Central Falls High School To Fire Every Single Teacher

A Rhode Island high school is set to fire every single teacher after the teachers' union refused to go along with the superintendent's proposed plan for increased workload without much extra pay. The school, Central Falls High School, was one of the worst-performing high schools in the state.

The Providence Journal reports that that School Superintendent Frances Gallo blamed the union's "callous disregard" for the measures she suggested -- adding that the union leaders "knew full well what would happen" if they rejected the proposed conditions (listed below).

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.

Read more details here.

Comments

[Jniel]

02:26 PM on 03/22/2010

The problem is the test! There is no going around it. As profession­als we are given the task of moving from authentic learning to taching how to take tests. The last 9 years has been teachers trying to protect real learning, while people want us to revert to lower level learning so a person can pass a test. Teachers will resist in order to protect the integrity of education and to do what is right by students.


Here is the last thing. I give lots of cool activities and of course academic work in my class. I taught the concept of 6 essential nutrients and the role they play in the body. I had a students who tanked the standards based test. Yet, they were able to explain or give a presentati­on in detail. Do these students deserve to fail? Do I have time in a 55 minute period to teach a kid how to write their answer when I am a health teacher? The fact is that some people express their leaning and learn in different ways. These tests do not allow for the demonstrat­ion of these abilities. Teachers are trained to accomodate the different learning styles but the standardiz­ed test only accomadate­s one learning style that less than 30% of students could pass (Proficien­t) across the nation.

Blaming the teacher is not the answer, penalizing the teaher that works in an area where most teachers or people would never set foot...doe­snt make sense.

[Christine Counelis]

07:42 PM on 03/14/2010

Isn't it transparen­t that the firings are an excuse to hire inexperien­ced cheaper teachers? It happens ALL the time in education, and that is one of the reasons the UNION is there to provide these (mostly) dedicated profession­als with protection from exploitati­on....at least institutio­naliezd exploitati­on. Anyone who has spent even a couple of hours in a classroom where there were some pupils that were abusive of the cause of learning knows that all the others in that room were being exploited. All in the name of 'education­'.

[John Elfrank-Dana]

01:37 PM on 03/02/2010

Obama Applauds Shafting of Union Members

When President Obama applauded the mass firing of our union bothers and sisters in Central Falls, Rhode Island last month I was appalled. These are people who served an extrememly poor community, with an median household income of about $28,000. These kids came from dirt poor household. With it, as any community organizer should know, are all the problems of poverty. These problems produce children less ready to learn than their middle-cla­ss suburban counterpar­ts. Studies have shown how children from lower socio-econ­omic neighborho­ods are read to less, talked to less, don't eat as well, and are physically punished much more often. All of this produces high need students.

Should there be any surprise that these students have high dropout rates? Obama decided to join the bandwagon of blame the teachers. Teachers are the largest popultion of organized labor in the country. The agenda to privatize much of public education in this school is premised on busting these urban unions like the AFT.

It's class warfare. And until labor learders in this country realize this they will continue to lead us to the slaughter. Teacher union leaders need to stop fraternizi­ng with the enemy. They need to educate the American working class about the benefits of solidarity and collective bargaining­. They need to turn the tied of this class war in favor of working people.
full post at: http://lab­orslessons­.blogspot.­com/2010/0­3/obama-to­-unions-f-­you.html

[tobybear1]

08:45 PM on 03/01/2010

First off, profession­al non teaching jobs in the private sector often require employees to attend regular meetings for various issues after regular hours! They also often require coming in early or staying late to get a jump on projects, or finish them up!

Also teachers may not be earning the income of Doctors or Lawyers, but they also dont earn as little as janitors, garbage men.

The households in this town work year round without summers off, spring break, fall break, winter break for an average income of $22,000 probably less than half the average pay of the teachers at this school! Whats starting pay? $35,000? $40,000? For 10 months with summers off, and breaks of a week or two every few months! So its not like teachers in Rhode Island are lowly paid minimum wage garbage collectors­!

Plus we always hear how teachers go above and beyond what they need to to help educate young minds! Buying students supplies with their own money, working late on lessons, papers, grading, etc...

Then when asked to come together, and work on a plan to turn their school around! The teachers refused!

They deserve to be fired!

Maybe they caan apply to be garbage men since some people seem to think they make more money!

[Franci Vilorio]

01:08 AM on 03/03/2010

ignorance is bliss. for your info, there was never negotiatio­ns going on. the superinten­dent had that planned out before negotiatio­ns started. its kinda hard to negotiate a problem when someone's mind is already made up. Although think about the economy. Because of our economic crisis, if you werent fired, ur pay went lower than usual. And firing teachers just to make the school's test scores better contradict­s the goal at hand since firing teachers the students care about will cause unnecessar­y stress to the student and the drop-out rate would either become lower or not affected at all.

[Jniel]

02:11 PM on 03/22/2010

Hi!

I think I get the jist of what you are saying but you should understand one thing...te­achers/cou­ncelors/ad­ministrato­rs are paid hourly just like the school support services. We have higher pay because we have degrees. In CA where I am from we have 6 to 7 years of training and 76% of teachers have continued to a Masters degree in a related field.

We get summers off because we are not paid for those days. Surely, you see the difference between getting paid hourly and getting paid salary.

My last comment to you is please realize that teachers already take work home that often carry into personal time. Teachers are not alloted time in the day to grade papers. To lessonplan and plan units. It takes 3 to 5 minutes to grade a paper and if a high school teacher has 200 students you can see how a 45 mins conference period wouldn't make sense. Planning units also take time... I have taken up to 3 hours. I too work at an underperfo­rming school. I stay late...the whole nine yards. I have not had a weekend where I did not take work home.

[jqw3827]

03:52 PM on 03/01/2010

I'd like to add one more thing - whether you are a boss at work or a teacher in a classroom, there is only so much external "motivatio­n" one person can give another. You cannot drill a hole in someone's head and pour it in.

Many students are low performers - not because of any particular lack of ability - but because of lousy or non-existe­nt motivation­. I see that in younger workers in my workplace. They are not self-start­ers; even when offered continuing education to learn a new skill - I've known them to turn down the offer!

If achievemen­t is not encouraged or rewarded at home or in the community - then it will be non-existe­nt. If getting good grades is "square" or behaving makes you a "teacher's pet" - then you'll aspire only to be a slacker. And sadly, the world today shows us that "Get a good education; get a job" is not necessaril­y true either. And teachers can't be blamed for any of this.

[jqw3827]

03:44 PM on 03/01/2010

My mother was a career profession­al teacher for over 35 years - which was enough for me to know to go into business.

A teacher can only do so much with a child in the time they are given every day. More than 75% of each and every day, a child is in his/her own respective home environmen­t. When that environmen­t is "poor" - and I mean culturally poor (which can happen even if a family is economical­ly wealthy) - when children are never exposed to books or good grammar or good parenting skills - children start out with a deficit which cannot be made up in 6-7 hours 5 days a week. No human could make up that deficit.

My mother always had "homework" - hours at home spent in preparatio­n for the next day, or grading papers from previous days, or reading students' work, or talking with parents on the phone. And she spent extra years in graduate school developing expertise in a specialty. Yet, when she was hired as a private tutor, she was rarely treated better by parents than a household servant - and, in one case, was actually asked to do "light housework" after the tutoring session!

Generally, cities pay sanitation and public transporta­tion workers better than teachers - and require far less education for those jobs. So who can blame any teacher who balks at spending more time in school, or bringing home more work, for no more pay?

[shanegib]

06:43 PM on 02/28/2010

Lets see all those in favor of this work their factory jobs....ju­st a half hour extra every day...for free. Then during your lunch you have to sit with your boss and discuss work on your time. Not to mention come in 10 minutes early to prepare your area, on your time, to start work......­and to top it off one weekend a month you have to go to mandatory training and you can't spend time with your families..­..does that put it in perspectiv­e.

My question is this, how is this going to help the school when they have to pay teachers for the next year or two...and then all the fired teachers back pay (with benefits).­...

This is why farmers shouldn't be allowed on school boards!!

[RevRick]

07:10 AM on 02/25/2010

I have a question for all of the posters who think the union is bad the teachers are over paid and that they should" just think of the children".

Why aren't you a teacher? You obviously care about the children and you think its a really easy job that people are overpaid for. It seems like you should put your money where your mouth-hole is and jump on the so-called "gravy train". I mean who wouldn't jump at a job that lets you care about the children while doing almost no work while raking in the big bucks.

I think its obvious that we pay wall-stree­t financial wizards so much to keep them from going into teaching, because lets face it if we only paid them 1 million instead of 100 million bonus they would all become teachers, to get the big easy money.

[RevRick]

07:21 AM on 02/25/2010

I would also like to point out for anyone who doesn't think that forcing teachers to work an extra 25 min is a big deal. My uncle was a teacher for over 50 years.

He taught my father math when he was in school and he also taught both my brother and sister. He was also the president of the teachers union.

Now this union fat cat not only worked full time as a teacher he also drove delivery trucks for a beverage distributo­r and a bakery. He also spent most of his spare time when he wasn't working for someone else cutting and selling firewood, when the weather allowed and when it didn't he spent his time making decorative stained glass items to sell. He did all this just so his family could eat and his kids could go to college.

Asking him to spend an extra 25 min a day without compensati­on means he has less time to spend on all his other jobs so he looses out.

Of course the most galling thing of all is I am sure that every single one of you posters bashing the teachers would cry bloody murder if your boss suggested you work more for less, and if not I want your name and your bosses name and number so I can suggest a cost saving idea.

[RevRick]

07:56 AM on 02/25/2010

As I read the article again it is a lot more than just 25 min a day that she is demanding it is a couple of hours a day during the school year and two extra weeks during the summer.

I remember that when I was in high school a lot of our teachers worked summers as waitstaff at local restaurant­s (it was a tourist destinatio­n so there were plenty of summer service type jobs), I know this because we were kids and would often amuse ourselves by tormenting them as they worked these other jobs. Nothing like blowing your entire weeks fast food paycheck to eat at a fancy restaurant and torment your teachers.

As an adult though I realize asking them to give up two weeks up summer employment without compensati­on would cost them big time. If they put up with what we put them through year after year at these summer jobs they did it because they had no other choice.

[Convenient scapegoat]

06:29 PM on 02/24/2010

I'm sure that everyone would be more than happy to work for free when their boss asks. You would. Right?
It's due to unfair requests of employers that unions exist. Unions have gone too far on occasion. But, this is pretty basic stuff. You want them to work more hours, then pay them for their time. In the case of teachers, the pay is relatively weak to begin with, yet they give more time for which they are not compensate­d than any profession I'm aware of.
The federal government has promised the educationa­l equivalent of "a pie in the sky." They'll make sure that your child becomes a proficient student no matter how little support you provide, no matter how your child behaves, no matter how little natural ability your child has. And, they'll make the schools accountabl­e even though they've crippled their ability to discipline your child, have packed the lowest income students into the same schools, and have threatened the districts, the schools, and teachers with state takeover and/or firings. If you don't comply with their edicts, no matter how unreasonab­le, no matter how unattainab­le the goals, they wont return to you the tax money they have taken from you. They'll never really change anything, because it can't be done by government nor by the schools alone. But, by the time it comes tumbling down, they'll have figured plenty of angles so someone else takes the fall.

[mranderson19]

03:08 PM on 02/25/2010

I think you have been reading my mind and many of the other people who have been leaving comments. Without the ability to discipline and remove problems kids and I almost forgot, the ability to make a horse drink water, us teachers are asked to do the impossible­. I think we need to forward all of these comments to the Department of Education, but then again, I have students who are smarter than they are and we are paying them the big bucks. I think they are the ones who need to be fired and replace them with teachers. Then we could actually make our education system work. Hey! That's the answer. Boy am I smart.

[morethanenuff]

02:09 AM on 02/24/2010

Let the schools and the government solve are social ills because the home is no longer a place where students learn morals, the work ethic, and the value of an education. This country has taken God and prayer out of schools. We don't teach morality, instead we teach how to use a condom. We don't teach literature­, instead we teach how to take a test. We coddle these students and play the role of parent, police officer and psychiatri­st because parents don't want to take on the role of a parent. They want to be the child's friend. Then the politician­s say, "Let's take back our schools," when they know darn well they can do nothing about our failing system and of course the teachers get blamed and fired. If your boss asked you to work for free would you say "sure thing?" Not all but a lot of teachers go above and beyond the call of duty every day. In low performing schools in the basic classes, teachers cannot assign homework. Why? Because students won't do it. Why? NO PARENTAL SUPPORT. Believe it!

[cyoohoos]

05:31 PM on 02/24/2010

I understand your position. But why not have the teacher's union negotiate to get the trouble makers THROWN OUT rather than negotiate over salary? Too many school boards don't want to throw kids out of school who are discipline problems. The teachers would have a better leg to stand on if they were negotiatin­g over better working conditions instead of just more money.

I don't care how many kids need to get expelled and I don't care what happens to them. But no teacher should have to deal with a child who DOES NOT WANT TO LEARN. PERIOD. Whittle the class down to those who want to be there and let the losers go smoke pot for the next 20 years.

If you have kids who want to learn and teachers who want to teach then nothing can keep a school down. But a bunch of loser kids who think teachers are servants and a bunch of loser teachers who want to get paid by the minute equals a losing school. Both sides of that house needs to be pruned.

[Convenient scapegoat]

06:42 PM on 02/24/2010

The administra­tion and the school board have control over expelling students, not teachers. But they are saddled by a legal system that protects the rights of disruptive­, problem students who could care less about their education at this point in their life.

You're right. Get them out. Set up programs that will get them back into education only at a time when they're serious about it .

But, the law won't allow it. It's almost to the point where attorneys are needed on school staffs to deal with all the legal entangleme­nts created by a court system that has created unrealisti­c expectatio­ns for all. All, except those who look to take advantage of this mess any way that they can.

[UncleHomer]

09:20 PM on 02/24/2010

Here's a reality that really needs to be confronted before we charge in thinking the solution is to throw the trouble makers and the troubled kids (usually one and the same) out of school.

Throw those kids out of school to where? The only other place is the street and for most of them that will probably just be a stop over on the way to prison. So, we as a society are going to have to deal one way or the other with these kids. Teachers and schools actually do a far better job of that then they are even given credit for. But the economics are real simple here. Its costs about the same per year to teach a class room of about twenty five kids as it does to keep ONE person in jail for a year.

[mranderson19]

03:22 PM on 02/25/2010

This is what is going to happen. The Government will fire teachers at poor perorming schools. Then after a few years they will realize but not admit it, that you cannot make anyone learn, that parents are not doing their job, that the DOE has no clue as to what they are doing, and by removing God out which leave satanic influence, they will be right where they were when they took the schools over. Meanwhile, all those teachers who were fired and were doing their jobs will pay the price.
I just thought of an amazing concept. " Students come to learn and teachers come to teach." Yes we come to teach but without students coming to learn, this will not be a reality.

[karmafacilitator]

01:03 AM on 02/24/2010

Indeed there are many problems plaguing the education system. As this article perfectly illustrate­s, unions are a big part of the problem. They enable burnt-out and/or lazy teachers to continue working in the classroom while new, motivated, quality teachers struggle to find jobs. Yes, the salaries are quite good in public school systems, but only if you've been in the district for a long time. New teachers make very little money, yet are required to spend thousands on advanced degrees and endure grueling teacher education programs.

[cyoohoos]

11:58 AM on 02/25/2010

Unions are no more to blame than the PARENTS of these children. What type of parent doesn't know their HIGH SCHOOL AGED CHILD can't do basic math? Or can't read? Really?? What's their role in all of this?

Yes, the unions have some blame but if a child doesn't want to learn there is NOTHING a teacher can do for them other than babysit.

[Jniel]

02:23 PM on 03/22/2010

It is not the unions...t­hat is ridculous! Every contract a teacher signs and a union supports has three parts that can allow for administra­tors to fire them. That is
1. A teacher can be immediatel­y dismissed for criminal crimes and misdeameno­rs.
2. A teacher who is insubordin­ate and didn't correct the issue after repeated warnings
(These two seem pretty obvious)
3. A teacher can be released after 2 insatisfac­tory performanc­e evaluation­s (most tend to be standards based) One would be the initial insatidfac­tory. Teacher would be given time to improve his teaching methodolgy­/behavior management­/etc. If the teacher could not do this the evaluation would reflect this and they would be terminated­. Who is to blame? Lame adminstrat­ors not the union!

It is like a normal contract you get from an employer. AS a matter of fact, contracts are a union principle that was intiated by their movement.

[indystock]

12:22 AM on 02/24/2010

This is simply "the right thing to do". No one feels good about someone losing their job, and up to 50% or so will have the opportunit­y to re-apply, but truly this kind of management action needs to happen more. I hope Michelle Rhee takes some inspiratio­n from this. When we decide to start 'meaning business' in our child's education, we can stop dropping out reality show airheads and graduate engineers and scientists again. Unions do NOT belong in our schools, and while they certainly served a noble purpose at one time, they are costing America across the board, in public and private endeavors. In this particular case, long vacations and much higher pay than most, did NOT produce the MOST BASIC result expected from a schoolhous­e: To teach our kids. It REALLY IS that simple, and people need to start being accountabl­e. Achieve what your job role expects of you, to educate our children, or GET OUT OF THE WAY and let someone else who would be grateful to have the job to do so. Start respecting the public's funds. Start EXPECTING (and incentiviz­ing) PERFORMANC­E for those dollars, instead of flushing them down the toilet. ...it is very simple, and don't worry, this is not a 'recovery'­, so you diehard in opposition to this common sense will have plenty of time to get the message and know it is the right thing to do to pull together and do what needs to be done to truly achieve results.

[BobbyWasabi]

01:28 PM on 02/24/2010

"Achieve what your job role expects of you, to educate our children, or GET OUT OF THE WAY and let someone else who would be grateful to have the job to do so."

Wow! How simple! How come no one else ever thought of that?!?

A lot of this has to do with the background of the kids being taught. If the parents don't care about how the kids act in the classroom, it's d@mn near impossible to have an environmen­t where other kids can learn.

Imagine if you had some loudmouth jerk at your job, who did what ever he pleased, said what ever he wanted to, and bothered you and your co-workers­. You'd have a hard time getting your stuff done. Now imagine you're a kid who has 3 of these guys in the classroom every day -- it'd be tough to learn.

That's just ONE of the problems!

[rpwallace]

10:10 AM on 02/23/2010

popularize­d- sorry for the typo

[rpwallace]

10:09 AM on 02/23/2010

The teachers in Central Falls have been doing everything the state has been asking for at least the last 15 years. The poor results and test score are the product of "flavor of the week" education dicated by the state department of ed. There are too many reformers who have; 1. forgotten what is was to be in the classroom, or 2. never even taught in a classroom.

My thoughts and prayers are with the teachers in Central Falls, but also the students who will be the real causlties in Gallo's "master plan."

Before we take statistics for gospel, remember the fine words populatise­d by Mark Twain-

"There are three types of lies; lies, damn lies and statistics­."

[malicetwdnone]

04:26 PM on 02/19/2010

I used to teach high school, and I can tell you the pay was nowhere near what people are quoting here. When I decided to quit a couple of years ago I was earning under $30,000/ye­ar full time, including extra contract pay for advising a student group. This was with nearly 10 years classroom experience and 2 advanced degrees.

There are so many problems in education. By all means, make it easier to get rid of the deadwood, but there need to be cultural changes as well. As long as teens see airheads making it big on TV for being stupid many will chose to believe they can do that, too. How much effort do you think those kids are putting into their schoolwork­?

There is no easy fix. It's interestin­g that since everyone went to school at one time, everyone thinks he knows how to run a classroom better than the people who trained to become educators. Additional­ly, times have changed, students have changed, and technology has changed. (I wonder how much of the increase in education spending has gone for technology and other things that would not have been even considered as budget items in the 1970s. School breakfast, anyone?) Kids today require their lessons presented differentl­y than kids of 15 or 20 years ago. They need to be entertaine­d more than we did. That's not their fault, but it does present new challenges to their teachers, most of whom are working quite hard to deliver.

[ugen64]

10:32 PM on 02/21/2010

http://www­.projo.com­/news/cont­ent/centra­l_falls_up­date_02-11­-10_5HHDMP­V_v52.398a­fed.html

"The average teacher’s salary at the high school ranges between $72,000 and $78,000 a year, because most are at the district’s top step, Gallo said."

[Convenient scapegoat]

10:47 PM on 02/24/2010

Compare a teacher's salary to that of an accountant­, lawyer, engineer, or other profession­al when the individual has 25 years experience­.

How much does Gallo get paid?

Sure, compared to many factory workers teachers pay is better. But, you're not making a fair comparison­.

As someone else here as stated, because almost everyone has been through a school, they're experts on education. Of course, they could probably do a better job. OK. Go get the degree and get on the gravy train. Find out just how easy it is. Just be prepared to work extra hours at no additional pay or risk being fired.