1) What precipitated the firings in Central Falls?
The initial catalyst was a new ruling on by Arne Duncan's Department of Education, changing the requirements for a specific federal grant.
2) Background:
Bush's No Child Left Behind Act established the policy of penalizing "failing" schools & forcing them into restructuring, including replacement of all staff, private management, charterization, & state takeover.
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:y-K6IBpeSn4J:www.state.nj.us/education/title1/accountability/ayp/0809/info.pdf+no+child+left+behind+designing+improvement+plan&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbTp-RmGryx0NSIycdJh8K07015DtwDuncan's "Race to the Top" program extended that policy: To get RTTT funds, local education authorities were "required to implement one of the four models specified in Race to the Top for their persistently lowest achieving schools."
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:HP_aYDkthoIJ:www.csba.org/LegislationAndLegal/Legislation/LegislativeNews/2009/RTTTAdvisory.aspx+race+to+the+top+four+models&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us The four mandatory models are:
1) Close the school & send its pupils elsewhere.
2) Close & "restart" the school as a charter.
3) Fire the principal & staff & rehire no more than 50%.
4) Fire the principal & implement "market-based" improvements (i.e. outside evaluation, pay for performance-type "incentives based on student scores," more hierarchy & differentiation among teachers, non-seniority-based)
The models may look different on the surface, but the central aim is the same: transferring authority & power from the local level (community, teachers, principals) to outsiders: the state, the feds, private parties, "experts," "trainers," etc.
However, the Ed. Department wasn't satisfied with the pace of change generated by NCLB & RTTT.
In this slideshow, ED complains that schools in NCLB restructuring aren't implementing ED's preferred interventions:
"Although more than half of the schools in their 2nd year of restructuring reported that they had planned for restructuring, very few schools reported any of the named NCLB interventions..."
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/sif/090825sigv2.ppt.The slideshow goes on to outline the policy which precipitated the firing in Central Falls: a completely new requirement for receipt of Title 1 School Improvement Funds.
Title 1 funds are monies directed by the Feds to low-income districts. There are various categories of Title 1 funds. Some are formula grants, some competitive ones.
The grant in question is the Title 1 School Improvement Grant (SIG).
Dept of Ed's changes in SIG requirements were published in the 12/10/09 Federal Register:
http://www2.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/finrule/2009-4/121009a.pdfSIG grants have been around since 1965. But Duncan added a new & unprecedented requirement:
To apply for part of the $3.5 billion in funding for the next year, districts had to identify their lowest-performing 5% & institute one of four Ed-mandated plans for remedy. The same four forced choices required to get Race To The Top funding:
Close, charterize, fire the staff & principal, or fire the principal & "marketize" the staff (i.e. set staff in competition with each other & destroy their collegiality, sharing of information, methods, materials, etc.).
None of the proferred "solutions" are any royal road to improving schools or helping students (As ED concedes in its comments). However, they do suit Duncan's known & documented preference for market-based education.
The Ed Department's bias is clearly demonstrated in their response to public comments in the Federal Register:
- In response to the suggestion the four choices were too rigid & didn't allow for local circumstances (as in a rural district where it might be difficult to implement any of them), the answer was essentially: "No, our four mandatory choices are very flexible".
- Numerous commenters suggest there's "little if any research supporting the (wholesale) replacement of leadership and staff in school turnaround efforts," that 50% is "arbitrary," that there's much more research support for individualized replacement. ED responds that they don't claim replacing personnel is sufficient; however, "dramatic changes" of personnel "creates the conditions" to implement the usual PR-speak "high-quality professional development, improved instructional program," etc.
- Many commenters note that "staff" isn't clearly defined; does this mean, e.g. janitors & hot-lunch ladies might be subject to firing? ED responds that "every adult in the school contributes to the school's success, including...non-certificated staff, custodians, security guards, food service staff, and others..." Therefore "define 'staff' broadly."
Translation for the young & naive: if your custodians & lunch ladies are unionized, you can fire them.
- Many commenters, citing research, said there wasn't any good evidence charters outperformed traditional public schools, & some evidence they underperformed them. ED allowed that the research was "mixed," but "there are many examples of high-quality charter schools, and the Secretary believes very strongly that high-achieving charter schools can be a significant educational resource in communities with chronically low-achieving regular public schools," so -- (effectively) tough darts, bite it.
ED's response to the little problem of unions & contracts is worth quoting in detail:
Comment:
Many commenters claimed that teacher tenure, State collective bargaining laws, and union contracts prevent school administrators from replacing staff as required by the turnaround model....
Discussion:
We recognize that collective bargaining agreements and union contracts may present barriers to implementation of the turnaround model; however, we do not believe these barriers are insurmountable.
In particular, drawing upon pockets of success in cities and States across the country, the Secretary believes LEAs and unions can work together to bring about dramatic, positive changes in our persistently lowest-achieving schools.
Accordingly, the Department encourages collaborations and partnerships between LEAs and teacher unions and teacher membership associations to resolve issues created by school intervention models in the context of existing collective bargaining agreements.
We also encourage LEAs to collaborate with stakeholders in schools and in the larger community as they implement school interventions.
Changes: None.
As ED is on record as favoring "collaborations and partnerships between LEAs and teacher unions and teacher membership associations to resolve issues created by school intervention models in the context of existing collective bargaining agreements...."
I wonder why Duncan & the President both applauded Gallo's arbitrary, non-collaborative, non-partnership, unilateral firing of her entire staff in violation of an existing collective bargaining agreement?
ED later concedes...Fired personnel "if required by state laws or union contracts, principals & staff may have to be reassigned to other schools as necessary."
http://www2.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/finrule/2009-4/121009a.pdfPart II: "Still more interesting facts about the central falls situation," to follow.
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