Providence: Firing 2,000 teachers just in case. Flexibility or farce?
The mass firing of 2,000 teachers in Providence is getting a lot of press attention and clearly upset the teachers who received the notices. But the school board in the Rhode Island capitol is contending that it is only following the law requiring notification of possible job layoffs for the next school year by March 1.
Because the city does not yet know the scope of layoffs, it covered its bases by sending notices to all teachers seeking what it describes as “maximum flexibility” in coping with its budget melt down.
But the notices have created maximum anxiety. Many of the teachers will have their jobs in 2011-2012, but the tactic is garnering criticism. And I can understand as I would also be panicked if I received an official notice that I was losing my job, even if I was assured it was procedural maneuver.
Like every city, Providence is in budget free fall. It’s almost gone through its reserves and is facing massive cuts.
Still, teachers ask why they have to be the sacrificial lambs. In budget crunches, schools are a natural place to look for for cuts as they cost a lot. I still can’t get over that Georgia chose to remedy its gas shortage a few years ago by shuttering schools for two days. We were the only state to do so, and I think it communicated a lot about the value placed on education here.
(I am off to UGA where the Black Law Student Association at UGA Law is creating a reenactment of the trial in which UGA became desegregated. I am on a panel afterward, but am eager to see the reenactment. I have been reading all week about Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault who, in 1961, became the first African-American students at UGA. I have heard Hunter-Gault speak in the past and am in awe of the courage she and Holmes showed as young students facing angry mobs and an anti-integration governor and Legislature. Hurray for activist judges who forced Georgia and UGA to do what it should have done decades earlier. )
Here is the statement by Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, on the Providence mess:
Providence city officials’ sudden announcement firing every single Providence teacher—close to 2,000 people—without apparent regard to its effect or even consideration of the teachers’ performance, is shocking. What makes this even more stunning is that the district and the Providence Teachers Union have been working collaboratively on a groundbreaking, nationally recognized school transformation model. A mass firing, announced in the middle of a school year, does not help solve a budget problem—the purported reason—but, rather, disrupts the education of all students and the entire community. The mayor claims he needs flexibility. We looked up “flexibility” in the dictionary, and it does not mean destabilizing education for all students in Providence or taking away workers’ voice or rights.
Mass firings, whether in one school or an entire district, are not fiscally or educationally sound. The mayor and school superintendent owe it to the community and to the students and teachers in Providence to resolve whatever problem they’re dealing with, not by fiat, but by working in a collaborative way. For the past two years, that’s what they have been doing when it comes to work on improving low-performing schools, developing an innovative hiring process and revamping the teacher evaluation system.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog.
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69 comments Add your comment
GA taxpayer
February 26th, 2011
5:40 am
ptumember mentioned that these teachers that were terminated can no longer get their pensions or health insurance. Is that the same here in Georgia?
I can’t think of a more cowardly way for any city or county to deal with trying to do a reduction in force at a school. It was a sad day when Arne Duncan thought this was a viable solution to any kind of problem in a school system.
Most Georgia teachers do work hard, and most earn every penny they make.
doc a
February 26th, 2011
9:46 am
I wonder if the the mass layoff notices would have gone out if the unemployment rate was not as high as it is. Can the teachers who received the teachers can use the notice to get the paperwork started for collecting unemployment. What does sending out mass layoff notices do to the rate of unemployment insurance paid by the school systems?
If you find this discussion interesting, you might enjoy my blog: a teachable moment
doccomments.blogspot.com
HStchr
February 26th, 2011
10:11 am
Science Teacher: Ain’t it the truth? If the private sector had to work our hours without the ability to go to the restroom, OSHA would be all over it. My only “coffee break” is my drive time to school in the morning. Once I enter the building, I’m lucky if I get to sit down for 60 seconds, let alone walk to a bathroom.
Kteacher
February 26th, 2011
10:31 am
RC Karrh Jr-Where did you go to school? According to you, 160 or 180 + 265 = 365 days of the year. Blame your teachers!
Catlady-Give me a break.
Mitchell Hirsch
February 26th, 2011
10:53 am
Somebody wasn’t thinking very clearly here. Because now, with those termination letters in hand, every Providence teacher can — and should — file for unemployment benefits in June. I believe they would be entitled to receive them under RI law, even if they are notified they will be rehired in the Fall.
Burroughston Broch
February 26th, 2011
11:27 am
@ Mitchell Hirsch
The cost of unemployment will go against the state, not the city. It won’t add to Providence’s budget problem.
With a present average of 12.4 students per teacher, my guess is that they will hire back fewer teachers plus a lot fewer friends & family jobs.
Dekalbite
February 26th, 2011
2:23 pm
Soon school system employers will be able to fire at will and contracts will be useless. At that point teachers can give two weeks notice to move on to “something better”. Hasn’t anyone on this blog taken a job you didn’t really want, but needed to pay your rent? That’s exactly how it’s going to be with teachers. Take a job in the low performing schools with high levels of stress for performance, but keep interviewing for the higher performing school positions. When something comes along, give two weeks notice, pack your school stuff up, say good-bye to the kids and let the administration figure out how to replace you. The toughest classes could go through 3 or 4 teachers in a year for example in science and math. Which of those 3 or 4 teachers are responsible for student performance?
This is exactly how business operates. No obligation on the part of employer or employee. Businesses don’t owe their employees anything, but then the employee looks out for himself and owes his employer nothing. Soon school systems like businesses will have to start offering extra money to retain good teachers – a lot of extra money. The poorer the system the less able they will be to compete. Can you imagine what a school would be like with teachers coming and going all year long with two weeks notice? If schools are going to operate like a business, get rid of contracts, fire at will, let those teachers go to the highest bidder and the lowest stress positions as the “newbies” teach those hard to reach students (gets their foot in the door until something better comes along).
Actually, letting the marketplace set the pace is not a bad model for anyone – except for the kids. Stability is huge for students. But let’s not let that stop us. Education has become a huge business in the U.S. Educational dollars consume around 50% of every state’s budget. Business wanted a piece of the action, and with NCLB they got it.
Burroughston Broch
February 26th, 2011
3:48 pm
What an unspeakable tragedy and humiliation it would be if teachers had to work under the same rules as the rest of us! What a fall from present grace!
Teachers coming and going wouldn’t be a tremendous hardship for the students since the public schools have eliminated much of the individual teacher’s control of subject matter. It’s all part of a regimentation plan, like zero-tolerance policies (better known as “check your brain at the door”).
Based on what I read and my 40+ years of experience in business, the teacher turnover in the schools is very similar to that in business.
Dekalbite@Burroughston Broch
February 26th, 2011
5:26 pm
“What an unspeakable tragedy and humiliation it would be if teachers had to work under the same rules as the rest of us! What a fall from present grace!’
You think I was being facetious, but I’m as much serious as tongue in cheek.
I spent a decade making a lot of money in sales with no loyalty to anyone but my own paycheck. I never had a problem finding a job because I never failed to meet my quota. I worked all the time and was totally focused on making the sale and meeting and exceeding my quota. The more mercenary I was, the more my sales managers liked me because they knew bringing in revenue was the reason they were in business – hence the term “in business”. If you don’t have a revenue stream, you can cut expenses all you want, but your net profit will continue to bleed red ink. If I got a better deal, I was always open to it. That’s the beauty of the marketplace. You make people money, they pay you money. You can’t make your sales, you will not make money and pretty soon you will be out of a job. I loved the totally performance based aspect of sales. It is pure capitalism and every business person realizes revenue is the most indispensable part of any business. I was very adept. Besides knowing my product (extremely complex technical sales) inside and out, I qualified my customers and didn’t waste my time on those that didn’t have the money or inclination to buy. No one will stay in business very long if they try to sell to groups of customers who do not want what they have to sell or have the money to pay for the product. Surely, you understand the need to locate the customers who need, want and can afford your product and narrow your focus on those customers if you want to increase your revenue.
I’m a very bottom line person, so when I returned to teaching elementary school, I looked for the Return on Investment of taxpayer dollars. The return is student achievement and the investment is taxpayer dollars. However, the public educational system is different from sales. I could not qualify my customer. I had customers who did not want my product and could not buy it since they came to me “impoverished” i.e. were behind in the skills they needed – for example, I taught 4th grade and many of my students came in reading on a 2nd or 3rd grade level so the science and social studies textbooks were not readable (4th grade reading assumes you read for comprehension – not sounding out words like primary) for them. What would you do with a room full of 4th graders who cannot read the content matter on grade level? Of course I also had some gifted students who read on a 6th grade level, and then I had a certain percent out of 30 students who could read the textbooks on grade level. Actually, more students left my classroom ready for 5th grade work than came to me ready for 4th grade work, so for me that was a victory. But not everyone was on grade level. That was stressful for me because I always made my quota – something not always possible in the classroom.
Teacher turnover is not like business because teachers have a year long contract. You cannot just walk out the door when a better opportunity comes your way. If you could do that, then teaching would be totally similar to the business world. The implication for business is that they could lose their key employees within a very short amount of time so they must value them and compensate them accordingly. That may be what happens with teachers. Personally, I think that’s better for teachers than the alternative of a contract, since the contract often makes it necessary to “quit your day job” before you find another position (something I never did in business – everyone always wants the employed worker over the unemployed worker). Being able to take jobs and walk out with a couple of weeks notice for the next best job is always good for the employee IMHO.
This is not a good model for children though. Teachers coming and going throughout the year in low performing, high stress schools is not efficacious from an educational standpoint. They need stability, and they need personnel who see them through the years and years they need to become proficient in the content areas. And make no mistake, the best teachers are still the ones who teach students to think critically. You must be able to perform basic math functions, but can you apply that to a home remodeling project that will save you money or to your investments that secure your future prosperity or to the pay structure that a company offers you? These are basic skills that all adults need. You won’t get these skills with sheer regimentation. If we allow students to “check their brains at the door” they will absolutely not have the complicated skills they need just to survive in the coming global economy.
Burroughston Broch
February 26th, 2011
8:22 pm
I’m serious as well, having many teachers in my family and having been successful in a professional business for a long time. I’ve never had an employment contract and never will.
First comment. “Check your brains at the door” is about the teachers and administrators, not about the staff. “No tolerance” policies are typical of a brainless bureaucracy that wants the system to operate on strict cause and effect. Look at the cause (real or imagined – say a child who brings a plastic fork to school) and then look in the manual for an effect that fits the cause (call the police and suspend the child for a year). The “no tolerance” policy has no tolerance for any teacher’s initiative or sensibility. And this from an institution that is supposed to teach rational thinking?
Teacher turnover, I believe, would be no worse with or without a contract. Employment is always a supply vs. demand situation and teaching is no different. The problem with today’s teacher contracts is that tenure is added after a period of time. I would have no problems with a yearly teacher contract, provided that there is no tenure. Tenure is institutionalized mediocrity and incompetence.
Dekalbite@Burroughston Broch
February 26th, 2011
10:04 pm
“Burroughston Broch
February 26th, 2011
8:22 pm
I’m serious as well, having many teachers in my family and having been successful in a professional business for a long time. I’ve never had an employment contract and never will.
First comment. “Check your brains at the door” is about the teachers and administrators, not about the staff. “No tolerance” policies are typical of a brainless bureaucracy that wants the system to ….
Teacher turnover, I believe, would be no worse with or without a contract. Employment is always a supply vs. demand situation and teaching is no different. The problem with today’s teacher contracts is that tenure is added after a period of time. I would have no problems with a yearly teacher contract, provided that there is no tenure. ”
You do understand that Barnes did away with teacher tenure – right? All teachers have is the right to due process because they have a yearly contract and it only lasts from year to year. If they break their yearly contract, the school system can take their teaching certificate. What they get in return is due process ONLY for the year of their contract. If a principal wants to rid herself of a teacher, he can simply give him poor observation reviews and then not renew his contract even if the teacher has 15 years of successful evaluations in the system. It really is that simple.
Teaching should indeed be a supply and demand job, and once our economy comes back and 30% of our teachers retire in the next 3 to 5 years – a confluence of events that is fairly predictable since we now the average age of our teachers, then we will need an enormous amount of new teachers – especially in a knowledge economy. We cannot attract a highly educated group of professionals into a high stress, low reward job. Having no contracts and operating in a business model is great for teachers. However, it is NOT good for students. A first or second grader or any other student cannot have teachers coming and going at will although coming and going at will is really the best thing for teachers as employees.
Russ
February 26th, 2011
11:15 pm
@JOnathon – 9:50am
I was just reading through the comments and was amazed at how inaccurate the information “Jonathon” posted about RI. I live in Rhode Island and it appears he has just made up numbers to support his arguments. None of the “counties” in RI have property taxes of 4% of assessed values. Also, property taxes are not determined by “county” – they are determined by individual towns.
“Department heads make $90-$110k, Principles make $150k. As a teacher you get a full retirement at your last annual salary which vests in full after 20 years. After 10 years you and your family is covered by health insurance for life, with no contribution. After you retire, you get a 3.5% annual COLA increase.”
EVERY ONE OF THE STATEMENTS ARE COMPLETELY AND FACTUALLY INACCUARTE!! IT IS LAUGABLE HOW INACCUARTE THESE STATEMENTS ARE.
Someone who writes comments like this without any facts is not only ignorant but also too lazy to complete any research. These comments are not embellishments, they are lies. Completely untrue. I am sure his father, as a law professor, or his mother, a kindergarten teacher, would be able to explain the difference.
Burroughston Broch
February 27th, 2011
12:45 pm
Barnes didn’t end teacher tenure; he restricted the provisions somewhat. It’s still an arduous, long term process to remove a substandard teacher after they are tenured, which I believe is after three years in GA. Add to that the educational bureaucracy mindset to pawn your problem teacher off on another school rather than getting rid of the problem, or to make yet another unnecessary job in the central office. A good indication of the scope of problem is that 1 of 57 lawyers and 1 of 95 physicians lose their professional license over their career, while with teachers it’s 1 of 2015.
I’ll repeat that yearly contracts are OK but tenure is not.
Burroughston Broch
February 27th, 2011
1:02 pm
@ Russ
From the Providence Public Schools 2010-2011 fact sheet on their website:
Average Annual Salaries
Teachers (Step 5)………………………………………..$48,984
Teacher’s Salary Range……………..$36,641 – $69,064
Elementary School Principals………………….$95,998
Middle School Principals…………………………$102,214
High School Principals…………………………….$111,952
Directors………………………………………………….$104,631
Executive Directors………………………………..$106,954
Secretary/Clerk………………………………………….$33,836
“Further, the Board shall provide each of said retirees and their spouses with Plan 65 coverage upon their attainment of age 65 for the lifetime of each and the cost of this coverage shall be fully borne by the Board.”
“Providence public school teachers can retire with 28 years of service at any age or at age 60 with ten years of contributing service. For teachers not vested (10 years) as of July 1, 2005, teachers may retire at age 59 with 29 years of service or age 65 with 10 years of service or age 55 with 20 years of service (at a reduced pension).”
Teachers contribute 9.5% of their salary toward their pension. The maximum retirement is 75%-80% of the final annual salary.
It’s not as sweet as JOnathon stated, but it’s a lot sweeter than you stated.
Dekalbite@Burroughston Broch
February 27th, 2011
4:40 pm
“It’s still an arduous, long term process to remove a substandard teacher after they are tenured, which I believe is after three years in GA.”
That’s not true. Principals just have to give teachers 3 Needs Improvement evaluations and then then they are able to not renew their contract. That happened to hundreds of teachers in the metro area last year, many of them 20 year veterans who had never had bad evaluations. They needed to shed themselves of the highest paid employees.
I’ve been in the corporate and small business world and in the education world, and it is like comparing apples to oranges. I do not think teachers are the problem. We have a vast overpaid bureaucratic group of admin and support all over the country. This is a pervasive problem, and until we fix that admin and support overhead expense, we will continue to decline in ROI. No company could exist with the admin and support overhead while they gut their core business yet education can. Like I said, apples to oranges.
Could you give us a link to your source for the Rhode Island salary info?
another comment
February 27th, 2011
10:26 pm
After a few years like this who would ever encourage or pay for their child to go to college to become a teacher?
Burroughston Broch
February 27th, 2011
11:44 pm
From what I hear from my teacher friends, the three evaluations start the process but aren’t necessarily the end. It depends on how difficult the teacher wants to make it, and whether the teacher has friends in high places. Many times, I hear, the principal will facilitate a transfer to another school to pawn his/her problem off on another principal, or get a place made at the central office. DeKalb is notorious for the latter practice.
If you google “Providence Public Schools”, their website http://www.providenceschools.org/ comes up at the top of the list.
RC Karrh Jr.
February 28th, 2011
9:52 am
@ Kteacher : I apologize addition my wrong, but I had review two APS teachers contracts and It appears that both teachers are required to work 189 days and their payment for this is over a 12 month period. It appears that their insurance, 403k, and these teachers are provided cellphones and automobiles are extended for 12 months.
Demian
February 28th, 2011
7:04 pm
I love the point of view and the position taken in this article, but as a providence teacher i will honestly tell you that none of this will disrupt education for many of us. The truth is, and I believe I am speaking for the majority of Providence teachers, when we shut our doors and continue to work passionately to inspire and educate our students, this disruption will slip from consciousness. My job now is to maintain my passion for education. The politics of a struggling community is not my concern when I am in my classroom.