R.I. School Poised to Fire All 88 Teachers

(CBS/ AP)  Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist has approved a school district's plan to fire all its teachers.

All 88 teachers at Central Falls High School are expected to receive their pink slips on Tuesday, reports CBS affiliate WPRI in Providence.

Central Falls, Rhode Island has long been among the state's most troubled school districts - 90 percent of the students live in poverty, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod. Many struggle with English in this immigrant community - and that's just for starters.

"We lose 52 percent of our students between 9th grade and the 12th grade," Gallo told Axelrod. "They don't graduate."

Central Falls Superintendent Fran Gallo has proposed laying off all teachers at the school as part of a "turnaround" model for the school. That high school and five other schools in Providence have been identified by the state as chronically low-performing and must make major changes to avoid being closed.

The turnaround model requires a new principal and governance structure and allows no more than half the teachers to be rehired.

Gist on Tuesday said she had accepted Gallo's proposal. The superintendent has 120 business days to submit to Gist her proposal for overhauling the school.

The teachers' union says it wants more pay for the additional work, WPRI reports. Teachers, along with their supporters, held a rally on Tuesday to protest the decision.

"I support doing whatever it takes to get the results we need and to do what's best for the students in Central Falls High School," Commissioner Gist said. "I know that there are many great teachers in Central Falls High School. Our goal is to ensure that we have highly effective teachers in every classroom in the school."

[DocD--2008]

Looks to me like the school administration including the Central Falls Superintendent and the Education Commissioner are the ones who need to be fired. It's their ineptitude that is causing the problems, but its always easy to just blame the teachers, after all, they are only doing what they are told to do buy the administration.

[mrgiggs]

This story identifies the biggest problem in education - SCHOOL BOARDS, who are "politicians" that don't know much or anything about education and leadership. This is incompetent leadership at its finest, so absurd it's almost funny.

This is like replacing your entire yard with new grass in order to have that perfect lawn, only to be disappointed when it soon goes to crap again. You water and mow on a regular basis, even putting weed killer and fertilizer, but nothing works. Why? Because you overlooked the "underlying" issue - poor soil. The soil is the primary source of structure, support, and nourishment. You can't expect to grow or maintain good grass without good soil.

That school system will continue to have problems until they fix the underlying causes. We need to invest in helping teachers. It's time for leaders/administrators to SERVE teachers. It's time to listen to them and empower them to innovate and develop solutions to what they daily experience firsthand. They need to be treated as professionals, but not only that, as HUMAN BEINGS. They need things like appreciation, mentoring, support, and accountability. They don't need things like pay for performance and threats which have been proven to be unfruitful in both the corporate world and social sciences.

No Child Left Behind?

No Teacher Left Behind.

[teacherhere]

I wonder when society will ask students to take responsibility for themselves. These students are failing, what is their consequence? A teacher can only teach to an open mind.

[jxm208]

This is absurd. While I do not know all of the details for this particular case, as an educator, there is much to consider when looking at student achievement. Research does show that if teachers have high expectations of their students, the students will rise up to them. However, research also shows that much influences student achievement: family support, poverty, community...If a child's basic needs are not met (food, clothing, shelter, love) they are not too concerned with learning.
Instead of firing teachers (though some may need not be in the classroom) perhaps we should focus on the whole child, our broken families and societal issues first.
Teachers indeed ARE parent, disciplinarian, counselor, friend. The general public has NO idea all that teachers deal with before learning can even happen.

[simpleplon]

Step 1: Fire all union teachers. If the want to remain, they must leave the union, then they can keep their jobs... Then lower the pay to the national standard for "Public Servants".

Step 2: Replace the fired teachers with non union teachers.

Step 3: The huge savings from the union busting can now be invested back into education, ie books, tools, supplies.

Step 3: Provide incentives for teacher who work hard to bring the educational levels up. Private schools are a good example to work with...

The source of public schools problems is rooted in Union topics (except some inner city issues, but not overall)... They care more about increasing their pay then the kids... If a school district gets a few million for supplies, how many days if not hours does it take for the union bosses to show up and start demanding (extorting) that money for teacher pay checks or more union dues... That is a national disgrace for America. The teacher union can kick rocks..

[kansas03]

parents, yes blame. However not agreeing to working 7 hour days while making70000 plus!@????!!!!!??? This teachers union needs to wake up, we have soldiers protecting freedom for less while expecting to get shot at every morning they wake up. They also forgot to wake up that employment rate of even the educated is high, the ideal time for the school to do a drastic change like this. Those teachers making every effort to make the grade will get hired back. However they can't expect kids struggling to put in extra effort if they too don't lead by example.

[jackikbs1]

Firing all the teachers is like shooting the messenger. There are much deeper issues going on that don't necessarily have anything to do with how hard the teachers are trying or how well they are communicating knowledge to students. The other factors that are at a societal level and that will never be solved in schools are poverty, cultural clashes, language barriers, lack of resources, and misguided politics. I would challenge the people who are ready to fire the teachers to go into those schools and try their hand at teaching (They're so smart afterall!)- not just for publicity, not for a day - but for an extended time, doing all the things that teachers do. Most wouldn't last a week.

[poochie44]

So fire all the teachers because the parents don't give a damn. It shouldn't be up to the teachers to teach these kids English. If you want to be in this country learn the language.

[GreatDepression]

I guess this is why I see so many 'Parenting HowTo' Bestseller Books and Magazines at supermarkets, parents are very smart raising their great kids - ready for our schools.

[GreatDepression]

CBSisCommunist5

I guess you are implying they have Great Attitudes and Disciplines when they get home with parents.

I guess Crimes and Violence in inner cities are committed only by Adults whom used to be great students when they were under 18.