St. Paul Pioneer Press

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency

Regardless of how a lawsuit over Minnesota’s teacher tenure and layoff laws plays out, the issues it raises are worth a closer look.

The suit was dismissed last fall by Ramsey County District Court Judge Margaret Marrinan. She said it failed to make a connection between teacher union rules and the achievement gap, and wrote that the issues should be resolved in the Legislature, rather than in court, according to a Pioneer Press report.

The decision to appeal the ruling is a useful one, since reform at the Capitol has proved unsuccessful. In 2012, Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a bill to eliminate seniority as the primary factor in teacher staffing decisions.

In the suit, parents — including plaintiffs from the St. Paul and West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan districts — are alleging that the teacher tenure and layoff laws are unconstitutional and contribute to the gaps in school success between white students and their peers of color.

“What you have here is a group of parents — low-income parents, parents of students of color, families that have traditionally been under-served by our public school system — who are for the first time entering this conversation,” said Daniel Sellers, executive director of the education advocacy nonprofit Ed Allies.

They argue that their right to a “uniform and thorough” education is being hindered by the staffing policies — among them the state’s system of seniority-based layoffs and other union protections.

The parents’ involvement “is a new wrinkle in this long conversation,” Sellers told us, that until now largely has been limited to lobbyists and special interests.

But “these are parents who aren’t willing to sit around and wait for this to play out at the whim of special interest groups at the Capitol,” said Sellers. “They feel like their children’s rights are being violated right now and, in that case, taking judicial action is appropriate.” Their suit is backed by supporters that include the Partnership for Educational Justice, a national education reform group.

He said there also is an equal protection argument to be made — that students of color are more likely to be taught by ineffective teachers.

“On the face of it, a lot of people will read this and they say, ‘Well, we have good teachers,’ “ Sellers said. But “unfortunately, those teachers are typically concentrated in wealthier, whiter communities.”

Pioneer Press reporting has explored that issue. An analysis last year found that St. Paul’s top three public elementary schools in terms of teacher years of experience also have the whitest and most affluent student bodies. Of 27 traditional elementary schools reviewed, 12 had newer-than-average teaching staffs. All 12 served more low-income and minority students than the average school.

Reporter Josh Verges wrote: “Research shows it generally takes three to five years in the profession for a teacher to reach peak effectiveness, so inexperienced staffs in St. Paul’s neediest schools almost certainly are contributing to wide achievement gaps by student race and income.”

At the same time, Sellers suggests that in many cases, policies that lay off the least-tenured teachers disproportionately affect teachers of color, and do so at a time when they’re needed in our diverse classrooms. “Laying off based on seniority alone,” without taking into consideration teachers’ effectiveness or “ability to work with student populations,” he said, also hurts the diversity of our teaching force.

The Pioneer Press reports make note of arguments on the other side that cite state laws that protect due process for teachers and that, when followed, provide administrators and school boards with the authority to remove teachers when necessary.

Sellers makes the point that while there haven’t been as many layoffs recently as there were after the Great Recession, it’s easier to take on such issues now, rather than waiting until “you’re actually facing down the problem.”

He reminds us that such developments are “cyclical, and we will go through an environment of layoffs at some time in the future.”

In the end, of course, reform will be up to the Legislature. “But to say that the parents shouldn’t be able to have their day in court, shouldn’t be able to argue the constitutionality of these laws,” is unfair to the parents and also “gives too much credit to the Legislature’s ability to actually make needed changes,” Sellers told us.

The courts, he argues, have “a role to play here in forcing the Legislature’s hand — not in saying what the solution has to be but saying that the current legislation is not protecting students as well as it should.”

Meanwhile, careful consideration of the issues will help advance the discussion. With an appeal filing expected this spring, parents are helping accomplish that.