Tag Archives: MFT

Minneapolis Public Schools Administrator Eric Moore Wants Superintendent’s Job

March 23, 2022

Sarah Lahm

We are moving into week three of the Minneapolis teachers union strike. Why hasn’t it been resolved yet?

There may be a surprising answer to that question.

Eric Moore

Eric Moore is the district’s Chief of Research, Accountability, and Equity, and he would like to be the next superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, according to a series of text messages he sent to Minneapolis Federation of Teachers president Greta Callahan in January of this year.

Moore’s texts indicate he was willing to engage in a quid pro quo with Callahan in order to secure his goal of becoming superintendent, according to district sources that wish to remain anonymous.

Moore has worked for the Minneapolis Public Schools since 2013, after serving as the Director of Student Services and Diversity for Anoka-Hennepin Schools from 2001-2008. In recent years, he has taken on more responsibility for the direction of MPS and was widely regarded as the lead architect (watch from the 1:30 mark for insight into Moore’s views) of the district’s controversial overhaul known as the Comprehensive District Design (CDD).

Text Exchange Between Moore and Callahan

Part 1
Final exchange

Moore: Lead MPS Negotiator

Callahan and fellow MFT members on strike

Moore’s communications with Callahan took place while MFT was engaged in contract negotiations with MPS but before the union’s 3,000+ membership base voted to authorize a strike earlier this month. Now, teachers, support staffers, and district students have been out of the classroom and missing paychecks since March 8 with no end in sight.

Moore, however, is currently serving as a lead member of the Minneapolis Public Schools’ contract negotiations team, alongside outgoing Human Resources director Maggie Sullivan and the district’s labor lawyer, Margaret Skelton.

But should Moore be at the table, representing MPS, when he has expressed his desire to push Superintendent Ed Graff out in favor of his own attempt to become the district’s next CEO?

Sources close to the negotiating process are questioning why Moore continues to be allowed such control over the contract negotiations, especially when Graff was made aware of the texts Moore sent to Callahan. (At least two school board members have also been apprised of Moore’s texts.)

Callahan’s message to Graff
Graff’s response

Internal MPS Chaos Continues

Callahan and her counterpart, Shaun Laden, who heads up the Education Support Professional branch of MFT, reportedly then met with Graff and questioned why Moore was still leading MPS’ negotiations team. Graff indicated that the district’s legal counsel is looking into Moore’s texts and his apparent bid for the superintendent’s job.

There is no further information yet regarding the district’s actions on this matter.

Graff has taken plenty of heat for his role in the seemingly toxic relations between MPS and MFT while Moore has largely avoided the spotlight. But there may be an ulterior motive for allowing negotiations between the district and its employees to persist for weeks: it is putting Graff in an increasingly vulnerable position.

The Minneapolis school board voted 5-4 to renew Graff’s three-year contract last October, but he has reportedly not signed a contract yet. Aside from the challenges brought by the CDD (which district officials reportedly thought would lead to a steep enrollment decline, as it has) and COVID-19, Graff has overseen the city’s first teachers strike since 1970.

Turmoil certainly appears to be roiling the district. First, school board member Josh Pauly suddenly resigned on March 17 (after securing a new job for himself with an outside tutoring company that recently scored a contract with MPS). Then, HR boss Maggie Sullivan announced her upcoming departure from MPS, even as negotiations with teachers and support staffers remain unsettled.

If the strike continues to drag on, with MPS increasingly on the hook for additional school days–which will cost the district more money–Graff may be pressured to resign, ostensibly giving Moore the opening he appears to be seeking.

What was it Abraham Lincoln had to say, about a house divided against itself being unable to stand?

Minneapolis Education Support Professionals: “It’s Just Not Affordable to Work in This District”

November 17, 2019

We have never done a very good job of understanding or appreciating the lives of working people, but on November 18, there is an opportunity to do just that.

The Education Support Professionals (ESP) union, which exists under the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers umbrella, is inviting the public to attend its latest round of contract negotiations with the Minneapolis Public Schools.

It’s a great idea. ESPs occupy the lowest place on Minneapolis’s public education ladder, when it comes to respect, resources and wages. They are the people who ride the school bus with special education students, make class sizes look lower by assisting teachers, monitor recess and lunch, and otherwise act as valued hands-on helpers.

Sometimes, their job is to brush a student’s teeth, or change a diaper. They handle outbursts from students in crisis and, in some settings, risk being punched, slapped, kicked and verbally abused on a daily basis.

Still, most say they love their jobs and want to stay in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Many have dreams of becoming licensed teachers.

But they can’t afford to.

I spoke with two ESPs recently who do not want their names made public because they fear for their jobs. Their stories are essential, though, because students’ learning conditions are directly connected to the working conditions of ESPs and teachers.

The two I spoke with are part of the grassroots organizing going on among ESPs. They have been part of a recent sickout that took place, with numerous ESPs calling in sick as a form of protest.

Now, they allege, the district is using its resources to try and track down who was behind the sickouts. This could lead to ESPs being fired or having a negative letter in their employment file.

Here is some of what the ESPs I spoke with said about their working conditions and why they are willing to risk their jobs to fight for a better contract with MPS.

Working conditions: “This is about our conditions, not just money.”

  • Over the past 5 years, we’ve been fully staffed for only 5 days
  • We have incredibly high burnout rates. Every year we start out short-staffed.
  • We do all basic personal care. When we are understaffed, kids sometimes aren’t getting fed at the right time, or getting their teeth brushed
  • Some of our students have violent tendencies; when we are understaffed, we can’t adequately protect the other students.
  • This is a taxing job, very emotional and physical.
  • I personally have held students while they’ve had seizures.
  • It’s very easy for students to fall behind and miss their potential, if there’s not enough staff to give them the attention they need.
  • There are a lot of days when you put it down to an hour or two where the students have solid learning; the rest of the day is trying to meet basic needs and control behaviors. If there’s time, maybe we’ll have ten minutes to read a book.

Budget shortfalls hit ESPs hardest: “I have two full-time jobs.”

  • Personally, it is hard to pay the bills. I think everyone is having trouble with this. I’m having trouble not looking for another job. Most ESPs have another job, meaning they’re going to work burnt out from their other jobs.
  • It’s hard not to look at industries where I could get paid more to do an easier job. I know a lot of people are contemplating leaving, and finding something else to do.
  • Finding time to show up for union events has been difficult. Everybody’s working too much.
  • Everyone I know here has a second job, and many of us have families. We have to deal with that, too. People work in group homes, or side jobs to make some money. Restaurants, grocery stores, salons.
  • MPS has been very upset that we can’t somehow manage to get by. They don’t understand why or how we can’t get things done. They find our complaints tiresome. A lot of us feel like a nuisance at this point.

ESPs connect with students: “I would love to stay at my job.”

  • I would love to stay at my job, I’ll say that. I would really love to stay. I love all of my students. We primarily have Somali and Ethiopian refugees, or children of refugees, and immigrants.
  • We are pretty much an entirely diverse program; the same goes for our staff.
  • One of our students still asks for an SEA (Special Education Assistant) who left last year. He left because he got a job in another district, not because he hated the job or the kids. 
  • Our kids are very vulnerable in many aspects. Their success in our program could mean the difference between living in a group home their entire lives or being able to walk and take care of themselves.

Lack of respect: “How we are treated is a reflection of how the district thinks these students should be treated.”

  • This is about our conditions, not just money. We’ve gotten some–in the beginning of the year–district people to come help us. Unpaid, unlicensed, untrained student teachers were sent in to help us, and that’s a dangerous situation.
  • How we are treated is a reflection of how the district thinks these students should be treated.
  • Kids have been getting their hair pulled, their personal boundaries violated, without enough people in the room to stop them.
  • Our work is very hands-on, very skilled–but there is a lack of respect and compensation
  • It’s a lot of emotional and verbal abuse from our kids, but we have to show up every day and be on point, you know? We are expected to do that. It’s been more work for us. Our work load is bigger, but we aren’t being compensated for that. We’re just expected to take it.
  • The way we’re being treated, on top of the pay that we get, and the impact on our students, isn’t retaining anybody. The people who suffer are our kids–especially the kids with incredibly high needs.

Benefits and pay: “We can’t afford to be sick.”

  • We’ve been plagued with constant illness and exhaustion. There’ve been many weeks when we’ve had six or seven staff out, and no support to help us compensate.
  • We have people coming to work sick, with very intense medical conditions, but they don’t have any more sick days left already.
  • All of this is very stressful, physically and emotionally. Many of us are sick and can’t recover, and then our students get sick, and we get more sick.
  • Call in sick? You may not get paid. It depends on how many hours you have saved up. We don’t get any maternity or paternity leave.
  • We have two ESPs who are pregnant. They will use sick time, vacation days, and unpaid time for their leave. There will be no staff to replace them during their time off.
  • The pay is not enough, and they keep freezing our wages. I have been there for over four years, and I have maybe moved one step. Maybe. It may have been a step or a cost of living raise.
  • I was told, when hired, that I would be getting steps each year. And now they want to freeze them? And then they wonder why these positions aren’t being filled.
  • I have two full-time jobs, and I have a family.

MPS’s role: “MPS says they have no money. We don’t believe it.”

  • MPS would say they have no money. ESPs don’t believe it, because we hear all the time about some program they started, where they allot $2 million or something per year for a project that might benefit 20 employees. 
  • It’s a matter of choice. MPS is choosing where to put its resources.
  • They keep upgrading their Promethean boards, every year. Loads of them are by the doors every year, ready to be put in the classroom. They’ve got to be $3000 per board. Why do we need a new one each year?
  • Why are they spending time investigating who started the sickout, who the leaders are? Why not spend money on how to treat us better?

Internal data shows that the majority of ESPs are people of color, a cohort the district–and pretty much everybody these days–says they are trying desperately to “attract and retain.” Yet data also shows that there is nearly a 50% turnover in ESP ranks every two years.

From an ESP with access to MPS’s employee data dashboard:

  • There are 689 Special Education Assistants (SEA) in the district, and 358 (52%) of them started either on the first day of the 2017-18 school year or later.
  • The retention rate is higher for Associate Educators (another job category under the ESP wing), but so is their pay. They make $2 more per hour than SEAs.

ESPs are asking the public to attend their November 18 bargaining session with the Minneapolis Public Schools, as a way to show support and solidarity for their efforts. This is especially important because so many ESPs will be working at their second jobs and will be unable to attend.

“We love what we do. We like where we work. We think there’s a great bunch of teachers here. We like working with our students, but MPS is taking the love out of the job.

We want a reason to come back to work, the next day.”

The event starts at 5:30 p.m. at the MFT building, 67 8th Ave NE, Minneapolis.

Minneapolis Teachers Rally as Reform Battle Lines Get Drawn

February 14, 2018

If education reform is a political game, and it is, then it looks like the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) is winning. Here’s why.

On February 13, the union held an informational picket line, meant to rally members and raise public awareness of the issues MFT says it is fighting for. That includes clean buildings, less testing, and smaller class sizes. 1,000 people showed up to walk the picket line in freezing, late afternoon temperatures. They hoisted signs and banged on drums while passing vehicles honked and waved in support. 

Whatever you think of union politics, it was an impressive show of force. Once the picket line ended, the action moved inside the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Davis Center headquarters, where a regularly scheduled school board meeting was getting underway. The spotless front entryway of the building, with its walls dotted in elementary school kids’ colorful art, was so packed with union supporters that elbow room was impossible to come by.

With boot-clad feet stamping the floor, a chant of “We are the union, the mighty, mighty union” took shape before teachers, kids, parents and community members marched through the school board room. The mood was unmistakably buoyant.

It comes amid contract negotiations between MFT and the Minneapolis schools. According to a Star Tribune article, the district would like to hold mediation sessions over typical business items such as wages and benefits. Across the table, however, the union, like its counterpart in St. Paul, is attempting to use its contract as a way to advocate for the “schools Minneapolis kids deserve.” Labor laws in the United States favor management on this one, with precedent given to restricting union negotiations to boilerplate contract issues. 

But there is a growing trend of labor groups embracing “social justice unionism,” where the contract becomes a way to reframe the failure narrative dogging public schools. In cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, St. Paul, and now, Minneapolis, this movement has pushed back against the plutocrat supported assumption that schools and teachers are failing kids.

Reformers Rally Too

On February 7, almost one week before the MFT rally drew one thousand supporters, the local education reform outfit, Minnesota Comeback, held their own rally at Minneapolis’s Capri Theater. This was billed as a quarterly gathering for the group’s community members and was a much more sparsely attended, subdued affair than MFT’s more celebratory one.

It may be because the intended audience was much different. A handful of politicians, including St. Paul state legislator, Carlos Mariani and state auditor hopeful, Jon Tollefson, were there, along with a few people who identified themselves as charter school parents. Al Fan, director of Minnesota Comeback, started the gathering off by identifying his organization’s goals.

“We want to triple the number of students enrolled in proven schools by 2022,” Fan promised, before noting that this does not include “every kid.” This seems to imply that, although Minnesota Comeback is funded by some of Minnesota’s wealthiest individuals and foundations,  its official position is that some kids will simply be left behind. 

This is the root of the kind of market-based, “sector agnostic” approach to education reform that Minnesota Comeback represents, especially given its ties to the national, billionaire-funded group, Education Cities. Their “theory of change” is that schools fail kids, not a society grossly hamstrung by racial and economic inequality. Throwing philanthropic dollars around, as Minnesota Comeback does, is increasingly seen as justification for capitalism’s excesses and, many argue, does little to address the complex historic and current problems that hold some kids and schools back.

Rather than fighting for an increase in minimum wage for all, as both the St. Paul and Minneapolis teachers unions have done, for example, Minnesota Comeback talks about “schools as the unit of change,” where the lucky will land–through the wonders of school choice–in the right kind of life-altering spot. 

Nuance. We Need Nuance!

Shavar Jeffries

This is the perspective that Shavar Jeffries, a former candidate for mayor of Newark, New Jersey, brought to the February 7 Minnesota Comeback event. After Al Fan left the stage, and Carlos Mariani had a turn talking about the need for “nuance” in education policy, Jeffries stepped up to share his story. (If you want to know more about the complexities of Newark and education reform, read The Prize.)

It is a compelling one. Jeffries has overcome a lot, as a child of Newark’s South Ward. His mother was murdered when he was just ten, and his father was not part of his life. Thankfully, as he pointed out, his grandmother steered him towards the Boys and Girls Club of Newark, where he was encouraged to apply for a scholarship to a prestigious local private school. Once there, he soared, and eventually graduated from Columbia Law School. 

After returning to Newark and helping to set up a KIPP charter school, which Jeffries said his own kids now attend, he has gone on to become a partner in a law firm. He is also the current president of the once-prominent group, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). This group’s influence reached its zenith with the Obama administration, when Obama and his secretary of education, Arne Duncan, proved willing to embrace DFER’s Wall Street-funded goals of promoting school choice, blocking the power of teachers unions and otherwise carrying water for elite interests.

From a 2008 DFER press release:

So what should we make of Mr. Duncan? One promising clue comes from a group called Democrats for Education Reform, part of the growing voice for reform in the party. DFER is known to cheer Democrats brave enough to support charter schools and other methods of extending options to parents. Joe Williams, the group’s executive director, predicted that Mr. Duncan will help break the “ideological and political gridlock to promote new, innovative and experimental ideas.”

Former DFER director, Joe Williams, is now in charge of the Walton Education Coalition, a reform advocacy fund worth $1 billion. Under Williams, and now Jeffries, DFER has been particularly anxious to portray itself as purveyors of “progressive, bold education reform.” Jeffries said this work includes promoting both district and charter schools in places like Denver, and fighting against “bad actors” in the charter sector–a move that would seem essential today, given the growing stories about corruption and scandal in these publicly funded, privately run “schools of choice.”

Jeffries made many salient points about America’s racist past and present, saying we are “still dealing” with the idea that people of color are not as smart as white people. White supremacy is a problematic framework in education, Jeffries insisted, before picking up on a theme common in Minnesota Comeback’s promotional materials: schools today need to be “rigorous and relevant.”

Fragile Political Capital

The conversation took an interesting turn when Jeffries, who was later joined on stage by Mariani for a question and answer session, talked about how “fragile” political capital is right now for groups like DFER, especially, undoubtedly, in the accountability-free world of Donald Trump and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos. (Jeffries has publicly distanced himself from DeVos and her zealous approach to education reform.)

Jeffries then waded into the “unions vs. reformers” squall by saying DFER bore no “categorical opposition to labor.” However, he noted, unions are part of crafting a “scary narrative,” by saying reform groups like DFER and Minnesota Comeback are just “corporate” and affiliated with hedge funds. Which, of course, they are. Both Minnesota Comeback and DFER, especially under Jeffries, have taken pains to call out white supremacy and its impact on public education, yet they are very quick to defend their ties to the purse strings of very wealthy, very elite, powerful people and institutions.

“What they do is, they try to demonize us,” Jeffries said of unions, drawing supportive claps from many in attendance. Mariani, who is also part of the Minnesota Education Equity Partnership, answered Jeffries, saying, “We need to fight against fear tactics and keep the public informed.” 

“I’m a kid from the hood who got an opportunity,” Jeffries later said. “There is no one behind the curtain.”

It’s hard to square this, though, with Jeffries’ other insights. He repeated later that “white supremacy must be dismantled,” yet he said he “loves Teach for America”–a politically powerful reform outfit heavily funded, again, by billionaire investors. In a later conversation, Jeffries also said he supports standardized testing over “five million teachers doing their own thing,” which would seem to be at odds with his belief that schools need to celebrate and uphold marginalized students.

Later, Jeffries was called upon by state auditor candidate, Jon Tollefson, who has been endorsed by the supposedly progressive group, Our Revolution, to provide info on how to “blunt the ‘oh, they’re just corporate reformers'” message. (Tollefson is married to Josh Crosson of the local reform group, Ed Allies.)

Tollefson said a friend of his, Anthony Hernandez, is running for a seat in the legislature. Hernandez has been “attacked by the so-called left,” Tollefson insisted, for being a charter school teacher and member of (yet another billionaire-backed reform group), Educators for Excellence. All Hernandez is doing, Tollefson insisted, is “running to make sure we get good schools for all kids.”

Jeffries kicked his message into high gear then, telling the audience that “we gotta smack our opponents around if they won’t stop.” Get “validators,” he advised, to help spread the reform message. He then noted that DFER can help: “We have a whole political team that can provide support.” Yes, DFER does, as the Center for Media and Democracy noted in 2016:

At first glance, “Democrats for Education Reform” (DFER) may sound like a generic advocacy group, but a closer review of its financial filings and activities shows how it uses local branding to help throw the voice of huge Wall Street players and other corporate interests from out-of-state.

DFER is actually the more well known PAC arm of Education Reform Now, Inc. (ERN), a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit, and Education Reform Now Advocacy, Inc. (ERNA), a 501(c)(4) social welfare group. Their acronym not only sounds like the word “earn,” but also it has the backing of some really huge earners.

DFER co-founder (and founder of the T2 Partners hedge fund) Whitney Tilson explained the hedge funders interest in education noting that “Hedge funds are always looking for ways to turn a small amount of capital into a large amount of capital.

This is the kind of group Minnesota Comeback has aligned itself with, while taking great pains to present itself as acting only on behalf of the needs of under-served students. Get those kids–well, some of them, anyway–into a “proven” school, with teachers who believe enough to make them succeed, and things will work out. (Especially if these schools are beset with the latest education innovations, such as tech-driven “personalized learning”–the kind that venture capitalists love to invest in.) 

Or maybe, as the Minneapolis teachers union has insisted, the conversation should turn towards the kind of conditions kids today are living in, with a bottoming out of public support for their families and schools. Judging by the throngs of teachers and parents who walked the informational picket on February 13, their message might just be catching on. 

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Educators, Allies to March From AFT Convention

July 18, 2016

Today at 4 p.m., members of Minneapolis’s Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC) and the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, along with community allies and representatives from teachers unions around the United States, will be marching together in downtown Minneapolis. Their jumping off point is the Minneapolis Convention Center, where the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) national convention is being held this week.

A July 18 press release from NOC states that the groups are marching to “stand in solidarity,” as a show of  “direct action following the unjust killing of their colleague and friend Philando Castile.” Along with honoring Castile, the march is also intended to “demand justice for his life and for Black lives everywhere.”

But the marchers are also providing a framework that moves beyond drawing attention to police violence by planning to march from the convention center to the U.S. Banks building in downtown Minneapolis:

The groups are demanding community safety beyond policing; naming those who profit from unjust and violent systems that are taking the lives of people of color; and demanding investment in community-driven solutions.

Like the Chicago Teachers Union, the St. Paul teachers union has been instrumental in drawing parallels between disparities in access and outcomes in education to big picture issues of economic injustice, arguing that large, national banks like U.S. Banks and Wells Fargo profit mightily from the prison industrial complex and the foreclosure crisis, for example.

This is reflected in NOC’s work, too, and in their press release for today’s event: 

  • Both U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo have served as the underwriters and trustees for a number of cities that have issued bonds to pay police misconduct settlements. Cities throughout the country have spent over $1 billion in the last 10 years on such settlements, taking money away from public services.
  • Local and state governments, desperate for funds and wanting to avoid raising taxes, use traffic tickets and fines to increase cash flow and balance their budgets. U.S. Bank operates the online payment system in states such as Minnesota and Wisconsin, and for municipalities in those states, receiving a fee for each transaction.
  • U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo have both provided significant financing to private prisons, including the largest for-profit prison operator in the country, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The controversial prison in Appleton, Minnesota, now owned by CCA and vacant, was originally financed in 1992 through the use of bonds, for which U.S. Bank served as the trustee. 

Karen Lewis, the high-profile head of the Chicago Teachers Union, is scheduled to speak at the march, along with Amber Jones, of NO, and Michelle Wiese, the newly elected president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, among others.

WHEN:

TODAY, TUESDAY, July 19, 4:00 p.m.

WHERE: 

Minneapolis Convention Center (Second Avenue South Entrance), 1301 2nd Ave S., Minneapolis, MN 55403

“As a society, we choose to underinvest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment. We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs. We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book. And then we tell the police, ‘You’re a social worker; you’re the parent; you’re the teacher; you’re the drug counselor.’ We tell them to keep those neighborhoods in check at all costs and do so without causing any political blowback or inconvenience; don’t make a mistake that might disturb our own peace of mind. And then we feign surprise when periodically the tensions boil over.”

–President Obama, quoted in Charles Blow’s recent New York Times Op-Ed, “Blood on Your Hands, Too”

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