School not getting results? Fire everybody!

[downtown]

The rivers run red with the blood of educators in Central Falls, RI.

You are a reform-minded superintendent under state edict to improve a chronically low-performing high school. The teachers refuse all six conditions that you deem essential to change the school. Next option? Fire them all.

That was the dramatic response last week of a Rhode Island superintendent. Frances Gallo of the Central Falls district was under state mandate to improve Central Falls High, where only 3 percent of 11th graders scored proficient in math in 2008 and 7 percent in 2009. Half the students are failing every subject.

According to the Providence Journal:

Gallo wanted the union to sign off on six conditions that required teachers to spend more time helping students and with colleagues in professional training sessions. Gallo said she could only afford to pay teachers $30 per hour for some of the extra responsibilities — $1,800 for two weeks of training in the summer, and potentially $1,620 for weekly 90-minute afterschool sessions, if she could secure grant money. Teachers, Gallo said, would not be compensated for the other changes: lengthening the school day by 25 minutes; formalizing a tutoring schedule; eating lunch with students once a week; and submitting to more rigorous evaluations starting March 1.

Union officials said they wanted to be paid for more of the duties and wanted to receive a higher pay rate –– $90 per hour.

So, Gallo moved to Plan B, the total restructuring of the school. About 100 teachers, administrators and assistants will lose their jobs. (The Providence paper reports that the average base salary of the teachers is $72,000 to $78,000, not counting benefits. The median income for a household in the town of Central Falls is $22,628.)

Gallo fired the teachers under the turn-around plan developed by the U.S. Department of Education to improve the nation’s worst schools. The plan allows the staff to be fired to revitalize the school. “Adults will leave and children will stay, ” said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, explaining the plan to reporters last year. During his tenure as CEO of Chicago public schools, Duncan credited such staff shifts for changing the culture and achievement levels at failing schools.

“We replaced leaders, we replaced teachers, ” he says. “And we saw some extraordinary results.”

The Rhode Island saga will be interesting to watch. The teachers’ union vows to fight the action, but the superintendent and the state education commissioner say they have the legal authority to act under the law because the school was so clearly failing and had been failing for so long.

And the link http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-b...alk-at-reforms-and-longer-hours-theyre-fired/

Bolding Mine.

I'll post more when it isn't my lunch break, but what do you think? Is the union greedy? SHould it be legal/okay to fire *everybody*? How to do turn around a situation like Central Falls (which is really pretty bad, even by my generous standards of bad).

 

[fugazi]

I think its a fair move by Gallo and if the results improve the coming years, you can probably expect more of these bulldoze-and-rebuild initiatives coming up in less urgent situations. That might be problematic.

 

[Integral]

The union really should have accepted Gallo's conditions; they're already being paid a nine-month salary that's three times the local area's household income and four times the national average for the education sector.

At that level of compensation, you can afford to spend an additional 25 minutes per day with the students and set up tutoring services.

 

[warpus]

Union officials said they wanted to be paid for more of the duties and wanted to receive a higher pay rate –– $90 per hour.

That us uber-freakin-greedy

 

[aelf]

Greed is good. They are behaving just like CEOs would. They should be commended.

 

[Patroklos]

Union busting

So where is Cutlass, I want him to tell us about how Unions are never self destuctive in their demands and how they never outprice themselves from the markets. I summon thee!

 

[Cutlass]

The union screwed up this one. But the real test will be if the school can be restaffed and meet the goals set for it. Only time will tell.

 

[Formaldehyde]

If public school teachers in Rhode Island start getting $90 per hour for a bit of overtime work, I foresee a lot of people relocating and changing careers...

That would also roughly translate into twice the rate that they make now, which I think is way too much.

 

[JohnRM]

Thus ever proving my contention that teachers don't really give a crap about their students and that the public school system is a failure.

 

[Zelig]

How to do turn around a situation like Central Falls.

Kill the failing students.

Result: 100% pass rate.

 

[Formaldehyde]

It also doesn't sound like they have a very strong union if so many can be fired.

 

[Patroklos]

If my sister is to be trusted, who graduated from college to be a middle school teacher two years ago, there is a glut of idealistic young people trying to enter the education field.

That being said, in a school like that veterans are what you need as those students will walk all over a starry eyed do gooder.

 

[illram]

$90/hour is a little much. However, I am guessing that number comes from double time & a half, not an arbitrary number they made up, i.e. the Union probably pulled the number from established overtime & holiday pay numbers in their bargaining agreement.

Still, that's a little outrageous considering how poorly it appears they were performing and I am not condoning the actions of the Union or whether they actually deserve what they're already getting, because it appears they do not.

 

[luiz]

Seems like a sensible move by Gallo. Apparently the teachers were already quite overpaid, and given their poor results they should accept to work more even for little or no extra compensation.

 

[fugazi]

Greed is good. They are behaving just like CEOs would. They should be commended.

I lol'd, knowing what you're saying is true if this were about a financial institution. Oh morals ..

 

[Patroklos]

Have you been to Rhode Island? Killing them is definetly more humane

 

[Camikaze]

Needs even more unionisation. Obviously the union isn't powerful enough to guarantee the jobs of the workers, so more unionisation is needed to ensure that in future something as ridiculous as this doesn't happen. It isn't greed to expect that you are going to be paid a higher rate for what is essentially overtime, and if anything the teachers are probably underpaid as it is, judging by what it seems they most likely have to deal with.

 

[JohnRM]

YEAH! We need unions to guarantee the jobs for people who suck at what they do...apparently.

 

[downtown]

If my sister is to be trusted, who graduated from college to be a middle school teacher two years ago, there is a glut of idealistic young people trying to enter the education field.

That being said, in a school like that veterans are what you need as those students will walk all over a starry eyed do gooder.

Its a double edged sword. The veterans that stay in situations like Central Falls typically aren't very good...if they were, they would go somewhere that doesn't suck so bad. Places like this usually have to rely on "starry eyed do gooders" because staff retention in poor areas is difficult.

And yeah, the newcomers tend to get turned into hamburger. It is a vicious cycle of fail.

It also doesn't sound like they have a very strong union if so many can be fired.

The Federal Govt now has some fairly strong emergency powers for schools that suck that bad for that long, and state governments usually have even stronger ones.

 

[Integral]

Needs even more unionisation. Obviously the union isn't powerful enough to guarantee the jobs of the workers, so more unionisation is needed to ensure that in future something as ridiculous as this doesn't happen. It isn't greed to expect that you are going to be paid a higher rate for what is essentially overtime, and if anything the teachers are probably underpaid as it is, judging by what it seems they most likely have to deal with.

So, Gallo moved to Plan B, the total restructuring of the school. About 100 teachers, administrators and assistants will lose their jobs. (The Providence paper reports that the average base salary of the teachers is $72,000 to $78,000, not counting benefits. The median income for a household in the town of Central Falls is $22,628.)

Reading comprehension fail.