Am I reading this right?? Board votes to dismiss all Providence teachers

[Luna]

I think this has more to do with "seniority" than people realize.  Senior teachers a) make more money b) cost more in benefits and c) have less time left to work. 

This way they can bring back or in the new teachers who are making less, are younger and theoretically healthier and who have more years to slave away....

Having seen seniority in action, one could also propose that they're getting rid of the teachers with seniority who've done nothing but sit on their asses for the past twenty years, and keeping the ones who area actually managing to teach the kids something.

The schools here, to be perfectly frank, suck.  They need to do something to fix it, and looking at the teachers makes sense.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I think this has more to do with "seniority" than people realize.  Senior teachers a) make more money b) cost more in benefits and c) have less time left to work.  

This way they can bring back or in the new teachers who are making less, are younger and theoretically healthier and who have more years to slave away....

Having seen seniority in action, one could also propose that they're getting rid of the teachers with seniority who've done nothing but sit on their asses for the past twenty years, and keeping the ones who area actually managing to teach the kids something.

The schools here, to be perfectly frank, suck.  They need to do something to fix it, and looking at the teachers makes sense.

It's a happy thought to think that but I'm betting the bottom line is money.  I seriously doubt there is any school board nationwide who really gives a shit about the OMG actual students these days.  If they did, they would come up with a lot more innovations in education.

St. Louis city schools have not been accredited for 5 years now.  The drop out rate has gone sky high, even the charter schools (once trend setters in education) are now just barely surviving after the influx of public school students.

This district offers no online classes (how fucking cheap are those?), no integrated jump start programs (for students who are targeted as potential drop outs) and kids are being shot in the fucking parking lots because... they can't afford security?  

St. Louis should thank god every day I don't have the education to run for a position on the school board.  I'm a big enough pita attending every damn meeting.

[Luna]

They've got a huge budget shortfall to close... and the biggest expenses are, I would imagine physical facilities and salaries.  They cut a half million in admin salaries, already.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

They've got a huge budget shortfall to close... and the biggest expenses are, I would imagine physical facilities and salaries.  They cut a half million in admin salaries, already.

Helathcare is insanely expensive and is more per person the older the person is.  Though their portion is the same as everyone else's the company or in this case the school district takes on the additional charges.

Seriously, anytime you see a huge downsizing, helathcare plays a big part in who goes and who stays.

[Luna]

Actually, the biggest factor in our health care cost is ONE person...

They have a young child whose medical bills are, frankly, astronomical.  That brings everybody's up.

[Cain]

I think this has more to do with "seniority" than people realize.  Senior teachers a) make more money b) cost more in benefits and c) have less time left to work. 

This way they can bring back or in the new teachers who are making less, are younger and theoretically healthier and who have more years to slave away....

This is precisely what I expect to happen in the UK, as the education funding gets slashed away next emergency budget.  Which is why I'm going in now.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I think this has more to do with "seniority" than people realize.  Senior teachers a) make more money b) cost more in benefits and c) have less time left to work. 

This way they can bring back or in the new teachers who are making less, are younger and theoretically healthier and who have more years to slave away....

This is precisely what I expect to happen in the UK, as the education funding gets slashed away next emergency budget.  Which is why I'm going in now.

Young, healthy, smart, possibly less expensive than that old fart who's been teaching since the 60's, they'll kick ass to get you....   

[Jenne]

...this is why collective bargaining is such a pain in their asses.  You get a seniority system going and folks whose pensions are two to three times the starting wage of any junior union member...shit adds up, adds up quickly.  And it's not just teachers (who do not get paid the sums, salaries and bonuses other government workers do), it's firefighters, police, PRISON GUARDS!!, etc. 

There are some government workers that retire, get a second government job, and have TWO pensions with TWO sets of benefits in some areas of the government.  True story, yo.  There are YOUNG retirement ages in the emergency, safety and first respondant personnel sectors...so it's entirely possible that someone can have 2 benefit/pension packages by the age of 60/65 and be fully retired from TWO jobs/careers/positions.

BE THAT AS IT MAY, I am not one to begrudge what someone was working for and promised/contracted to get when they signed up for the job.  I've heard so many times over the years "BOOHOO DOCTORS GET PAID SO MUCH FOR DOING FREAKING NOTHING!!!"  Bullfuckingshit.  I know firsthand the training, the hours and hours of work, the sheer brain exhaustion it takes to learn and implement the amount of knowledge (that increases every day) a doctor has to handle.  The fucker is saving your life, went into debt for $$$ to do it, yeah, s/he's gonna get PAID to do it!

That being said--balancing budgets on the backs of kids and their education is a bad fucking idea.  Bar none.  In the end, you will NOT have a workforce that will pull us out of debt, or that will cogently and intelligently choose leaders that will take us into the next generation with skill and promise.  You'll get more Palins, you'll get more dumbing down of history and spoonfed dogma.

Firing all the incumbent teachers does one thing:  causes a big pain in the ass in hiring everyone back.  It's a political move, pure and simple.  A "nuh-uh-uh" you thought you were so badass, look what we can do! maneuver.  It's weak.

Instead, they (the powers that be) should be looking into bringing private sector money that has a stake in the value of what is known as "human capital."  Sure, that puts a noose on the money to an extent to hold onto "values" etc. that said companies might want advertised or implemented.  There's always ways around that or to placate such conditions.  But there's PLENTY of money to be garnered in a way that you can utilize for the teachers'/kids' benefit so that art, PE and science are still getting some play, and math and reading aren't lagging behind by the time each class is in its 5th grade year.

It's just that we're lazy, in the main, and we don't like to compromise or work to get what we need.  Instead, we bitch, moan and threaten to quit.  Quitting's not an option when it comes to your own kids' education.  At least, it wasn't for mine.  I know I'm stumping here, but I make no apologies for it.  I still happen to believe, perhaps stupidly (can't say "naively" anymore, more's the pity...), that if enough people give a shit, then things GET DONE.

[Jenne]

Good to see I'm not alone:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/03/09/23price.h30.html?tkn=TNQFBZ2GFxX7LbKWqa9toYOWyrQD8UAAeeMy&cmp=clp-edweek

Mobilizing Communities Is Reform's Missing Link
By Hugh B. Price


Whenever President Barack Obama addresses the need to improve American education, he invariably mentions a vitally important ingredient that is missing from most school reform recipes. That is the role of parents and communities in motivating youngsters to achieve.

As recently as this winter's State of the Union address, the president reiterated this point. "We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl that deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair." I urge President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to use their matchless bully pulpits and convening power to transform exhortation into action.

Most of the energy, resources, and policymaking devoted to improving student performance these days is concentrated on schools and school systems. This makes obvious sense. Yet the emphasis on what happens inside schools overlooks another important facet of the solution, namely the need for communities to create a culture of achievement and encourage youngsters to learn.

In 1997, when I headed the National Urban League, we mounted a Campaign for African-American Achievement. Our ambitious goal was to mobilize civic and social groups, schools, churches, youth-services agencies, libraries, and an array of other community organizations to spread the gospel of achievement. While the campaign admittedly did not live up to my loftiest expectations, we often succeeded in energizing youngsters to take education more seriously and strive to improve academically.

I subsequently wrote a book based on the league's campaign, titled Mobilizing the Community to Help Students Succeed. In the course of writing it, I came upon persuasive research which substantiates some common-sense notions about the influences that help shape the mind-set of students toward school. For starters, student motivation—or the lack thereof—unquestionably plays a role in spurring academic performance. Also, it is critically important for youngsters to feel valued by adults, be they parents, teachers, or community groups.

Furthermore, children benefit from belonging to positive peer groups that espouse and adhere to constructive values. Frequent recognition and rituals that reward youngsters for their accomplishments, however modest, help stoke motivation. The military figured this out eons ago. Finally, community groups can play an instrumental role in encouraging children to strive to do better in school and enabling them to bask in the glow of being celebrated as achievers.

There are many ways that local school boards and educators; PTAs; and civic, faith-, community-based, and business groups could team up to encourage and recognize academic achievement. For instance, they could designate September as Achievement Month and stage rallies, assemblies, and street fairs that herald the resumption of school and enlist students and parents in attendance to recommit to academic excellence in the coming year.

These groups can establish community-based honor societies, which serve as a coveted form of recognition and peer camaraderie for students who have earned solid, if not stellar, grades in school. Drawing on a model devised by the educator Israel Tribble, the Urban League created a National Achievers Society, or NAS, to recognize "achievers" in grades 3-12 who had earned B averages or better in school. We also saluted so-called "believers," whose GPAs fell just shy of a B. I vividly recall attending an NAS induction ceremony at Bayview Baptist Church in San Diego for some 350 African-American students, roughly half of whom were boys. An enthusiastic, overflow crowd of nearly 2,000 parents, grandparents, and other well-wishers filled the church that day to cheer the achievers.

A compelling idea for boosting literacy skills is to hold book-reading contests. During the 2000-01 school year, Ronald Ross, the superintendent of schools in Mount Vernon, N.Y., declared that any pupil who read 50 books or more would receive a free bicycle. So many more students exceeded the goal than expected that the community sponsors had to scramble to secure enough bicycles for all the winners.

Schools and community centers can mount achievement fairs akin to county fairs. Like the 4-H members who tout their prize livestock, students could present their science projects or recite the stories and poems they have composed before an appreciative audience of families and community members.

"The whole idea is to envelop youngsters in a culture of achievement. This means keeping up the drumbeat with a series of activities throughout the year."Communities routinely hold parades to herald a wide array of triumphs. Why not stage Achievement Day parades that celebrate students when they successfully clear key academic milestones, such as graduating from elementary, middle, and high school? Or even when 4th graders and 8th graders pass state exams in reading and math? Since so many youngsters are lagging behind academically, I prefer events that recognize and inspire the maximum number of students.

Activities like these should not be viewed as isolated undertakings. The whole idea is to envelop youngsters in a culture of achievement. This means keeping up the drumbeat with a series of activities throughout the year.

The feedback we received from the youngsters who participated in the Urban League's campaign suggests that our activities made a favorable impression on them. An assessment conducted by the Academy for Educational Development, or AED, found that the campaign "fills a long-unmet need for recognition on the part of young African-Americans who excel academically." The AED report continued: "Focus-group respondents actually marveled at the turn of events whereby their peers were seeking them out to find out how 'to get one of those [NAS] jackets.' "

The AED also commended the league for creating "believers groups" for students whose grades were not quite good enough to merit induction into the National Achievers Society: Parents, teachers, and even academically marginalized students interviewed by the AED all noted that those groups "promote the philosophy that the community believes that these young people, with extra effort, can become tomorrow's Achievers."

For their part, President Obama and Secretary Duncan could jumpstart a community crusade to motivate children to achieve. Consider this scenario: The White House invites the national leaders of a cross section of organizations with vast affiliate networks to attend a summit. The kinds of groups I have in mind are the major civic and social clubs in the very communities that are saddled with high achievement gaps, as well as faith-based organizations, service-oriented business groups like the Kiwanis and Rotary clubs, the National PTA, teachers' unions, and the national associations representing elementary and secondary school principals.

At the summit, Secretary Duncan would explain the administration's strategy for improving K-12 education, but also make clear that schools cannot and should not be expected to go it alone. The president would then issue a call to action for community groups to get actively engaged in encouraging youngsters to achieve. Of course, the secretary could deliver this message. But for obvious reasons, it would be even more compelling—and irresistible—if issued personally by President Obama. The participants would then hear presentations about concrete ways that community organizations have gone about motivating youngsters to achieve and celebrating them for doing so. Following these preliminaries, the participants would break out into small groups to discuss the specific kinds of mobilization activities that they could imagine undertaking.

They would then report on the most promising ideas. They would be asked to commit, either on the spot or after consultation with their constituents, to collaborate in designing and implementing a series of, say, three activities in their communities in the coming academic year. The organizations that enlist in this effort would also be expected to reconvene a year or so later for a follow-up summit to review what has transpired, share best practices, and map plans for the second year. If this mobilization effort were to gain sufficient traction, it could become an annual summit, possibly with state or local versions conducted by the participating groups and including other newcomers genuinely committed to the enterprise.

To sustain the energy and engagement of these groups, President Obama could bestow highly coveted awards in various categories upon those outfits that during the past year have done the most effective job of motivating children to achieve.

The education challenges facing our country exceed the capacity of schools and educators to solve them on their own. Real-world experience illustrates the payoff of mobilizing communities to motivate students to achieve. We learned from the Urban League's Achievement Campaign that youngsters will respond if only the adults in the proverbial village bestir themselves to inspire and then recognize them. Given the fateful stakes for the country and the kids, inertia is not an option.

Hugh B. Price is a visiting professor in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He previously served as the president of the National Urban League and is the author of Mobilizing the Community to Help Students Succeed (ASCD, 2008).

Vol. 30, Issue 23, Pages 22,25

[Suu]

I posted this when it came out.

It's nothing new. Providence has no money, and we haven't had any money since they locked Cianci up and Cicilline spent it all on gay hookers and blow. Duh. Our unions are in turmoil, our public service departments haven't had contracts for the past 6 years, and if it wasn't for the Federal government giving us money, our roads would be giant sinkholes.

Angel Taveras is going to be dealing with a lot of bullshit the next few years, and because he's the Hispanic mayor in an Italian and Irish city, of COURSE it will all be his fault. He doesn't have a choice, he walked into a huge mess when Cicilline ran to Washington to take over Patrick Kennedy's nightmare. I still have no idea how the fuck he won. I feel like I need to write a letter to Taveras and tell him to burn everything in that office after I saw Cicilline BF'ing that ephebe.

[Telarus]

Do it.

[Cain]

Bar none.  In the end, you will NOT have a workforce that will pull us out of debt, or that will cogently and intelligently choose leaders that will take us into the next generation with skill and promise.  You'll get more Palins, you'll get more dumbing down of history and spoonfed dogma

Uh, I'm pretty sure that is precisely the point of all this.

Education and literacy lead to lower birth rates, secularism and democracy, as a rule.  Who are the GOP dominated by, again?  Oh yeah, religious nutcases who want cannon fodder for foreign wars, and oligarchs.

[Jenne]

Bar none.  In the end, you will NOT have a workforce that will pull us out of debt, or that will cogently and intelligently choose leaders that will take us into the next generation with skill and promise.  You'll get more Palins, you'll get more dumbing down of history and spoonfed dogma

Uh, I'm pretty sure that is precisely the point of all this.

Education and literacy lead to lower birth rates, secularism and democracy, as a rule.  Who are the GOP dominated by, again?  Oh yeah, religious nutcases who want cannon fodder for foreign wars, and oligarchs.

 You're makin' me sad, man.  But I know, I know.  I'm a pathetic naive person when it comes to edumacayshun...just too close to it to accept that particular viewpoint most of the time, I guess.