Providence school board fires all its teachers
Late last week, the Providence school board decided to send termination notices to its entire teaching staff. The board said it needed "maximum flexibility" to deal with a $40 million budget deficit. Today, a story in the Providence Journal says that the union president has gone to the mayor asking for him to reverse the decision. The school system took action because it is required to notify teachers by March 1st if they will lose their jobs at the end of the school year.
The termination notices don't take effect until this summer and most of the teachers are expected to be hired back. But firing the teachers rather than laying them off gives the school district more discretion in how it does the cuts. The firing also makes it more difficult for teachers to collect unemployment benefits.
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
I have a friend who a while back was looking to get a masters degree to "get a raise" or maybe improve their ability to keep work in the teaching field. Now that Masters of Curriculum is actually helping them get a job with a large corporation in their training department. I would say the only two types of people that will teaching a few years from now will be either the "love" people who feel a calling to help kids, or people who in any other circumstance we would never let near our children. If young people pay attention to the news these days how many smart math or science majors are even going to consider teaching as an occupation?
Posted by: Brett | February 28, 2011 2:04 PM
The problems in RI confirm for me that I'm glad I got out of teaching at-risk, low income kids, which I did in AZ. I teach middle to upper now in Alaska. The RI teachers are lambasted for the wage descrepancies between them and their students' parents. Where I am, many parents make more than I and they send their kids to school mostly ready to learn. They go home to an environment that proves education does contribute to income and quality of life. I enjoyed teaching the at-risk kids, but I can't take the financial risk any longer. `
Posted by: Dianne Wagner | February 28, 2011 7:22 PM