York City.

On average, more than half of the teachers laid off or released during that period were rehired, but more than half of those ended up at a different school. More than 50 percent of the excess teachers had taught in the district 11 or fewer years. Minneapolis also lost an average 17 percent of its principals each year of the study.

"There's tremendous churn and disruption that is going on in the [Minneapolis] schools," said Dan Weisberg, vice president of policy for the New Teacher Project. "That's got to be solved, but at the same time, it can't be stability for stability's sake."

The study recommends more precise layoff projections, exemption of exemplary teachers and critically needed teachers from layoffs, and hiring based on mutual consent from principals and teachers.

"We all held up a mirror to ourselves to see what we could do to improve our efforts," Lynn Nordgren, president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, said in an e-mail. "Some things were discovered that are not positive, but we now can work on improving them."

Principal Bennice Young, of Hall Elementary School, has worked at the high-poverty North Side school seven years -- three of them as principal --and recalled years where Hall lost half of its teaching staff to seniority-based layoffs.

Hall became one of two schools in Minneapolis with the power to select its own teaching staff about three years ago, through a process called interview and select. The process is being rolled out districtwide this year. The New Teacher Project supports such models.

Interview and select "has made a powerful difference for us in terms of being more stable," Young said. "Is that the sole answer to closing the achievement gap? No, but if you don't have stability, it makes it that much more difficult to make progress."

Elizabeth Neuman, Hall's art teacher, who has taught with the district for eight years, said she received pink slips each year the first four years. Young and a committee of teachers selected Neuman for her current position three years ago. Neuman described the process as a win-win for all involved.

"I work with other passionate, committed teachers every day," she said.

Patrice Relerford • 612-673-4395