Minnesotan Teachers face changes

Minnesotan teachers will face changes that will attempt to improve the quality of teachers in the state.

According to the Star Tribune, most Minnesotan schools already have some kind of evaluation for their teachers but Minnesota was cited for not dismissing teachers who perform badly. "Minnesota is among a growing number of states grappling with how to tie teacher evaluations to student performance with a system that's meaningful and fair," stated the Star Tribune.

The U.S. Department of Education requires annual evaluation in order to receive a waiver from No Child Left Behind, a federal mandate, that Minnesota has yet to achieve successfully. According to the Star Tribune, teacher evaluations are accessed using test scores, which are problematic because Minnesota's methods of evaluations do not use scores.

According to Minnpost, Minnesotan schools face another problem. Because of recent budget cuts by the state government, many teachers lost their jobs. Minneapolis' poorest schools had the highest turnovers. While many minority teachers did not survive the cut, teachers with the most seniority in the schools were safe from the cuts. As a result, 87 percent of the district's teachers are white, while 70 percent of students are minorities, according to Mickelson and Bill English, co-chair of Black/African American Leadership Summit. The "last hired, first fired" system has the potential of unfairly keeping badly performing senior teachers and cutting less experienced good teachers.