“The real goal is to bust the unions”

Rhode Island high school fires
all 74 teachers to bust union

BY CINDY JAQUITH
More than 500 teachers, other unionists, and students demonstrated February 23 outside a meeting of the school board in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to protest the firing of every single teacher at the local high school. “The real goal is to bust the unions,” said Julie Boyle, a teacher at the high school in Coventry, Rhode Island, who came to show solidarity.

Demonstrators poured into the school board meeting and shouted at its members as they voted 5-2 to get rid of 74 classroom teachers, as well as reading specialists, guidance counselors, physical education teachers, the school psychologist, the principal, and three assistant principals, the Providence Journal reported.

U.S. secretary of education Arne Duncan said he “applauded” the Central Falls board for “showing courage and doing the right thing for kids,” according to the Journal.

Duncan is the point man for the Barack Obama administration’s program to “reform” education. To get federal aid states are now required to rate their schools by performance criteria laid down by the federal government. States must adopt radical changes in the lowest 5 percent of the schools.

There are four ways a state can “fix” a “low-performing” school: close it; allow a charter or other management organization to take it over; “transformation,” which means lengthening the school day and other changes; or “turnaround,” firing all the teaching staff and not rehiring more than 50 percent of them the next year.

Central Falls High School, with a graduation rate of 48 percent, was one of those the state of Rhode Island selected to “fix.” In negotiations with the Central Falls Teachers Union, schools superintendent Frances Gallo proposed that teachers accept the “transformation” plan, entailing longer hours. But Gallo said they wouldn’t be fully paid for the extra hours worked. When negotiations broke down, Gallo moved to “turnaround.” The terminations go into effect as of the next school year.

The attack on the teachers union in Central Falls mirrors assaults across the country. Some 60,000 teachers were laid off nationally in 2009, according to the U.S. Labor Department. The figure is twice as many as those laid off in 2008 and three times the number in 2007.

Some 8,500 teachers could lose their jobs this year in New York City. Schools chancellor Joel Klein is pushing for weakening the use of union seniority to determine layoffs.

The attacks on teachers and education fall heaviest on schools in working-class districts. Central Fall High School, for example, serves a community where the median income is only $22,000 and the population is 65 percent Latino.