Education Law

Is a pattern developing?

Central Falls High School in Rhode Island gained national media attention earlier this month (and a lot of it) for a plan that will fire all of its teachers at the end of the school year.  Education professionals from all angles understood that something needed to be done and the superintendent and the school board took action by firing the teachers there.  Teachers around the country defended the teachers at the school because so much of the student population were coming from difficult family situations, many were victims of poverty, and struggled at home and at school as many urban students often do.

The situation in Rhode Island is not unique, unfortunately.  In Savannah, Georgia, last week, another superintendent faced the cameras and announced another high school is going to have to fire its entire staff and start over, all in the name of a federal rule that would close the high school if scores didn’t improve.  The situation in Savannah didn’t get national media attention for some reason, and unless you live in Georgia, you may not have heard anything about it.  But at BoardBuzz, we wonder if this is the beginning of a somewhat scary pattern. 

In both cases, test scores staying stagnant or not improving significantly enough in urban districts were the reasons for the firings.  In Savannah scores had been improving over the last several years, but not enough to satisfy NCLB requirements.  Perhaps there are some bad staff members (in Georgia, the entire staff, including the cafeteria workers are being laid off), but we wonder if public school teachers and administrators are now being treated like the latest celebrity on Donald Trump’s Apprentice show.  Is “you’re fired” going to be the next thing every staff person is worried about hearing at the next staff meeting?  Despite the attempts of people working hard to help students, these mass firings cannot be good for students in the long run.  Those who struggle at these two high schools will likely struggle again next year with a new staff, and unless we start addressing the bigger issues, engaging the entire community, and raising standards for all students, this pattern is bound to erupt into a national epidemic.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on March 29, 2010 (boomark / email).