Central Falls RI kids deserve better

[Communist]

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Central Falls Rhode Island kids deserve better

from the website (http://centralfallskidsdeservebetter.com/):

A great deal has been reported about the situation at Central Falls High School. The Superintendent of Schools has issued 88 termination letters at the high school - firing the entire teacher faculty - a move that is unprecedented in the United States and that threatens students just as they're showing improvement.

We felt it was important to get the rest of the story out regarding this unfortunate and unnecessary proposal.

We are the Central Falls Teachers Union, an affiliate of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals (http://www.rifthp.org/).

We represent the hard working, dedicated teachers at Central Falls High School.

The proposal to fire these teachers does a grave disservice to their ongoing efforts to improve the lives of the students at Central Falls High School.

The Superintendent has attempted to portray the teachers as the problem at the High School. The facts speak differently » (http://centralfallskidsdeservebetter.com/thefacts).

sign the petition here (http://centralfallskidsdeservebetter.com/petition)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhDVFOC7u5A

[Communist]

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Rhode Island School Nears Compromise on Mass Teacher Firings (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/03/AR2010030303720.html?hpid=moreheadlines)

By Nick Anderson
Washington Post
March 4, 2010

A Rhode Island school superintendent and union leaders,
who have been at odds over a decision to fire every
teacher at a struggling high school, signaled Wednesday
that a compromise that would preserve jobs and overhaul
the school may be possible.

"I am pleased to reassure the union their place in the
planning process," Central Falls Superintendent Frances
Gallo said in a statement. She said she welcomes union
input in developing "a dynamic plan to dramatically
improve student achievement" at Central Falls High
School.

Gallo's statement followed an overture Tuesday from the
Central Falls Teachers' Union, an affiliate of the
American Federation of Teachers. The instructors have
offered support for a longer school day, as well as
more rigorous evaluations and training, among other
steps.

That appeared to pave the way for reopening
negotiations on the proposed dismissals.

The decision last month to replace the teaching staff
at the end of the school year cast the spotlight on a
new Obama administration policy: To qualify for a share
of $3.5 billion in federal turnaround aid, local
officials must close the struggling school or replace
the principal and start over with a new academic game
plan and perhaps a new staff. That significantly
tightens accountability measures under the 2002 No
Child Left Behind law.

Experts say there is little evidence to determine
whether firing teachers en masse will improve a
troubled school, despite President Obama's support for
Rhode Island officials who appeared on the verge of
taking that drastic step earlier.

On Monday, referring to the Rhode Island case, Obama
said accountability was necessary for a school with
perennially low test scores.

Outraged union leaders complained that the White House
had taken management's side in a protracted labor
dispute. Administration officials, sensitive to that
charge, insisted that they simply favor bold reform,
leaving details to local officials.

Despite Wednesday's developments, experts say the
effectiveness of Obama's school turnaround strategy
remains an open question.

"There just is very little evidence in terms of what
works in quickly turning around a persistently low-
performing school," said Grover "Russ" Whitehurst, a
Brookings Institution scholar who oversaw education
research under President George W. Bush.

Whitehurst said the federal Institute of Education
Sciences pursued that question under his tenure but
failed to find enough examples for solid answers.
"There are certainly occasions when shutting down a
school or firing everybody may be a precondition for
reform," he added. "But the problem is, it's unclear
what to do, after these schools are shut down, that
will work."

Jack Jennings, a former Democratic congressional aide
who is president of the Center on Education Policy, has
tracked school restructuring efforts since the No Child
law forced them to raise test scores or face a series
of escalating sanctions.

In that time, educators have tried consultants and
charter school conversions; replaced staff and
management; experimented with state takeovers and other
ideas -- all to help schools that fall short at least
five years in a row.

"We could find no evidence that any one particular
approach worked better than any other," Jennings said.
Obama's statement on the Rhode Island school, he said,
shows that the president wants to crack down on
academic failure, "but there's no assurance that kids
are going to be any better off."

Removing all or most of a school's faculty, experts
say, raises the obvious issue of finding effective
replacements. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said
Wednesday that schools elsewhere have been rejuvenated
after changing staff. His aides cited cases in Chicago,
Colorado and Los Angeles.

"I will tell you what doesn't work," Duncan told
reporters Wednesday. "Doing nothing."

In the District, Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee
has replaced most of the staff in several schools since
taking office in 2007. There are promising signs in
some of those, experts say, but no huge breakthroughs.

Gerald N. Tirozzi, executive director of the National
Association of Secondary School Principals, criticized
the requirement that a principal be replaced in order
for a school to qualify for federal funds; he said
anecdotal evidence of success is not enough to justify
it.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

[Communist]

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School’s Shake-Up Is Embraced by the President (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/education/07educ.html)

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SAM DILLON

A Rhode Island school board’s decision to fire the entire faculty of a poorly performing school, and President Obama’s endorsement of the action, has stirred a storm of reaction nationwide, with teachers condemning it as an insult and conservatives hailing it as a watershed moment of school accountability.

The decision by school authorities in Central Falls to fire the 93 teachers and staff members has assumed special significance because hundreds of other school districts across the nation could face similarly hard choices in coming weeks, as a $3.5 billion federal school turnaround program kicks into gear.

While there is fierce disagreement over whether the firings were good or bad, there is widespread agreement that the decision would have lasting ripples on the nation’s education debate — especially because Mr. Obama seized on the move to show his eagerness to take bold action to improve failing schools filled with poor students.

“This is the first example of tough love under the Obama regime, and that’s what makes it significant,” said Michael J. Petrilli, a vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, an educational research and advocacy organization.

“I think it’s going to give some cover to other school boards and school superintendents around the country that want to do something similar,” Mr. Petrilli said. “They can say the president of the United States, Barack Obama, someone the teachers voted for, supports us here to take some radical actions to shake up our schools.”

In Boston on Thursday, another city moving to carry out the administration’s school-turnaround policy, officials announced that staff members at six underperforming schools would have to reapply for their jobs. Carol R. Johnson, the schools superintendent, said staff members were not being fired, but were being asked to “recommit” themselves.

This move angered the teachers’ union, which said it was exploring legal action.

Mr. Obama’s endorsement of the Rhode Island board’s tough action infuriated many of the four million members of the two national teachers’ unions, thousands of whom campaigned vigorously for him in 2008.

“I ripped the Obama sticker off of my truck,” said Zeph Capo, a midlevel official at the Houston Federation of Teachers (http://tx.aft.org/hft/) who trains classroom teachers. “We worked hard for this man, we talked to our neighbors and our fellow teachers about why we should support him, and we’re having to dig the knife out of our back.”

Officials at the two unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_federation_of_teachers/index.html?inline=nyt-org), were so angry in the hours after Mr. Obama first endorsed the firings that an irreconcilable break with the administration seemed possible, perhaps bruising Democrats’ electoral chances in November. Recognizing how a permanent breach could hurt everyone, however, both sides sought to lower tensions, partly by encouraging a negotiated settlement in Central Falls, administration and union officials said in interviews.

But neither the president nor Education Secretary Arne Duncan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/arne_duncan/index.html?inline=nyt-per) backed off his support for tough action, including dismissing teachers en masse, to improve learning conditions in chronically failing schools. At the high school in Central Falls, a poor community with a large immigrant population, only 7 percent of 11th graders passed state math tests last fall. And if the administration’s posture was undermining its support among teachers, it was earning unusual praise from conservatives, as well as from supporters of an overhaul of the nation’s schools.

“The administration is putting down a real marker here,” said Alex Johnston, chief executive of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a business-backed education advocacy group.

The decision by the Central Falls school board came under the terms of a new Obama administration policy intended to spur interventions in thousands of failing schools nationwide.

To get a share of the $3.5 billion in what are known as School Improvement Grants, school officials can choose to transform the learning environments in failing schools by extending instructional hours and making other changes, converting them to charter schools (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/charter_schools/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), closing them entirely or replacing the principal and at least half the staff.

The Central Falls superintendent, Frances Gallo, initially chose the first option this year, but after a dispute arose with the union over extra pay for adding 25 minutes to the school day, she broke off negotiations. Backed by the local school board, she announced the firings on Feb. 23. Last Monday, Mr. Obama supported the board’s action in a speech to a dropout prevention group.

“If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn’t show signs of improvement, then there’s got to be a sense of accountability,” Mr. Obama said. “And that’s what happened in Rhode Island last week.”

National union officials were shocked.

“Teachers were taken aback — and profoundly disappointed,” said Randi Weingarten (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/randi_weingarten/index.html?inline=nyt-per), president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Teachers will watch carefully whether Washington, the states and local districts will be partners that help us do our job or whether they’ll be scapegoating and demonizing.”

In Central Falls, community protests erupted against the firings. Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, said members of the state’s Congressional delegation had urged the parties in Central Falls to return to the negotiating table.

On Wednesday, Dr. Gallo agreed to resume contract talks, raising the possibility that at least some of the firings would be rescinded. Nonetheless, at week’s end, the two sides said animosity remained strong and negotiations were unlikely over the next few days.

Dr. Gallo said she had invited the union to participate in a meeting of parents, district officials and other parties on Thursday to help plan the school’s future.

Meanwhile in Washington, the Obama administration was bracing for similar controversies in other communities as more states identify failing schools.
“This is not a political strategy; this is about reforming the lowest-performing schools,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman. “It’s not always painless, it’s not easy. But what’s critical is taking action in these places.”

Union officials said the administration’s stance on the Rhode Island firings seemed to put it on the side of management in what unions see as basically a labor dispute.

Mr. Obama’s position “set us back in how we work together,” said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association. “I think the worst thing that can happen would be for President Obama to be seen as antiteacher. I think that would harm him.”

Teachers nationwide, including many who had once campaigned for Mr. Obama, said the events in Rhode Island had left a bitter taste.

Anthony J. Mullen, an instructor at the Arch School in Greenwich, Conn., who is the national teacher of the year, said he supported the notion of establishing more accountability in schools. “But what kind of accountability are we talking about?”

“This ‘off with their heads’ mentality,” he said, “it’s a bloodthirsty mentality.”