By Tom
Just when you think you've seen every School Improvement Plan imaginable, someone comes along and proves you wrong. In a remarkably innovative move, Frances Gallo, the superintendent in charge of Central Falls School District in Rhode Island, fired every single teacher in the district's only high school. She now plans to hire a brand new staff by September in her bold plan to turn around the under-performing school.
Central Falls, a town of 19,000 people, is the state's poorest community. 40% of its children live in poverty. The high school has a graduation rate of only 50%, and a mere 7% of the juniors are proficient in math.
Obviously, it's the teachers' fault, and clearly, something had to be done. Fortunately, Ms. Gallo stepped up to the plate.
In accordance with NCLB, the district devised a plan by which the teachers would get two weeks of additional training in the summer, tutor students before and after school, eat lunch with the kids and meet regularly after school for team planning. That was Plan A.
The teachers initially embraced the plan, but balked when asked to do it without extra pay. Imagine that.
So it was on to Plan B. Showing both maturity and imagination, Ms. Gallo fired the whole faculty. All 74 of them. The good ones and the bad ones. The math teachers, the gym coach, the home-ec lady, the shop guy. All 74 of them.
Next September the lucky students at Central Falls High will get a brand-new faculty, with whom they'll get to eat lunch and from whom they'll get free tutoring, before school and after school. Their test scores will skyrocket. They'll all graduate. Their families will climb out of poverty.
And the selfish teachers who were holding them back will be looking for work elsewhere.
The Obama Administration even stamped their approval. In a breath-taking and refreshing departure from the way his colleagues handled GM and AIG, Education Secretary Arne Duncan applauded the move. "This is hard work and these are tough decisions, but students only have one chance for an education," he said, "and when schools continue to struggle we have a collective obligation to take action."
That's right; we have a collective obligation to fire every teacher at a dysfunctional high school in a tiny Rhode Island town because they had the audacity to ask for pay in exchange for using their time to fix their school.
Now that's a School Improvement Plan.
I agree with your post.Choosing the right training will greatly impact your success and ability to find employment in your new career.
Hear Hear, Chelsea.
The problem is that this situation just goes around and around. Teachers say “I need more support from home!” and “educational experts” say “You can control only what happens in your classroom.”
Well, that’s true. I can’t control what happens outside the room, or I’d make sure my students ate well, slept well, kept track of what was due and did it, and took a look at what they needed to do to get into and through college, since their teachers are being told to get them there. These are all things my parents did for me, and their parents did for them, and that I do for my daughters.
We have a situation where there is a parent class who wants their children to be educated, but have no idea how to support that, probably because they are under educated themselves. I have many students who talk about wanting to get a high school diploma because they’d “be the first” in their family to get that far. College? Not since my grandparents’ generation have we had so many kids wanting to be the first to go to college.
I think there’s a whole set of deeply-ingrained skills a child needs to be successful in school. You can be super smart, but if you can’t keep track of what’s due, don’t know how to study for a test, and have no one outside of school who talks about these things, it’s harder to do well in school. Some of my students have the highest ambitions, but school doesn’t cross their mind from 2:30 to 6:30 the next morning. “That was due today?” they ask. “Oh, I forgot.”
If we’re really going to be trying to produce college ready kids in high school – and so far that seems to be where the big push is – we need to be taking that parental role in elementary school. It’s asinine that high school math teachers are being told to teach college-prep math as a high school requirement, but districts are not putting together a functioning plan for elementary schools to ensure every child has college-ready organizational skills.
And you’re right, moving the staff around isn’t going to help that any more than rotating a child’s parents would.
This is the most relevant and important conversation that I think currently faces our school system. I found myself asking many of the same questions today when I read the article about two middle schools in Vancouver that will undergo “reform”, aka moving teachers and principals in an effort to improve performance. Both of these schools have high % of free-reduced lunch and fall in the bottom 5% of performance in the state. In the article, the assistant superintendent is quoting saying that when you mix high poverty with high mobility, you get a very caustic mix. Yet after acknowledging the problem, the solution is to move the staff??? Where is the logic in this? I’m very interested to see how this plays out, because I don’t see how bringing in new staff will significantly change student achievement when the identified problem has more to do with what goes on outside of the school.
I offer to help kids nearly every day until 4 after school (without extra pay), yet I rarely have more than 3 kids that stay, and it’s usually the same three kids. Until their parents decide that their child’s education is important enough to make their kids stay, I’m not sure what else I can do?
Mike, the argument isn’t useless.
Dr. Gallo took action. I’m just asking if the same action will be taken again…if not, why not…if so, how many more times?
Is it possible that the reason you don’t want to address that question is that the question, and its answer, expose the faulty logic of the decision she made? Frankly, I don’t care if she has a great heart or not–the decision to fire all the teachers is, pure and simple, ignoring the problem and pinning it upon the most convenient scapegoat. Why did she not fire all the middle school and elementary teachers, since those are the ones who were supposed to have prepared those kids for high school? It is all completely illogical and undefensible by any rational argument.
Mike, I agree that the public compares the hours to the salary and gets irked. I don’t know what to do about that, except say that my days are longer than 6 hours, I spend much of my summers preparing for the next school year or keeping current on my training, and I don’t earn $70,000. I think I get paid pretty well, though, for a job I love, and I don’t have much patience for teachers who complain about their pay.
That being said, I can’t support expecting teachers to have duties during lunch. I can leave my classroom and run some copies or use the bathroom but my husband, who teaches elementary, cannot. Often, he doesn’t even eat lunch because that time is used to get some materials together, use the bathroom, or make a quick private phone call home to a parent. He could do none of these things if he was told to tutor during lunch because he couldn’t leave those kids unsupervised either. Teaching, as you know, is not like many jobs. We don’t have downtime during the working part of our day. Our attention is required all the time, so having some time carved out for planning, collaborating, calling parents and eating lunch is pretty important to me. I’d gladly work a longer day in trade for some other perks – lower class size, for example, so that when my students turn in an essay I could spend 15 hours grading instead of 20.
And I’m not particularly supportive of the union right now, either. Two superb teachers in my school were fired last year and we are stuck with teachers so bad the counselors won’t even put students in their classes.
And finally, I support charter schools. I know of a few teachers I’d like to rally together so that I could make my own charter school. But, I don’t think you can compare charter schools to traditional schools. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be looking at charter schools and trying to use what works, because we should. They are great testing grounds for what works. And, as far as I have seen, what works is smaller class size, kids who want to be there (for whatever reason…), and parents who are supportive of the school. Why can’t that happen at traditional schools? I don’t know. I think there are just some communities and parents who can’t or aren’t interested in really helping their child succeed in school. I think many of them have emotional baggage about school and, in subtle ways, give off the message that it’s a bad place. I don’t know how to change that.
I am totally supportive of tougher teacher evaluations. Were I a CF teacher, I would have been a loud voice clamoring for that.
I really appreciate that you are sharing your viewpoints. Thank you so much for being an opposing voice – it’s how we’re going to find a middle ground that’s good for education and good for kids.
Mark, I think this argument is useless. You prefer to argue as though Dr. Gallo has made these decisions based on her own opinions and goals. Her decisions were made with a heavy heart. She didn’t want to fire the teachers. During discussions, she offered 100% job security if the teachers would agree to the transformation model. The teachers balked. Dr. Gallo’s choices were limited, based on state and federal laws. You are doing exactly what the union is trying to do: make Dr. Gallo the boogy man. Incidentally, the union issued a press release yesterday saying the teachers wanted to meet again, and are now supportive of the transformation model. Surprise! And Dr. Gallo’s response? She said she was “thrilled”. (article: http://newsblog.projo.com/2010/03/central-falls-ri—-an.html) She believes, as she has said again and again, that the teachers are good people and many are hard working. But the school needs to change; the teachers will keep their jobs if they are willing to change with the school.
Did you watch the video of Dr. Gallo’s speech that I linked in a previous comment?
Kristen, this is what the public sees: 6 and a half hours days, more than 12 weeks off a year, and every holiday and weekend. Salaries of $70,000 or more per year. The best benefits out there. All paid on their dime. And when asked to work an additional half hour a day, you call that working for free. Trust me, I know how difficult our jobs are. But I don’t think we realize just how good we have it. You might be interested in knowing that when the state required more instructional time in the school day, my district agreed to an additional 25 minutes per day. Without any additional pay. It was the right thing to do.
I’ve heard all those union talking points against charter schools. Quite frankly, I find them simply excuses. Do you really believe that all kids who go to charter schools really want to be in school? For longer hours than other kids? Couldn’t it be that many charters are constructed in ways that make kids feel welcomed, safe, and successful. If the charter school was lousy, I suspect their attendance rate would be just as bad. I’m not suggesting all schools function as charters. Instead of trying to stop them (in RI, the unions were successful, until recently, of stopping the formation of new charters), let’s see what they are doing well, and what can be implemented in failing schools like CF. This is already being done at the elementary level, with a successful charter in CF. Dr. Gallo has spearheaded this cooperation.
Finally, one of Dr. Gallo’s complaints was the limited teacher evaluation options in the contract. One of her goals, rejected by the union, was a more rigorous evaluation process to weed out those ineffective teachers. And the administrators at the high school have all been fired.
Mike-
I pulled the following off the Central Falls HS website. It’s a letter from Ms Gallo to the district families. The first thing I noticed is that it’s apparently written a year and a half ago. I was surprised that Ms Gallo couldn’t find the time to write anything more recent. Let me quote the letter in its entitely, along with my comments and impressions:
“Dear Parents and Friends of the Central Falls School District,
The first quarter of the 08-09 school year is upon us. I want to thank you and encourage you. Thank you for supporting a smooth opening of school and encourage you to continue to make every effort to get your child to school every day, on time and ready to learn. What a difference your attitude from home makes in the teaching and learning process! More and more research identifies the home as the key factor in success for your children. When I hear this, I know that Central Falls students have a good chance of succeeding because every family I visit stresses the same thing to me. You want you child to learn; you want your student to graduate high school and go on to technical schools and colleges understanding their personal responsibility for learning.”
I noticed in the preceding paragraph that she identifies “the home” as the key factor in success for children. This clashes somewhat with her recent actions, does it not? She goes on to emphasise students’ “personal responsibility for learning.” Where does this factor in her recent actions? And I hate to be this way, but I also noticed that she made two grammatical errors. One in the second sentence and one in the concluding sentence. Not a big deal, we’ve all been there; but from a superintendent? With a PHD? In a letter to every family in the district? While she’s firing teachers for incompetence? Ouch.
She continues:
“Our teachers are committed to doing their very best each and every day so that your children will have the opportunity to succeed as an adult. With the close of the first quarter comes a formal opportunity to speak with your child’s teachers through the Parent Conference days taking place the week of November 10-14. Call the schools and schedule an appointment now. Speak to your child’s teacher directly to learn how your child is progressing toward success this year. Inquire about after school opportunities for learning and enriching activities that will benefit your child by enhancing the learning process.”
An interesting way to lead off the paragraph, wouldn’t you say? She seems to think fairly highly of these teachers. One would hardly suspect that she’d be firing some of these same folks, who, only eighteen months ago were “committed to doing their very best each and every day.”
There’s more:
“While you are at it, check out opportunities for yourself. There are many adult classes offered throughout our schools just as there are many ways to support our schools through advisory groups and other parent organizations. The most important thing to remember is to get involved and stay informed about your child and your schools!”
Alright. That’s good stuff. I admire districts that turn their schools into community learning centers. But then:
“Remember, alone neither one of us succeeds; together we can insure your child’s future success!”
Yes, indeed. It takes a village to raise a child. We’re all in this together.
Unless we fail. Then we need to find someone to blame and fire them for it.
I work through lunch – for free – and it hasn’t resulted in any life-changing success stories. I care deeply about my students, and not all of them succeed. Why? Because students are human beings, with lives outside of the classroom. I spend 50 minutes a day with them. Some of them, I spend more time with. But if they don’t want to work their butts off and pursue an education, if they’re not willing to study, revise, work hard, ask for help if they don’t understand, find an open library so that they have access to the internet, keep track of their assignments and grades, then no matter how hard I work I will not help them graduate. And, while I work through lunch, if I was told I had to, or that I had to teach summer school for free or maybe for pay if the pay came through, I would say “no.”
What’s really frustrating for me about the CF situation is that it’s so typical of how student failure is addressed. NCLB set out to help every single child succeed, no matter their home life. It tries to accomplish that heroic mission by testing kids, then rewarding or punishing schools. That’s a stupid way to address what kids need. How about pouring as much money into schools as we pour into stadiums? How about getting parents and communities to insist on a child’s education?
Charter schools are always held up as the model to which we should all aspire, but charter schools are not the reality for most public schools. Charter schools have a student population that really wants to be there. They have a parent population that is invested in the school, and almost every single one of them has reduced class size. As well, being a charter school means they get to design their own program and don’t have to meet the same standards as everyone else. I support charter schools as a meaningful alternative for students and teachers, but they are not the same as schools where a big bunch of unmotivated kids are told to sit down for the day or their parents will be slapped with a Becca Bill court date. I teach those kids, I work really hard to get them to care for their future, and some of them graduate while others end up in jail for murder. So please, don’t hold up the wonderful, well-funded, highly-motivated charter situations and say that every teacher can gain those results if she only cares enough. I care enough, and sometimes my student’s gang is more important than his academic future or my encouragement.
The CF school had the same problems many schools in bigger districts across the country have. The way the superintendent dealt with it is typical of those who make decisions, but don’t have to work in a classroom. It smacks of the administrator email that reminds staff that “the expectation is that you come to staff meetings.” Really? Did all of us need to get that email? Or, did you not have the courage to go talk to the three teachers who blew off the staff meeting? Firing an entire staff seems a smoke screen for not having the courage to deal with the teachers who held everyone else back.
Did Dr. Gallo, with all her capabilities, really find it so impossible to visit her only high school, walk the halls, step into classrooms, and identify the inept teachers? I find that impossible to believe. My superintendent oversees twelve high schools, and if one of them had a graduation rate of 50%, she’d be in the building checking it out. She’d be on the administrators, and certain teachers would be told to work elsewhere. I’m confident of that.
Why is it so impossible to identify the teachers who hold education back and get rid of them? Why is it so impossible for administrators and school boards and superintendents to be courageous? Firing an entire staff isn’t courageous. It’s not even efficient. Mark is right – until the community is invested in the education of their children, until the schools receive the funding necessary to make up for what the schools have to do because the families are unable to do it, these children will do no better. These children should receive year-round school, long school days, and excellent medical and dental care. They should get three meals a day at their school, as well as theraputic counseling. The schools should receive adequate funding to carry out the task of helping to raise these children. The Obama administration applauds the firing, why can’t they applaud the funding?
Maybe the new staff will be hired on the condition they’re willing to work through lunch, and donate their summers, tutor before and after school and plan through the dinner hour as their families eat alone – maybe the economy is so bad that people will be happy to take that job, just like migrant workers will work for less than the other guy in order to get anything at all.
To me, also a public school teacher, it’s sad that it’s come down to losing your job because you are unwilling to work for free. It’s also sad that the importance of the family and community in a child’s education success continues to be ignored. If teachers are going to be asked to raise children, then you’ve got to do better than per diem.
You still didn’t answer my question, Mike.
No where did I state that these kids cannot learn. If you knew just a little more about my background, you might not so quickly make that assumption about me. I think part of the problem is perhaps the manner in which their learning is being assessed. Does the assessment track GROWTH longitudinally for the same children, or does it merely take a snapshot? I have questions whether the endpoint might not have been realistic for those learners. Chances are, they were showing growth, but the “point A” at which they entered likely made the expected “point B” less than realistic.
Also, I hardly think that hiring a whole new set of teachers qualifies as “reform.” Reform would mean systemic change in practices and philosophies; changes in funding sources and budget priorities; re-assessment of all layers of the bureaucracy, rather than assuming all culpability lies squarely on the teachers.
So, if it turns out that the problem is more complicated than that bad teaching and an unwillingness to put in even more hours beyond the contract day than the teachers already did, and the 74 new teachers are not able to accomplish their charge, how many sets of teachers will be fired before something different is tried?
Your question, Mark, highlights the significant problem. You assume that reform will have no effect on the school or the students. The assumption is that these students cannot succeed. I believe that with the right people committed to reform that puts these kids at the center of their decision-making, the results will be positive. There are numerous examples of charter and reform-minded public schools that have had remarkable success in areas far more challenging than Central Falls. The teachers of CF has been complaining that the poverty, language, and transient population make success nearly impossible. OK. If you can’t do it, then step aside and allow someone else a shot. Schools do not exist to provide teachers jobs. If the kids aren’t learning, then we need to change the way we teach and educate them. Period.
MikeinRI: Please answer my question, then, about what will happen when the “replacement teachers” are not able to produce results, either. Will they too all be fired?
How much time will they be given to turn it around before they too are all fired?
How many times will they clean the slate and fire/hire the whole crew before Dr. Gallo or her replacement must acknowledge that the factor causing the poor performance isn’t actually the teachers?
Tom, you’ve made one statement that is inaccurate and needs to be corrected. Dr. Gallo is NOT firing the teachers because of low test scores. I am not an advocate for using a single standardized test to determine results. I believe NCLB has been a disaster and standardized tests are damaging many public schools. However, when a school has a graduation rate of under 50%, and more than half of all students are failing ALL their classes, something is wrong and change is required. The teachers arrogantly thumbed their noses at proposed changes.
You can talk per diem rates if you would like, but the truth is that, next to Michigan, RI is in most dire financial shape in the country. Top step teachers are making more than $70,000 per year (well above most RIers) and are unwilling to extend their six and half hour day for the kids they keep calling “their family” without money the school district simply doesn’t have. Should the school system just continue failing the kids until times get better economically? Or should we expect professionals to step up and offer more to the kids they are expected to teach? What would you do for your “family”? The truth is, the CF teachers are destroying the reputation of teachers throughout the state. This is causing more damage to our profession than a little extra time might cause us. The taxpayers are furious, and are overwhelmingly supporting Dr. Gallo.
Responding to a comment with “Please.” doesn’t negate it. Dr. Gallo had two choices, and had to enact one by March 1. RI law requires all teachers who will be laid off by the end of the school year to be notified by March 1. If the teachers weren’t pink slipped by March 1, they couldn’t be replaced. Dr. Gallo and the unions were fully aware of this deadline. It was, in fact, the unions would had supported the March 1 state law. The union ignored Dr. Gallo’s proposals, and knew she’d be powerless after March 1. They backed her into a corner, and left her with no choice. It’s true.
The sarcasm (“warm, lovable heart”) is unfortunate. I said she was an advocate for teachers, students and their families. Not out of kindness, but out of a commitment to education. She comes from a family of educators, and has proven herself as a leader throughout our state.
We need to have a meaningful, fact-based conservation about what is happening in Central Falls. Are our schools there to give teachers jobs, or to educate our kids? And if it is failing, what should be done? The administrators at the school, by the way, have already been fired.
You may be interested in learning about The Learning Community, a charter in CF that has been having great success with the poor children of non-English speaking immigrants that so many are claiming are too difficult to teach. It is an elementary school, but next year begins a middle school. Not surprisingly, the school days are longer, yet the teachers make the same as others in the area. http://www.thelearningcommunity.com/
For the record, I am a public school teacher, and have been for nearly 20 years.
I wonder if those who condemn CF teachers for having the audacity to request payment for their work, would ask that doctors forgo their salaries? After all, our Nation’s health care system is broken too. Where is the outcry for Insurance Co. CEOs to be the sacrificial lambs of so-called “reform.”
Duncan is a callous bureaucrat and the president…a heartbreaking disappointment!
A comment on all this from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/28/AR2010022802815.html?hpid=sec-education
So what is going to happen when all the replacement teachers are not able to miraculously raise every child to standard on their first try? Will they all be fired as well?
I find it hard to believe that every one of those fired teachers was ineffective. Baby, bathwater, anyone?
When will we acknowledge (policymakers, that is) that education is far more complex than factory production.
Thanks, Mikein RI; I was hoping a local teacher would join this conversation.
A few responses:
“She also promised to make every effort to secure grant funding for the summer work.” That’s not exactly something you can take to the bank or the grocery store. Asking someone to give more time for “an effort to find the money to pay for it” wouldn’t be acceptable in any contract.
“The teachers initially wanted $90 per hour, which would be in addition to the average salary of $70,000 per year they receive.” If you do the math, that’s probably their per diem rate. Asking for more money to do more work is pretty much the standard.
“The teachers also insisted on being paid additionally for the time eating lunch with kids, even though it would fall within the school day for which they were already paid.” No one gets paid for lunch. And being told who to eat your lunch with is absurd.
“Dr. Gallo only fired the staff as a last resort.” Please. Last resort?
I’m sure Ms Gallo has a warm, lovable heart and she thinks nothing but good thoughts about children everywhere. But the undeniable truth is that she fired 74 people because the students at the school where they work had low test scores. If every one of those 74 teachers were doing a lousy job, then I applaud Gallo’s move as loudly as Duncan does. But that’s simply not the case.
It is very sad what is happening at CF but it’s not the fault of the union or their members. It sounds to me like the union was doing what unions are supposed to do: enforce the contract that was signed by the district. The one that says you’re supposed to pay people fairly for the time they spend at work. We all know what’s going on here. Gallo was under pressure to “do something” and she did. Unfortunatley, she did the wrong thing.
I was and am a strong Obama supporter. But this situation and the fact that it has the support of his administration makes me ill.
I do not believe that lunch is a paid 30 minutes. At least it has never been at any school, district, or state in which I have worked.
There are a few clarifications that need to be made. First, Dr. Gallo offered to pay teachers $30 per hour for the additional time, with the exception of the summer work. She also promised to make every effort to secure grant funding for the summer work, as the community could not afford the additional expense. The teachers initially wanted $90 per hour, which would be in addition to the average salary of $70,000 per year they receive. The teachers also insisted on being paid additionally for the time eating lunch with kids, even though it would fall within the school day for which they were already paid.
Dr. Gallo only fired the staff as a last resort. The school was declared consistently failing by the Department of Ed. As a result, Dr. Gallo had no choice but to initiate one of four proposals. Two were unacceptable (close school or switch to charter) because the city only has one high school. The other two choices were to add additional time for students through a transformation model, or to fire the staff with the ability to hire back up to 50%. When the teachers allowed to pass the deadline to agree to transformation, Dr. Gallo was left with no real alternative.
Dr. Gallo is an advocate for children, teachers, and families, and has been her entire career. Those who don’t know her simply wish to cast her as a demon seeking to break the union. I teach in a town nearby; Dr. Gallo has the best interest of students in mind. Her work with elementary schools in her city, and collaborating with a successful charter within the city limits, has been impressive.
It is sad what is happening to the teachers of CF. But union leaders played the cards poorly, thought it could hold out for more money, and simply ignored the efforts of the superintendent. The teachers who have been fired can only blame the union, and therefore themselves.
I recommend you watch Dr. Gallo’s speech at a conference last weekend. A video, in two parts, is posted on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJG2rPoqgFQ
I remember when Duncan spoke at the NEA-RA and my buddy and I heard his coded rhetoric throughout his speech. He told us then–through veiled language–that he wanted to break unions and no one seemed to believe it. When he repeatedly said “we need to throw out the rule book,” he obviously meant the protections and requirements of teacher contracts.
His true colors are coming out.
So should Obama.
Maybe this will lead to another Beer Summit (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32210408/ns/politics-white_house/), with Duncan apologizing, and buying for the teachers he maligned. We can only hope. (Remember hope?)
This is inexcusable. Duncan should be ashamed.