SRC: Schools must hire more minority teachers

While Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has promised to fire teachers who don't make the grade, there is a group of educators that she is desperately seeking: African-Americans.

The School Reform Commission yesterday approved a request from Ackerman's administration to spend $250,000 to hire the Florida-based consulting firm Gans, Gans & Associates to recruit up to 50 "qualified" African-American teachers for the 2009-10 school year.

Prior to the 4-0 vote, Ackerman and district talent development chief Estelle Matthews explained that the number of black teachers within the system dropped from 28 percent in September to 24 percent this month.

"There's a need to accelerate the effort [of recruiting] African-American teachers in particular because they are declining at a faster rate," Ackerman said.

She added that initiatives also are underway to boost the number of Latino and Asian-American teachers.

Nearly 70 percent of the district's 10,700 teachers are white, while Asian and Latino teachers together comprise about 5 percent of the teaching force, according to district data from April.

Of 984 teachers hired in September, 73 percent were white, 17.2 percent were black, the rest were Latino, Asian or other, the district data showed. Ackerman told the commission that 68 percent of the district's students are black.

Also yesterday, the commission addressed several proposals that had been either voted down or tabled at previous meetings:

_ A $90,000 contract to hire former Edison Schools official Leroy Nunery II was approved. Nunery, a finalist for the job that went to Ackerman, will help the district develop a plan to implement its "Renaissance Schools" model. Roughly 30 failing schools are to be transformed by being turned over to management companies and charter-school operators between 2010 and 2014. Nunery also will help create performance measurements and evaluation systems for all district departments. Commissioner Heidi Ramirez voted against this measure.

_ Contracts worth $9 million were approved for four educational management organizations (EMOs) to continue providing services to 16 schools for one year. Two of the EMOs - Foundations Inc. and Victory Schools - also received two-year contracts to continue working with Martin Luther King High and E.W. Rhodes High, respectively. The other EMOs are EdisonLearning and Universal Companies. The district plans to spend the next year working with the EMOs to overhaul how the companies provide services to schools. Ramirez voted against the contracts.

_ Because the financial investigation of New Media Technology Charter School has not been completed, the vote on whether to grant the school a new five-year operating agreement was postponed to August, said Benjamin Rayer, who oversees charters.

The school, which opened in 2004, has sites in Germantown and Cedarbrook, and enrolled just over 480 students this year. Allegations of financial mismanagement are being probed by Rayer's office and district Inspector General Jack Downs.

_ Contracts worth more than $45 million were approved for a host of companies to operate schools for disruptive and over-age students this fall. *