- 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
- participating in two weeks of training in the summer
The superintendent then switched to a "turnaround model" (that's the "fire at least half the staff" choice) and ...
fired ALL of the teachers at the high school.
A few things to note: Central Falls is a one-square-mile community next to Pawtucket on the Blackstone River. In other words, it's a mill town. It's nearly half Latino. Somewhere around a third of the population is under 18. Forty percent of the population under 18 lives below the poverty line.
Does this give you a picture of what sort of neighborhood--for it isn't much more than that--we're talking about here?
You can find the "bust the union" take here.
You can find a "raising the bar" take here.
An update on the original report is here.
And a completely unrelated concern in Central Falls is here.
And there are plenty of comments on all articles.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know more before I make a judgment. I worked in a public school where teachers went way beyond what the contract required them to do, but the culture of the school encouraged teachers to be part of the decision-making and governance structure. As a result, though we were a union faculty, there a minimum of that "We/They," Boss/Employee tension.
So I want to hear more about the process and culture of the school. How does/did that work? What process was followed to re-open the collective bargaining agreement?
Having teachers eat with students seems like a good idea. Twenty-five minutes added to the school day? Seems rather pointless to be quote honest.
Rigorous evaluation? Sure. Are the administrators properly trained to do classroom observations. This obviously is critical.
As for the before and after school tutoring, I think the teachers would be more open to this if they felt more involved and if consideration was given to other extra duties they have.
The two weeks during the summer: a regular or one-time thing? Any compensation? I can understand that the teachers might feel their contact is just being tossed out.
More details please!
This is horrifying.
ReplyDeleteHorrifying for the students.
Horrifying for the teachers at that school.
Horrifying that the union would play chicken with the careers and livlihoods of an entire school's worth of teachers. I'm sure that there were teachers in that building who would have given the new plan a try, but now they're unemployed.
Now that all of those bad teachers are gone, will this school see a huge turnaround? Probably not.
Bill,
ReplyDeleteI believe Rhode Island has similar processes to those of Massachusetts, now that the new ed bill passed. The superintendent was told by the state commissioner that the school was underperforming, and to choose one of the reorganization plans. She laid out the six part plan.
It does not sound as though the teachers were at all consulted on what should be involved in that (which, as you point out, would have been wise). It's too bad: the students quoted appear to feel their teachers really care about them.
From what I've read, this was a straight up-or-down on that by the union. They asked that additional money be added to the contract in return for the change in working conditions; that was refused. So they refused the change.
From what I can tell, it would be a long-term change, at least until the school was pulled out of underperforming status.