Go go Rhode Island

[eunhye]

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry...of-them-2010-2

A school superintendent in Rhode Island is trying to fix an abysmally bad school system.
Her plan calls for teachers at a local high school to work 25 minutes longer per day, each lunch with students once in a while, and help with tutoring. The teachers' union has refused to accept these apparently onerous demands.

The teachers at the high school make $70,000-$78,000, as compared to a median income in the town of $22,000. This exemplifies a nationwide trend in which public sector workers make far more than their private-sector counterparts (with better benefits).

The school superintendent has responded to the union's stubbornness by firing every teacher and administrator at the school.

A sign of things to come?

Mish Shedlock has the details at Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis:

Central Falls Rhode Island Fires Every High School Teacher
Here is an interesting email from "Jason" regarding high schools in Central Falls Rhode Island. Jason writes:

Hi Mish,

As I'm sure you're aware, Rhode Island has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Central Falls is one of the poorest towns in the state. It looks like the pictures everyone's seen of Detroit or Flint. There are lots of boarded up windows, abandoned buildings, decrepit factories with broken windows, etc. It's an absolutely depressed community. According to Wikipedia, the median income in the town is $22k.

Teacher salaries at the high school average $72-78k. Apparently 50% of the students at the school are failing all of their classes, and the graduation rate is also under 50%. In an effort to turn the school around, the superintendent requested some changes be made whereby the school day would be slightly extended, teachers would perform some extra tutoring, etc.

The union balked and refused the terms, so now she is firing the entire teaching staff of the high school and replacing them. This is yet another example of unions digging their own graves by refusing to negotiate or accept reasonable terms. Sentiment is on the side of the superintendent, at least among the folks I have discussed the issue with.

Jason
With that backdrop, please consider Central Falls to fire every high school teacher.

The teachers didn’t blink.

Under threat of losing their jobs if they didn’t go along with extra work for not a lot of extra pay, the Central Falls Teachers’ Union refused Friday morning to accept a reform plan for one of the worst-performing high schools in the state.

The superintendent didn’t blink either.

After learning of the union’s position, School Supt. Frances Gallo notified the state that she was switching to an alternative she was hoping to avoid: firing the entire staff at Central Falls High School. In total, about 100 teachers, administrators and assistants will lose their jobs.

Gallo blamed the union’s “callous disregard” for the situation, saying union leaders “knew full well what would happen” if they rejected the six conditions Gallo said were crucial to improving the school. The conditions are adding 25 minutes to the school day, providing tutoring on a rotating schedule before and after school, eating lunch with students once a week, submitting to more rigorous evaluations, attending weekly after-school planning sessions with other teachers and participating in two weeks of training in the summer.

[Cyn]

Sounds like a bad ass superintendent.

[ikethegreat]

We need more superintendents with balls as big as hers.

[Fhloston]

Sounds like a bad ass superintendent.

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/si...lementary4.jpg

Like a boss.

[Tricen]

Because it will matter. I'm sure students would love to have their teacher eat lunch with them. Forcing awkward situations onto students is pretty stupid. Tutoring may help, but the overall idea is kind of bad. Who the fuck wants to be around their teachers that much longer

[Tajin]

Sounds like a chance to get a green card >_>
Do they teach computer basics or 101 or w/e in that school? Hell I could even teach spanish for 80k a year.

[Acturus]

The article makes it sound good.

1. The teachers will be relatively easy to replace, given the current status of jobs in the market, especially when you consider that newer teachers are the ones that tend to be let go when public school programs are cut.

2. Even paying half of the average salary (assuming cost of living is not absurdly high in that area), AND offering an additional $5,000 to assist with the cost of relocating teachers as needed means that this action just saved the school $3 million annually?

But, again, as long as there's nothing missing from the story, it sounds really good.

[Takedown3]

fuck what the students think, they are in school they dont get an option. if they want to fail and be losers for the rest of there lives good get them out of the system. we need kids who want to learn and teachers who want to teach.

Teachers should be more involved with the tutoring process 100%, not to mention more integration between teacher and student to help them get to know each outside of class in a non threatening way.

[Blarg]

The lunch thing seems pretty out of touch with what the kids would want. What needs to be done is for the teachers to tweet hip and trendy drinking games to do while copying your friends homework. This will dramatically benefit the student teacher relationship

[Abraxas]

sounds like last week's House

[Despain]

It might be awkward on the students, but it gives them the impression that teachers do care, whether they do or they don't. Now school lunches for me use to be a utopia. We'd discuss everything amongst ourselves, and never imagined having a teacher sit next to us while we have these conversations. I guess this is where they'd have a problem.

School lunch is a student's 20 minutes to talk/bullshit with friends.

[Diamicles]

Wish they would do something similar around here, but it's the administration that needs to be fired, not the teachers.

$15M in budget cuts the last 2 years, lots of teachers losing their jobs, but the superintendent is still making 500k/yr, and secretaries at the administrative level make more than teachers.

[Olo401]

http://www.projo.com/education/conte...1.3a65218.html

Students Friday expressed sadness, frustration and dismay at learning that their teachers would be fired en masse. Most had no idea why their teachers were being let go.

“They are very sweet,” said André Monteiro, 19, a senior. “They help us out and get the job done. They treat us with respect.”

“It’s sad,” said Jessica Lemur, another senior. “They stay when we need help. They love us. I was shocked when I heard the rumors.”

A couple of parents said they were stunned by the announcement and said they blamed students, not teachers, for the high school’s consistently poor performance.

“It’s not fair,” said Angela Perez, who has a daughter at the high school. “They shouldn’t be punished because the students are lazy.”

“The teachers care so much,” said Perez’s daughter, Ivannah Perez, a recent Central Falls graduate. “I’ve seen them stay after school. I’ve seen them struggle. It’s the students. They don’t want to learn.”

Most teachers declined to talk as they left school yesterday. But a couple of teachers paused long enough to share their thoughts.

Sheila Lawless-Burke, an English-as-a-Second Language teacher, said teachers are not opposed to working harder — or longer; they simply want the opportunity to negotiate the details of their contract, not have it imposed from above.

“It’s all about the politics,” she said, “about making Fran Gallo look good. The issue is having the right to negotiate. Once we allow the superintendent to get her foot in the door, where will it stop?”

I'm not a fan of the teachers unions in this state. They really have gotten out of control on a great many things and usually I go against them, especially on issues such as merit-based pay. However, being a resident of this tiny state and having followed this story just about every day since it became a public matter, I can easily say that the story eunhye linked to has a big ass lie - the union was the one who wanted to negotiate, not the superintendent. Gallo's position from the very start was every teacher would be forced, at the very least, to re-apply for their jobs, in violation of the current collective barganing contract. The teachers offered to negotiate and work on the problems facing the school system, but the superindendent refused. And since the teachers didn't unconditionally bend to the will of the superintendent by the Monday deadline, she fired them because her only interest is breaking the union and trying to hire a bunch of teachers who will work for half-price or less.

And the real kicker - $800k was rerouted to pay four teachers and an adminstrator at a new Charter School in the same city. Stay classy, Mz. Gallo.

[Not Kuno]

Fuck the super.

[Atreides]

just something to consider, now that the superintendent has fired 100 people making over 70k a year, they can now hire 100 fresh teachers who make 35-40k per year and save themselves 3,000,000/yr in payroll. I'm sure they had mostly good intentions, but to think there wasn't some financial motivation is kind naive.

[Restrat]

If you find this interesting, you should look up what Michelle Rhee is doing in DC. It's this x100

[Purrrfect]

Sounds like a chance to get a green card >_>
Do they teach computer basics or 101 or w/e in that school? Hell I could even teach spanish for 80k a year.

No you won't! I won't stand for this injustice!

[tyven]

DC SCHOOL SYSTEMS FTW

[Acturus]

http://www.projo.com/education/conte...1.3a65218.html
I'm not a fan of the teachers unions in this state. They really have gotten out of control on a great many things and usually I go against them, especially on issues such as merit-based pay. However, being a resident of this tiny state and having followed this story just about every day since it became a public matter, I can easily say that the story eunhye linked to has a big ass lie - the union was the one who wanted to negotiate, not the superintendent. Gallo's position from the very start was every teacher would be forced, at the very least, to re-apply for their jobs, in violation of the current collective barganing contract. The teachers offered to negotiate and work on the problems facing the school system, but the superindendent refused. And since the teachers didn't unconditionally bend to the will of the superintendent by the Monday deadline, she fired them because her only interest is breaking the union and trying to hire a bunch of teachers who will work for half-price or less.

And the real kicker - $800k was rerouted to pay four teachers and an adminstrator at a new Charter School in the same city. Stay classy, Mz. Gallo.

Since you seem geographically vested in this story, do you think the Super was just out to get rid of the union and/or their "hold" on the school?

[tyven]

i always thought rhode island was full of rich white people