Rhode Island school district seeks to tear up teachers’ contract

[Hannah Bell]

The mass firing of teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island on Tuesday, February 23, was greeted with predictable enthusiasm by the Obama administration. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, declared, “I applaud Commissioner Gist and Superintendent Gallo for showing courage and doing the right thing for kids...”

The firings are the result of Superintendent Frances Gallo’s adoption of the so-called “turnaround” option—one of four options set out by the Obama administration for dealing with “failed schools.”

For the first time, Obama’s education policy requires states to identify their bottom 5 percent of schools* and “fix” them using one of four methods. The other options are school closure, takeover by a charter school or school-management organization, and transformation, which requires a longer school day and other attacks on the working conditions of teachers.

*NOTE: *To qualify for Title 1 funding

Gallo’s first choice was the “transformation” option, which included demands that would have amounted to the tearing up of the teachers’ contract...Gallo’s ultimatum was rejected by the teachers, who rightly saw it as an attempt to rip up established contracts... The conditions laid down in the “transformation” proposals were not aimed at improving education, but rather at challenging the existing pay and conditions of teachers.

When the teachers rejected this ultimatum Gallo lost no time in switching to the “turnaround” option, which had already been agreed by State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist. It was Gist’s order of January 11 to overhaul the state’s lowest performing schools that set in motion the events leading to last week’s firings. Gist was among the first state education chiefs to publicly list the bottom 5 percent of failing schools and use the new federal requirements as the basis for an intervention. It is for this pioneering of Obama’s policy of national shake-up that Gist received the praise of Education Secretary Duncan...

The general line of media commentary on the firings has been to portray the teachers as overpaid and unwilling to sacrifice for the good of the children. Much has been made of their supposedly exorbitant salaries of $72,000 a year, with frequent contrasts to the median income of Central Falls, which stood at $22,628 against the national figure of $41,994, according to the 2000 US Census.

None of these media commentators find it necessary to mention the pay of Education Commissioner Gist, who, according to a May 2009 article in the Providence Journal, receives a total compensation of $203,870 a year...*

NOTE: $190K in base salary (~$40K higher than her predecessor for her first year on the job) + over $13K in retirement, PLUS health benefits & sick leave, PLUS $5000 in moving expenses, PLUS a state vehicle or transportion allowance.

Not to mention Superintendent Gallo's salary: in 2007 she was making $140K + benefits for managing the seven schools in Central Falls.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/education_commissioner_salary_05-12-09_D9EAHF_v14.3b4f1b3.html.

Neither has anyone in the mainstream media sought to explain how firing the school’s entire staff, including all teachers and the school psychiatrist, is supposed to turn the school around.


The high school sits at the center of Rhode Island’s smallest and most impoverished city... The square mile of Central Falls is an old mill town...

Today the city is 65 percent Hispanic and home to some of the state’s poorest families...Incredibly, some 12.5 percent of Central Falls families had incomes below 50 percent of the poverty level compared to 5.2 percent in the state as a whole.

More than 43 percent of children in the city live below the poverty level compared to 17.3 percent for the state.

With figures such as these, combined with a pupil base for many of whom English is not their first language, it is hardly surprising that the local high school would rank below the national or state average for performance.

NOTE:

•96% of students are eligible or free or reduced lunch
•65% of the student body is of Hispanic origin, 13% White, 14% African American, 8% other
•25% of students receive ESL services
•21% receive SPED services
•12% of parents have a post-secondary degree
•The total per student school expenditure was $11,798 (State 9,371)
•71.4% of students graduate

http://www.cfschools.net/Schools/High%20School%20Website/Pages/About%20CFHS.htm




(A boarded up house adjacent to the school)



(The boarded up Central Falls Department of Parks & Recreation building)


The immediate vicinity of the school is littered with boarded up housing and “For Rent” signs. The impact of the economic crisis can be seen in a listing of foreclosures for the city. The high school is located on Summer Street, which is surrounded by bank owned properties. The Central Falls Department of Parks and Recreation is among the boarded up buildings.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to Aaron Lessa, who lives close to Central Falls. Like many in the area, Aaron considers the problems at the high school to be reflective of the social conditions in the area, rather than the fault of the teachers...

“I don’t see the logic to it. They are going to give more funding to schools that get better grades and less to schools that get worse grades. There is no logic behind that. They should stop worrying about the people on top and start building people up from the bottom. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. We have to change that.”


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/cent-m01.shtml

[Starry Messenger]

1. I can't sleep either.

I woke up an hour ago thinking about this. Thanks for keeping it front and center.

[Hannah Bell]

2. I have a weird schedule. This is usually my winding down time.

I have a theory...in the mail.

[Starry Messenger]

3. Well, I'm still awake so here's a kick.

[Hannah Bell]

4. k

[Tailormyst]

5. Kick

We can't allow the unions to be destroyed.