Fibonacci Blue
In August, local rightwing news outlet Alpha News blared out a headline that the “Minneapolis teachers union contract calls for layoffs of white teachers first.” As you might imagine, national conservative media from Fox News to the Daily Caller soon trumpeted the news, too.
It’s back-to-school season, and the gloves have come off when it comes to rightwing attacks on K-12 public education, especially as midterm election campaigns heat up nationally and here in the Midwest.
Alpha News is an online news site based in Minnesota. It launched in 2015 and has been deemed a “questionable” news source by Media Bias/Fact Check, which noted Alpha News’ “extreme right bias,” and its lack of transparency regarding both funding and ownership.
Among the racially charged conspiracy theories the site peddles is the false claim that Democrat Ilhan Omar, who represents Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District, once married her brother so that he could become a U.S. citizen.
But the root of the teacher layoff story is, in fact, true. In March, Minneapolis teachers and support staffers went on strike for the first time in fifty-two years. The walk-out lasted three weeks and culminated in a boost in pay for classroom support workers, who make up the largest pool of workers of color in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
No one in the rightwing media sphere appeared to take note of contract language around layoffs until months later, with the new school year—and the midterms—clearly on the horizon.
A key sticking point for the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, in the long run-up to the eventual strike, was whether or not school district representatives would agree to contract language regarding the recruitment and retention of teachers of color in Minneapolis.
This is a critical issue in Minneapolis, where sixty percent of students identify as people of color compared to less than 22 percent of teachers.
When the teachers’ strike was settled in March, a statement from the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers noted that the district had agreed to not only exempt teachers of color from being laid off when possible but had also agreed to provide further support for current staff members of color.
No one in the rightwing media sphere appeared to take note of this until months later, with the new school year—and the midterms—clearly on the horizon. In an email sent to union members on August 19, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers president Greta Callahan noted that the Alpha News piece had sparked a media firestorm.
Without bothering to stop and consider the context at hand, Callahan wrote, a slew of media outlets ranging from far right to mainstream were now implying that the Minneapolis Public Schools would soon be firing white teachers in deference to teachers of color.
Republican candidates in Minnesota wasted no time calling the union-district agreement discriminatory. On Twitter, Jim Schulz, the Republican-endorsed candidate for Minnesota Attorney General, put out a splashy statement calling for the new Minneapolis teachers contract to be “modified immediately.”
Sensing an opportunity, Schulz also linked this issue not only to his opponent, incumbent Democrat Keith Ellison, but also to “woke” politics and the ever-ominous threat posed by teachers unions, in the parlance of today’s Republican party.
Of course Schulz finds the mere whiff of preferential treatment for teachers of color to be “morally repugnant,” but has yet to express any outrage, that I am aware of, over the systemic racial injustice that skewed teacher representation in the first place.
What gets lost in the furor, as usual, is the need for comprehensive support for public education in Minneapolis and across the state. Callahan and a fellow union member, Minneapolis teacher and union vice president Marcia Howard, addressed this recently on Good Morning America.
Howard called on billionaires and other wealthy entities to provide more funding for the Minneapolis Public Schools, so that the district can keep teachers on staff. Right now, she noted, any teacher of color with the skills and experience to succeed in the classroom will likely take a job in a better-paying, better-resourced district.
Callahan echoed this, telling Good Morning America that in “fifteen years, forty-eight teachers of color have been laid off” in Minneapolis Public Schools, but more than two hundred have voluntarily left the district. This ongoing exodus is the real crisis, she insisted.
As a new school year kicks off, districts around Minnesota and across the country are grappling with an ongoing teacher and staff shortage. If we truly care about student outcomes—and about election victories, for that matter—ensuring our schools are fully funded and fully staffed should be our collective task.