[speechlesstx]

... in Rhode Island. Unionized teachers making 3 times the income of the average citizen in a Rhode Island town won't take an extra 25 minutes a day to help their failing students, so the Superintendent fired them all. Every teacher, every administrator.

Unionized Rhode Island Teachers Refuse To Work 25 Minutes More Per Day, So Town Fires All Of Them

A school superintendent in Rhode Island is trying to fix an abysmally bad school system.

Her plan calls for teachers at a local high school to work 25 minutes longer per day, each lunch with students once in a while, and help with tutoring. The teachers' union has refused to accept these apparently onerous demands.

The teachers at the high school make $70,000-$78,000, as compared to a median income in the town of $22,000. This exemplifies a nationwide trend in which public sector workers make far more than their private-sector counterparts (with better benefits).

The school superintendent has responded to the union's stubbornness by firing every teacher and administrator at the school.

Sweet.

[paraclete]

...in Rhode Island. Unionized teachers making 3 times the income of the average citizen in a Rhode Island town won't take an extra 25 minutes a day to help their failing students, so the Superintendent fired them all. Every teacher, every administrator.



Sweet.

You think it is sweet that workers who have stood up for their rights should be fired. Obviously that superintendent has lost the plot. If the outcomes there are so abbissmally bad that the teachers must put in extra unpaid time the whole system needs a total overhaul and they should have started with firing the superintendent. Sometimes no amount of extra time will make a difference if other factors are not addressed. There are obviously external factors in that community

The measure of how a professional should do their job is not how much they are paid or how much better they are off it is how effective they are. Obviously this group of professionals were ineffective and there may be reasons for it to be found in the marginalised area they are working in. They would be no more effective if they were paid at the same rates as those in the community and no more effective if they work for free

[parttime]

I see, Reagan should have fired all teachers, not air traffic controllers. Dam unions.

[paraclete]

I see, Reagan should have fired all teachers, not air traffic controllers. dam unions.

Now there is a revoluntary idea. Why don't we start where the real problem lies and fire all politicians, academics, etc. I think this idea was tried once, by Pol Pot in Cambodia.

[parttime]

Shucks, I thought I had a novel idea. Well back to the old drawing board.

[speechlesstx]

What rights were violated? You're darn right I think it's sweet that someone stood up to the mostly liberal, unionized public education establishment that's ruining education in this country.

[Catsmine]

workers who have stood up for their rights

Where?

When?

The article didn't mention any rights, other than the Union refusing to exercise collective bargaining. Do you have any more information? Can you provide a link?

[J_9]

I think it's sweet as well. Our school system has recently implemented tutoring for failing and/or borderline students with an AMAZING success rate.

The teachers are given blocks of time... the tutoring is on Monday and Tuesday until 4:30pm. The program directly uses the curriculum of the particular grade being tutored.

Test scores have increased dramatically since the inception.

[tomder55]

The teacher's union has stood in the way of meaningful reform for as long as I can remember .

I don't necessarily think that the extra half hour would've made a significant impact ;however the unions have stood in the way of the biggest reform that could be attempted... competition.

Just look at the success that was being realized in the DC districts before Congress responded to pressure from the union and defunded the charter schools .

I agree that these administrators aren't sainted in this issue ;too often being tied to status quo instead of innovative approaches to education. But again;until the strangle hold the teacher's unions have on the system is broken we will never know if reforms will ever achieve results.

Clete , it is my opinion that no public service employee should be allowed to unionize . All contracts should be the perusal of the public through their representatives and they should be the final arbiter .

Teaching is a noble profession and they are certainly worth the pay. What is not being mentioned in the article is the amt .of preparation time a teacher does on a daily basis .


Often the teachers sacrifice their time voluntarily I've known many a teacher who are just a frustrated by the system as the public is. They for the most part take pride in their work . But the system stifles them as much as it does the students.

[paraclete]

The teacher's union has stood in the way of meaningful reform for as long as I can remember .

I don't necessarily think that the extra half hour would've made a significant impact ;however the unions have stood in the way of the biggest reform that could be attempted ....competition.

Just look at the success that was being realized in the DC districts before Congress responded to pressure from the union and defunded the charter schools .

I agree that these administrators aren't sainted in this issue ;too often being tied to status quo instead of innovative approaches to education. But again;until the strangle hold the teacher's unions have on the system is broken we will never know if reforms will ever acheive results.

Clete , it is my opinion that no public service employee should be allowed to unionize . All contracts should be the perusal of the public through their representatives and they should be the final arbiter .

Teaching is a noble profession and they are certainly worth the pay. What is not being mentioned in the article is the amt .of preparation time a teacher does on a daily basis .


Often the teachers sacrifice their time voluntarily I've known many a teacher who are just a frustrated by the system as the public is. They for the most part take pride in their work . But the system stifles them as much as it does the students.

Tom teachers are entitled to some relief from face to face teaching and therefore it should not be demanded that they work during their lunch break. If they want to do this voluntarily fine but no administrator should demand it.

Any person is entitled to be part of a union because they don't have the power to negotiate from a position of strength Arbitrary changes to working conditions should not be allowed. Public administration is just as unreasonable as any employer as has been demonstrated in this instance

[tomder55]

Tom teachers are entitled to some relief from face to face teaching and therefore it should not be demanded that they work during their lunch break. If they want to do this voluntarily fine but no administrator should demand it.

Agreed

Any person is entitled to be part of a union because they don't have the power to negotiate from a position of strength Arbitrary changes to working conditions should not be allowed. Public administration is just as unreasonable as any employer as has been demonstrated in this instance

Nothing tells them they have to become public service employees. Right now there are 50 states in the country facing Greece-like collapse because of unfunded benefits to civil service employees . It is a ticking time bomb.
They should face the same work environment as the rest of the American work force ;and right now unfortunately that means belt tightening and reductions in benefits provided .

One example...
Most Americans are at best only getting partial employer matches to a self funded retirement system. Are you telling me that these same workers should be under obligation to shell out tax dollars to fully pay public employee retirements ?
But that is what is happening ,and the public service unions are doing absolutely nothing to help. The teacher's unions in particular have been the biggest roadblocks to both fiscal sanity and educational innovations.

[speechlesstx]

Tom teachers are entitled to some relief from face to face teaching and therefore it should not be demanded that they work during their lunch break. If they want to do this voluntarily fine but no administrator should demand it.

Of course they're entitled to a break from students. I've never known teachers to not get break times along with their lunch time. The request was to eat lunch with students "once in a while." When I was in school it was a part of teachers duties to rotate time in the cafeteria, you don't leave 300 teenagers in a room, let alone one a cafeteria, alone. Why not use that time to eat with the kids on occasion? I don't see a problem here.

Any person is entitled to be part of a union because they don't have the power to negotiate from a position of strength Arbitrary changes to working conditions should not be allowed. Public administration is just as unreasonable as any employer as has been demonstrated in this instance

Arbitrary changes? So unions should be able to nix any and all changes that might actually benefit the people they serve? I can't wait to see the reaction of my boss the next time I tell him that extra assignment is unacceptable. I agree teachers are worth the money they're paid and many are underpaid. I know they spend hours in preparation outside of school, but if they're failing at their jobs then changes are needed. Unions are ruining public education in this country, they not only refuse to make changes that might work they actively obstruct as tom mentioned. Same way in college with tenured professors that have no business molding young minds (and as you may know, one actually attacked her co-workers allegedly because she was denied tenure).

George Will gets to the heart of it all...

Progressives and the growing dependency agenda

By George F. Will
Sunday, February 14, 2010; A23

Only two things are infinite -- the expanding universe and Democrats' hostility to the District of Columbia's school choice program. Killing this small program, which benefits 1,300 mostly poor and minority children, is odious and indicative. It is a small piece of something large -- the Democrats' dependency agenda, which aims to multiply the ways Americans are dependent on government.

Democrats, in their canine devotion to teachers unions, oppose empowering poor children to escape dependency on even terrible government schools. Unions and their poodles say school choice siphons money from public schools. But federal money funds the D.C. program, so killing it denies education money to the District while increasing the number of pupils the District must support.

Most Democrats favor a "public option" -- a government health insurance program. They say there is insufficient competition among the 1,300 private providers of insurance, so people should not be dependent on those insurers. But tuition vouchers redeemable at private as well as public schools are a "private option" providing minimal competition with public schools. Government, with 89 percent of the pupils, dominates education grades K through 12. So, do Democrats favor vouchers to reduce Americans' dependence on government education? Of course not.

For congressional Democrats, however, expanding dependency on government is an end in itself. They began the Obama administration by expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program. It was created for children of the working poor, but the expansion made millions of middle-class children eligible -- some in households earning $125,000. The aim was to swell the number of people who grow up assuming that dependency on government health care is normal.

Many Democrats favor -- as Barack Obama did in 2003 -- a "single-payer" health insurance system, which means universal dependency on government. The "public option" insurance proposal was a step toward that. So was the proposed "alternative" of making 55- to 64-year-olds eligible for Medicare. Both these dependency multipliers will be revived.

As will the Democrats' drive for "cramdown" legislation that would empower government (courts) to shred mortgage contracts, making borrowers eager to embrace dependency on judges. Soon, the most important financial decisions most families make -- to get a mortgage and a college tuition loan -- will almost always be transactions with the government.

The government used TARP funds not for their stipulated purpose of buying the "toxic assets" of banks but to pull auto companies and other economic entities into the spreading web of dependency. Servile -- because dependent -- banks were pliable during the farce of Chrysler's bankruptcy, but secured creditors resisted when settled law was disregarded. Nevertheless, those creditors received less per dollar than did an unsecured creditor, the United Auto Workers, which relishes dependency on government as an alternative to economic realism.

Democrats' "reforms" of the financial sector may aim to reduce financial institutions to dependent appendages of the government. By reducing banks to public utilities, credit, which is the lifeblood of capitalism, could be priced and allocated by government.

Many Democrats are untroubled by governments' rampant abuses of eminent-domain powers. Wealthy interests embrace dependency on collaborative governments that seize property from less wealthy people and transfer it to those wealthy interests who will pay more taxes to those governments.

Many Democrats, opposing the Supreme Court, advocate campaign finance "reforms" that will further empower government to regulate the quantity, timing and content of speech about government. Otherwise voters will hear more such speech than government considers good for them. Such paternalism is American progressivism's oldest tradition.

A century ago, Herbert Croly published "The Promise of American Life," a book -- still in print -- that was prophetic about today's progressives. Contemplating with distaste America's "unregenerate citizens," he said that "the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities." Therefore, Croly said, national life should be a "school" taught by the government: "The exigencies of such schooling frequently demand severe coercive measures, but what schooling does not?" Unregenerate Americans would be "saved many costly perversions" if "the official schoolmasters are wise, and the pupils neither truant nor insubordinate."

Subordination is dependency seen from above. Today, it is seen approvingly by progressives imposing, from above, their dependency agenda.

There is no school choice here; no voucher will enable Americans to escape from enveloping dependency on this "government as school." The dependency agenda is progressive education for children of all ages, meaning all ages treated as children.

[thisisit]

What rights were violated? You're darn right I think it's sweet that someone stood up to the mostly liberal, unionized public education establishment that's ruining education in this country.

Me too

[tomder55]

I have posted this article before but I think it is a worthy read about an administrator who cares.

The Lightning Rod - The Atlantic (November 2008)


Crusader of the Classrooms - The Atlantic (October 3, 2008)

[tomder55]

Wanted to tie this op with the discussion Clete and I had yesterday over the problems with the permanent bureaucracy.
https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/curren...re-453521.html

President Obama defended the decision to fire the teachers in this school .

“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. And that's what happened in Rhode Island last week at a chronically troubled school, when just 7 percent of 11th graders passed state math tests — 7 percent.”

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/03/03/rho...chool.firings/
The teacher's union argues in turn that the miserable 7% actually represents an improvement in test scores ! And evidently that is something to be proud of ?

Even worse ;according to the 'Economist ',with the emphasis on accountability that initiatives like NCLB ;teachers have been fudging results in some cases.

in 2009 13 teachers in Georgia were punished for cheating, including the principal and assistant principal at one elementary school. They changed answers on completed tests for fear that otherwise their school would not make “adequate yearly progress”, as required by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law.

Schools and testing: The finger of suspicion | The Economist

The Economist says that the President will use the threat of witholding Federal funds to school systems that underperform and do not meet standards.

“Verdaillia Turner, who heads Georgia's and Atlanta's teachers' unions, complains that the tests have turned teachers into “little robots.

I would say that if indeed teachers have become robots it is because the union's hold on the profession prevents the school districts from weeding out the underperformers.

And that is not just in the teaching profession ,but it is a common denominator in the permanent bureaucracy. The employees almost from the top down have a vested interest in maintaining status quo.