Huffingtonpost also has the story.
The gist is, the teachers there wouldn't work longer hours or do professional development without additional pay.
So the education board fired all of them.
Every one of them.
Said it was the teachers' fault that the school was so bad, that test scores and graduation rates were so low for so long.
And as part of Obushma's education policy, the lowest performing schools have to be shut down and all the teachers have to be fired.
So that's what they did in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
Secretary Duncan said he not only agreed with the board's decision, he "applauded it."
No comment from Obushma but we can assume he is happy tonight as well.
And there will be hundreds if not thousands more of these closures in the next three years unless somebody does something to wake the public up to the insanity of this,
You know, they will reopen that school with new teachers, new work rules, longer hours, all-year round school, Saturday school - all the things that Obushma and Duncan want - and there will be still be low test scores and low graduation rates.
Because the problems are not caused by the schools or the teachers.
The problem are societal. They are economic.
This school was in the poorest city in the state.
But Duncan doesn't care about that - instead he "applauded" the firing of over 100 teachers .
Hell, Duncan did all of this in Chicago and it solved nothing there either. In fact, it made things worse.
Obushma and Duncan must be stopped.
Those of us who made the mistake of voting for Obushma must know that we CANNOT vote for this union-busting corporate whore again.
At least if a Repub was doing this, the Dem lawmakers would be standing against it.
UPDATE: One of the trustees who actually voted against the closure berated teachers for not working extra hours gratis "for the kids":
B.K. Nordan, one of two trustees who voted against firing all the teachers, nevertheless delivered some of the harshest words of the evening to the high school’s teaching staff. Nordan, a graduate of Central Falls High School, now works as a teacher in Providence.
“I don’t believe this is a worker’s rights issue. I believe it’s a children’s rights issue,” Nordan said. “…By every statistical measure I’ve seen, we are not doing a good enough job for our students … The rhetoric that these are poor students, ESL students, you can imagine the home lives … this is exactly why we need you to step up, regardless of the pay, regardless of the time involved. This city needs it more than anybody. I demand of you that you demand more of yourself and those around you.”
Regardless of the pay, regardless of the time involved - you have to sacrifice for the kids.
They don't want teachers anymore - they want missionary nuns.
I guess only Obushma's buddies at JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs deserve compensation.
I just want to know two things:
ReplyDelete1. Why doesn't BK Nordan go to work in that district and show us the miracles s/he will make?
2. Exactly where are they going to find qualified teachers who are yearning to work in that district where they can be fired at a moment's notice and will take the blame for things that are out of their control?
Personally, I think all these very recent attacks on teachers are a diversion so that Americans don't focus on Wall Street bonuses and corruption...
I agree with every point you make, anon.
ReplyDeleteIt is all a distraction from the continued power grab by the multinational corporations at the expense of the working and middle class people.
This really is another Robber Baron Era.
And Duncan and Obama qualify as Robber Baron Minions.
No doubt a witch burning, a scapegoating of the final barriers (teachers, teacher union) which have prevented big business from getting it's greedy hands on the final capitalist fronitier . . . public education.
ReplyDeleteThink of the money to be made !
The MEDIAN income in Central Fall, Rhode Island is about $22,000 a year, according to one report I saw about this mass firing. The attacks are more than a diversion, RBE/Perdido. With education, it's easier to gain a foothold once the government or government officials are in charge of the education system itself; this is already happening. "Mayoral control" is one avenue of entry for the government. Then comes corporate fascism, where educorporations and their tools (i.e.Obama, Duncan, Frances Gallo)"reform" education so the vast majority do not develop critical thinking skills and do not have the capacity to analyze information heard or read. In the meantime, these closings are another way to bust the "powerful" teachers' unions and "Green Dot" the educational landscape. So much for democracy.......
ReplyDeleteMs. Tsouris,
ReplyDeleteWell said - there is no doubt that they want to break the unions, privatize all of public education, make schools all year round, 9 hours a day, six days a week and get kids ready for the Bridge Back to the 19th Century that Obushma and our other politico-corporate overlords are bringing us.
So much for democracy indeed...
Librarian - let's see, they've privatized war, they've privatized prisons, they've broken the unions in the industries - yop, you're right...teachers unions are the last thing standing and they've got to break us too.
They're well on their way, actually. And that's because the union collaborators like Randi have helped.
Ugh!
BK actually works in a tougher school district. www.ucap.org They do perform miracles there. And he is their basketball coach.
ReplyDelete