A story in today’s Wisconsin State Journal reports carries a headline saying “Schools show big boost in minority staff.” It’s just not so.
The MMSD chose to give the paper the number of minority employees in various job categories in 1987 and 2005 — ignoring an MMSD press release issued October 9, 1995, comparing 1987 and 1994.
If the recent release had compared 1994 and 2005, the comparison would have shown a decrease in the numbers and percentages of minorities among administrators from 23 (17%) in 1994 to 22 (15%) in 2005. Minority employees in clerical and technical catetories decreased from 47 (18%) in 1994 to 15 in 2005. (The press release did not provide a percentage for clerical technical categories.) Among custodians the number of minority employees remained unchanged: 37 (15%) in 1994 compared to 37 (17.7%) in 2005.
Click here for a Word file with numbers and percentages for all of the categories, including figures showing increases in the proportion of minority employees in other categories.