I Guess This Is One Way to Deal With Teacher Union Issues
This is probably a little more radical than most of us would hope for, but still quite interesting. The news of a school district in Rhode Island firing every teacher comes to us via a former intern, and (personally speaking) one of my favorite Democrats, Calvin H.
Needless to say, I think the changes we need in Missouri require less dramatic action than this, but if this is what they had to do in Rhode Island, I hope it works out. Improving the school, not protecting jobs, is the ultimate goal of sensible education policy — and, if you read the article carefully, it sounds like up to half of the staff will likely be hired back anyway.
So how does firing every teacher make the school better? I would think this would have a terrible affect on the morale of the good teachers that got canned with along with the subpar ones.
Comment by Donald — February 19, 2010 @ 11:55 a.m.
I never said it would make the school better. I merely said I hope it works out. According to the article, firing every teacher was only authorized in this one failing school, by state law, because the teachers rejected a far less radical proposal. We can probably all agree that we hope steps like this are never needed in Missouri.
Comment by David Stokes — February 19, 2010 @ 1:40 p.m.
Scorched earth policy. I like it.
Comment by vroman — February 22, 2010 @ 7:20 p.m.
When I saw this, I literally laughed out loud. Not sure if you actually researched the situation Donald, but those teachers had the highest salaries in the state. In a district where the median household income of families was only $22,000, these teachers were pulling in between $70,000 – $78,000 a year! And for what…dismal test scores and sub par graduation rates??? What the superintendent asked the teachers to do was not difficult – simple tasks such as eating lunch with your students more frequently, and extending the school day by 25 minutes. Not trying to say that these two things alone will solve the problems in the district, but its a decent start. It’s just unfortunate that the teachers refuse to adhere to the superintendents wishes without throwing in more money.
Please believe, if I can’t convince Rex Sinquefield to adopt me in the near future, I will be sending my resume to that school district in Rhode Island.
Comment by Calvin — February 25, 2010 @ 12:06 p.m.