Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

In response to President Obama’s support for the firing of the entire staff of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, the American Federation of Teachers released a joint statement by AFT President Randi Weingarten, Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals President Marcia Reback and Central Falls Teachers Union President Jane Sessums.

President Obama’s comments today condoning the mass firing of the Central Falls High School teachers do not reflect the reality on the ground and completely ignore the teachers’ significant commitment to working with others to transform this school. We know it is tempting for people in Washington to score political points by scapegoating teachers, but it does nothing to give our students and teachers the tools they need to succeed.

AFT attached an April 2009 report by a team of state and district officials who visited the school for two days to assess the literacy program. “The report reinforces the fact that, today, teachers are being blamed unfairly for the schools’ problems,” reads the joint statement.

For the record, I’m opposed to the wholesale firings. It speaks to the inability of the public school system to make any meaningful distinctions in employee performance. The report cited by AFT is not an exoneration of the Central Falls teachers, but a further indictment of the system. If AFT has a legitimate beef, it’s not that the school is improving and the teachers should keep their jobs. It’s that the school system’s method of oversight and evaluation is pathetic.

The 10-month old report is nine pages long – more than four of which simply list the members of the team, note the purpose of the visit, and describe the basics of Central Falls High School’s student body, staff and mission statement. The team included union president Jane Sessums and former NEA Rhode Island president Ronald L. DiOrio.

Here is the type of crucial insight the team provided:

* “Students read at varying levels of proficiency throughout the school.”

* “Students write in almost all classes across all grade levels…. Throughout all of these classes the quality of student writing varies, with some students writing proficiently and others not writing well enough.”

* “Literacy strategies promoted and supported by district professional development are clearly in use across all content areas throughout the school…. These strategies are used with varied degrees of success and result in different levels of student engagement.”

* “Some teachers throughout all grade levels rely too heavily on teacher-directed instruction which often does not meet the varied interest and ability levels of their students. In these classes, many students were observed to be off task and disengaged from the learning process, doing work unrelated to the task at hand, texting on cell phones or sitting with their heads down for prolonged periods of time.”

* “An abundant amount of literacy professional development has been provided for teachers over the past few years. Teachers have worked hard and the strategies learned in these modules are clearly in use throughout the school, although not with complete consistency or fidelity.”

* “Many students and teachers express the concern that student discipline is inconsistently handled or not addressed at all in some instances. There is concern that this is causing an erosion of the learning and teaching process.”

Each of those statements could be applied to any school in America – without a visit. The team topped off their accomplishment by listing this first as one of the “next steps” the school could take:

“Take the time to celebrate as a learning community the accomplishments, successes and positive changes that have taken place over the past few years.”

With this kind of lip service, it’s little wonder the school is a mess. As long as the teachers have lost their jobs, these team members should be fired as well - or at least reassigned to duties that don’t require evaluating schools.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 09:40 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.