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All Providence teachers receive layoff notices

Gapeach

Gapeach

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Teachers in Rhode Island all received a layoff notice because the gov't can not afford to pay them all anymore. An all blue state now must fire a majority of their teachers because a balanced budget hasn't been adapted and the teachers believe they are owed the money. The teachers' union said it was "appalled" at the city's decision to "terminate all Providence public school teachers." What do people really expect when no one is willing to sacrifice anything?

Providence teachers receive layoff notices in budget crunch - Feb. 23, 2011

All Providence teachers get layoff notices as precaution | Turn to 10
 
As part of the Teacher's contract, the city must notify them of layoffs before March 1st, long before the budget for the next year has been calculated. March 1st is also long before the end of the school year. To keep teachers from being despondent about being fired for the remainder of the school year, they fire them all. Nobody gets left out. "Did you bring enough pink slips for the whole class, Mayor Tavares?"

Unions came about to protect works from being exploited by an employer who holds all the cards. With the public sector unions, it seems that the unions hold all the cards. In a recession, if the union refuses to take a pay cut, then it is not surprising that there will be large layoffs.

The goal of education is the children, not the teachers. The children would do much better having many underpaid teachers, than a few overpaid teachers. If the Teacher's Union is determined to represent the teachers with no regard to the affect it will have on the students, who is there to represent the needs of the children?
 
I'll laugh my ass off when/if the state decides to hire non-union teachers. :D That would imo teach unions one hell of a lesson about being greedy aholes. (no pun intended about the "teach unions" bit)
 
You ain't seen nothing yet.

California is on the verge of going down for the count and we have the worst idiot possible in the number one job and this fool has no clue what the hell he's doing.

There are plenty of States getting ready to crash and they owe a lot of the problems on Unions.
 
Now this is the way to handle a union that overpriced its members, rathen then being a chicken s__t using government legislatation to removes the ability for people to negotiate compensation packages
 
Tiresias said:
The goal of education is the children, not the teachers. The children would do much better having many underpaid teachers, than a few overpaid teachers. If the Teacher's Union is determined to represent the teachers with no regard to the affect it will have on the students, who is there to represent the needs of the children?
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I doubt the childern will be better off with many under paid and underqualified teachers then fewer well qualified teachers.

When little Johnny asks a science question and the high school dropout teaching Grade 9 science cant answer the question and has to google the answer, the childern will not be well served
 
Well, this shows just how much the government of Rhode Island is concerned with the education of its children.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Now this is the way to handle a union that overpriced its members, rathen then being a chicken s__t using government legislatation to removes the ability for people to negotiate compensation packages
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It's better to just fire'em? :lamo

Incredible!
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
I doubt the childern will be better off with many under paid and underqualified teachers then fewer well qualified teachers.

When little Johnny asks a science question and the high school dropout teaching Grade 9 science cant answer the question and has to google the answer, the childern will not be well served
Click to expand...
Who's to say which teachers are the better? With the current state of our education in our country I'd say that a change may do some good at least in some cases.

Since, in most unions you cant get rid of alot of the bad teachers because of the protection of the union now they will be able to jetison them. Of course you couls lose some good ones too but I'd be willing to bet there are good ones out there without jobs considering the curent unemployment rate. I hear Detroit has a few that are going to be looking for work & I'd be willing to bet alot of them would work without a Union as opposed to not working at all.
 
apdst said:
It's better to just fire'em? :lamo

Incredible!
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Yes it is

Contract is up, and they dont want to negotiate lower compensation, fire them. Hire people to teach at a lower cost, while not removing peoples right to negotiate terms of compensation

Reagan did it to the Air traffic controllers
 
Iron Yank said:
Who's to say which teachers are the better? With the current state of our education in our country I'd say that a change may do some good at least in some cases.

Since, in most unions you cant get rid of alot of the bad teachers because of the protection of the union now they will be able to jetison them. Of course you couls lose some good ones too but I'd be willing to bet there are good ones out there without jobs considering the curent unemployment rate. I hear Detroit has a few that are going to be looking for work & I'd be willing to bet alot of them would work without a Union as opposed to not working at all.
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Generally qualified teachers or at least those who are good at their job, I doubt will stay for very long at the schools/districts that are underpaying them. Leaving the unqualified iunskilled ones to do the job.

In the case of unions I am not against firing the whole bunch and hiring teachers on an individual basis if possible, I am against though preventing people from forming unions or allowing the union to negotiate contracts regarding what compensation its members get for their services.

If the politicians are too weak to be able to stand up to a union, the politician needs to be replaced with some that can do the job
 
Iron Yank said:
Who's to say which teachers are the better? With the current state of our education in our country I'd say that a change may do some good at least in some cases.

Since, in most unions you cant get rid of alot of the bad teachers because of the protection of the union now they will be able to jetison them. Of course you couls lose some good ones too but I'd be willing to bet there are good ones out there without jobs considering the curent unemployment rate. I hear Detroit has a few that are going to be looking for work & I'd be willing to bet alot of them would work without a Union as opposed to not working at all.
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why do people insist that bad teachers cannot be fired
there is no contract i am aware of which prevents the termination of a union employee if the basis for termination is legitimate
retaining bad teachers is a very strong indicator of weak/lazy management
sound management would terminate the weak performers because they are weak performers. management would have to document its basis to establish that the teacher/employee was being terminated for just cause
and that is the rub. the managers would have to expend effort to document the file and follow the contract provisions for termination
there are bad teachers in the education system; often co-located with inferior school managers
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Yes it is

Contract is up, and they dont want to negotiate lower compensation, fire them. Hire people to teach at a lower cost, while not removing peoples right to negotiate terms of compensation

Reagan did it to the Air traffic controllers
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Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, because they violated their contract by going on strike. Basically, the strike was illegal.
 
Kal'Stang said:
I'll laugh my ass off when/if the state decides to hire non-union teachers. :D That would imo teach unions one hell of a lesson about being greedy aholes. (no pun intended about the "teach unions" bit)
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Yeah because that worked so well with the air traffic controllers :p
 
justabubba said:
why do people insist that bad teachers cannot be fired
there is no contract i am aware of which prevents the termination of a union employee if the basis for termination is legitimate
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Actually, this is a huge problem in Providence Public School District. The teachers union does not recognize ANY rubric for measuring a teachers effectiveness. This means that the administration cannot fire a teacher simply for being a bad teacher, because the union allows no definition for "bad teacher". It is nearly impossible to fire a teacher unless they have committed a crime. When the administration needs to cut back on teachers, the unions insist the only teachers with the least seniority are laid off. This usually results in firing the least jaded teachers with the most modern methods of teaching.

Unions will fail the communities they are a part of unless they use merit based pay and merit based hiring/firing/promotion. Seniority is not an adequate measure of a persons ability to perform a job. Merit based achievement is the bedrock of capitalism, and no sector of the American economy, especially not the public sector, can succeed without it.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
I doubt the childern will be better off with many under paid and underqualified teachers then fewer well qualified teachers.

When little Johnny asks a science question and the high school dropout teaching Grade 9 science cant answer the question and has to google the answer, the childern will not be well served
Click to expand...

There are thousands of people out there that would make better teachers than these union jokers we tolerate these days.
 
Tiresias said:
Actually, this is a huge problem in Providence Public School District. The teachers union does not recognize ANY rubric for measuring a teachers effectiveness. This means that the administration cannot fire a teacher simply for being a bad teacher, because the union allows no definition for "bad teacher". It is nearly impossible to fire a teacher unless they have committed a crime. When the administration needs to cut back on teachers, the unions insist the only teachers with the least seniority are laid off. This usually results in firing the least jaded teachers with the most modern methods of teaching.

Unions will fail the communities they are a part of unless they use merit based pay and merit based hiring/firing/promotion. Seniority is not an adequate measure of a persons ability to perform a job. Merit based achievement is the bedrock of capitalism, and no sector of the American economy, especially not the public sector, can succeed without it.
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problem is that there is no legitimate methodology to objectively evaluate the teacher
there needs to be. but the one used by the self deposed DC schools administrator was quite flawed
if my class is filled with high achieving students from homes where education is encouraged and assisted, then my class is going to look great on end of year exams. chances are, they could have passed them on the first day of school
on the other hand, if i have a class of special needs students from homes where there is little ability and/or inclination to support the student to do well in school, then that class is likely going to perform marginally, even with an excellent teacher at the helm
these student widgets are not all alike. and we cannot evaluate them using industrial engineering evaluation techniques like we would identical widgets on an assembly line
but that is what they did in DC
with today's computers, there is NO excuse for not having tracking data on the performance of every student in every class room. with that data, we could then examine how the students, individually and as a class, were performing when compared to where they were when they began receiving instruction from a particular teacher. then you would have an objective metric to use to examine teacher (and student) performance
with such data, there is no way the union would be able to successfully defend weak teachers from either being forced to improve or be terminated
 
justabubba said:
problem is that there is no legitimate methodology to objectively evaluate the teacher
there needs to be. but the one used by the self deposed DC schools administrator was quite flawed
if my class is filled with high achieving students from homes where education is encouraged and assisted, then my class is going to look great on end of year exams. chances are, they could have passed them on the first day of school
on the other hand, if i have a class of special needs students from homes where there is little ability and/or inclination to support the student to do well in school, then that class is likely going to perform marginally, even with an excellent teacher at the helm
these student widgets are not all alike. and we cannot evaluate them using industrial engineering evaluation techniques like we would identical widgets on an assembly line
but that is what they did in DC
with today's computers, there is NO excuse for not having tracking data on the performance of every student in every class room. with that data, we could then examine how the students, individually and as a class, were performing when compared to where they were when they began receiving instruction from a particular teacher. then you would have an objective metric to use to examine teacher (and student) performance
with such data, there is no way the union would be able to successfully defend weak teachers from either being forced to improve or be terminated
Click to expand...

Have you ever known a union to allow for an honest evaluation of their members?
 
Erod said:
Have you ever known a union to allow for an honest evaluation of their members?
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absolutely. why would we not
do you like to be surrounded by incompetents and those who shirk their responsibilities
the law requires the union to represent all bargaining unit employees, whether they are dues paying union members or if they are non-dues paying bargaining unit members
we cannot refuse to represent the employee. under the law it is our fiduciary responsibility to represent them. no matter if they are guilty as hell
the problem comes when the lazy manager refuses to do his/her job of evidencing the guilt of an employee's actions and/or their inability to perform as is required to accomplish the mission of the organization. in this particular instance, to effectively teach our kids
i cannot defend the indefensible
but management must prove the teacher is without a defense
management must initiate the action to rid the system of a weak teacher
the union is doing its job
unfortunately, school management is not
 
This is really a shame... for the teachers, for the kids, for everyone. However, people just don't seem to understand that salaries & wages are usually 80% or more of a public sector's budget. If there is no money, there is no money. People are just blithely presuming that there's plenty of money, these states just don't want to give any of it to their employees.

Look, if your bank account is down to zero, can you just go print more money to pay your employees and your bills? No. You go bankrupt. Your employees are unemployed, and your debtors line up in bankruptcy court. What makes folks think that it's any different for a state, just because they have more money and more expenses than the little guys?
 
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