Providence Mayor Defends Firings As Teachers Protest

[The Northerner]

About 1,500 people jammed the street in front of City Hall in Providence, R.I., on Wednesday to protest last week's dismissal of the city's entire teaching force.

"I thought the only insanity was in Wisconsin, not in Rhode Island," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told the crowd, which raised signs and banged drums.

Weingarten calls the terminations insane, but city officials say they had no choice: The city is facing an estimated deficit of more than $100 million for the next fiscal year, or roughly 20 percent of the city budget.

Providence's new mayor, Angel Taveras, says he is considering school closures and layoffs for many city workers, but teachers are feeling the pain first, because of a state law that requires districts to notify teachers by March 1 if their jobs are in jeopardy. He says he chose terminations instead of layoffs, because it ensures that teachers the city can't afford will be completely removed from the city payroll.

"With a layoff, for various reasons, you can be responsible for paying teachers who are not teaching in a classroom," he said. "In addition to that, if they go into the substitute pool, you're paying them their full pay and benefits, and that's costing an enormous amount of money. I can't allow the taxpayers to be on the hook for paying teachers who are not teaching."

Read more: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/03/134209567/providence-mayor-defends-firings-as-teachers-protest

[Contrary1]

1. There is no defense. This reader's comment says it all:

"He fired all the teachers because he couldn't come up with 20% more funding? That sounds like someone who is desperately trying to become a national-level conservative celebrity at the expense of his constituents. But, hey, who cares? These kids are poor, and they're not even white."

[vaberella]

9. He's a dem. n/t

[LooseWilly]

2. In a move of solidarity... I think ALL potential teachers should refuse work in Providence.

Let the City Council teach the children... or face the wrath of the breeding public.

No scabs... don't take a teaching job in Providence in 2011 after this. Let the public chew on schools with no teachers... maybe after a year of that they'll be able to actually afford to pay for some education.

[appleannie1]

3. If they are not educated, they will take whatever the asshats hand them and say "yes Master"

[LooseWilly]

6. Are you making a comment about the would-be-pupils, or the teachers?

Shutting down a factory means a shortage of widgets.

Shutting down a school means a shortage of "value-added-child-widgets."

Is one brand of widgets to be construed as more "holy" than another widget... for the factory line worker?

[Hannah Bell]

4. kr

[cali]

5. worth noting that the mayor is a dem

[StarsInHerHair]

7. this is overtly the 'shock doctrine' come home, from their South American

experiments to Main Street USA.........& interestingly also in the UK......SOMEONE'S been synching up in Country Clubs

[Quetzal]

8. juvenile move

because teachers are just number figures - they don't have a professional relationship with each other and their constituents. They don't have a special role in the community. What kind of teacher would want to be a part of this school system after being so humiliated by their mayor? That after you have put in your years of experience of being a teacher, you can be replaced because you are too 'expensive'? WTF!

What does this say to the rest of the Providence community?

I think it was Circuit City who tried to pull a move like this before they went belly up.

this mayor needs to be more creative in how to deal with this budgetary crisis.