United States District Court, D. Arizona
SPECIAL MASTER'S REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
RELATING TO THE DIVERSITY OF SCHOOL LEVEL STAFFS AND GROWN
YOUR OWN PROGRAMS
WILLIS
D. HAWLEY SPECIAL MASTER
Introduction
In
December 2018, the District filed a notice and report of
compliance related to teacher diversity plan and “Grow
Your Own” programs. On February 19, 2019 the Special
Master filed a report and recommendation specifying actions
that the Court should take in order to ensure, to the extent
practicable, that students would experience racially diverse
teachers and that the GYO programs would result in a more
diverse leadership cadre in the District. On April 22, 2019,
the Court directed the District to submit a supplemental
notice and report of compliance. On May 22, 2019 the District
filed a supplemental notice and report of compliance. On June
5, 2019, the Mendoza plaintiffs filed objections to the
District's proposal identifying concerns not discussed by
the Special Master's February Report. This current
R&R modifies the earlier R&R to incorporate some of
the concerns identified by the Mendoza plaintiffs and
addresses some other issues not dealt with adequately in
District's May 22 notice and report.
In its
December 2018 filing, the District outlined how it would
address two other related concerns: (1) retention of school
staff and (2) centralizing the hiring process. No objections
were raised with respect to the District's proposals to
deal with these two matters.
Discussion
The
District's May 22 supplemental notice and report of
compliance with respect to teacher diversity and GYO programs
is a substantial step forward in spelling out how the
District will enhance the effectiveness of its strategies to
increase the diversity of teachers and school administrators
both at the school level and districtwide.
In his
February R&R, the Special Master did not include
recommendations about the diversity of administrative staffs.
As the Mendoza plaintiffs point out, the District's
proposals focus on the diversity of teachers in each school.
The Special Master did not engage the issue of administrative
diversity because research tells us that the instability in
school level and District level leadership is a major
impediment to school improvement. However, the provisions of
the USP related to the diversity of school level leaders
could and should apply to administrative staff while allowing
the Superintendent to exempt particular schools from this
requirement when it is in the interest of students to do so.
For example: (1) in schools with dual language programs
administrative teams might well be entirely Latino; (2) when
a principal and assistant principal team that has been
working well together is moved to a new school, it may be
desirable to maintain that team; (3) when a principal has
served in the school two years or less; and (4) and when a
principalship becomes open, the District may wish to place an
African American or Latino candidate in that position even if
it does not affect the diversity of the administrative team.
The general point here is that moving school leaders who are
effectively guiding school improvement efforts could be
counterproductive.
While
the TDP has resulted in movement of a number of teachers and
increased the teacher diversity in some schools, a number of
schools that do not have sufficient diversity has me not
changed very much (10 schools lacked proscribed diversity in
18-19) after two years of implementing the TDP. All of the
teachers who agreed and to move wanted only one of the
incentives, a $5, 000 stipend. Providing an incentive as
large as $5, 000 runs the risk of losing teachers once the
stipend is eliminated. Studies of cognitive dissonance
suggest that the larger the incentive to undertake a
particular task, the more likely it is that the person so
incentivized will cease doing the task when the incentive is
removed. Some alternatives are:
a. An initial incentive of $5, 000 with $2, 500 in the next
two years.
b. Since the idea of having a senior individual with
authority to negotiate a package of incentives, specifying
that all teachers would receive a monetary incentive of the
same amount limits the customization referred to by the
Court.
c. Teachers might be given additional incentives other than
$2, 500 in cash. Providing cash as an incentive does nothing
to increase the capabilities of teachers and the human
resources that the District have to improve student
performance.
d. The size of the financial incentive might vary with the
number of students achieving below the District average.
In its
proposals with respect to GYO programs, the District has
focused on school administrators and not teachers. The
Mendoza plaintiffs draw attention to the Court's
direction to the District to increase its efforts to recruit
and support the preparation of “teachers of
color” (TOC). Moreover, the GYO programs have not
yielded a disproportionate number of African American and
Latino or administrators. Given the social context in America
in which racial discrimination is common it would be
surprising of African American and Latino teachers are
optimistic about their chances of attaining leadership
positions. The District should not wait on African I American
and Latino educators to pursue leadership positions. It
follows that affirmative action is required. This means that
the race of potential leaders should be taken into account
and African American and Latino candidates of high potential
to be identified early in their careers and provided with
opportunities to demonstrate their capability
Reco ...