News Articles

May17

Lo and behold, several months after every teacher at a low-performing Rhode Island high school was fired so the school could get a fresh start, and after Education Secretary Arne Duncan praised the firings as an act of "courage," and after President Obama declared that the firings showed a "sense of accountability," well, after all of that, the teachers have been rehired.

In the end, officials in the Central Falls School District decided that firing everybody at Central Falls High School wasn't the best way to reform the school and lift student achievement. After months of tough negotiations, they reached an agreement with the teachers union over the weekend.

May16

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. -- A school district that gained the support of President Barack Obama for promoting accountability after it fired all its teachers from a struggling school announced on Sunday it had reached an agreement with the union to return the current staffers to their jobs.

The two sides said a transformation plan for Central Falls High School for the coming school year would allow the roughly 87 teachers, guidance counselors, librarians and other staffers who were to lose their jobs at the end of this year to return without having to reapply. More than 700 people had already applied for the positions.

Apr15

Providence schools' labor-management partnership to turn around four schools is a great example of stakeholders coming together to fix schools, AFT president Randi Weingarten said during a visit to Providence on April 14.

Apr5

The President's plan, in fact, represents a fundamental and devastating shift away from the mission of ensuring educational equity for all students. It proposes measures such as transfering federal resources to charter operators and awarding funds through competitive grants rather than a needs-based system. Compounding the problem is the administration's intent on continuing the worst elements of No Child Left Behind Act -- including its focus on poorly designed, one-size-fits-all testing and the punitive strategies of improving low-performing schools through unproven, even radical, models.

Case in point is the drastic step taken by the school board in Central Falls, R.I., which fired the high school's entire teaching staff.

Mar31

Serious school reform must come from the strengths of students, staff and the community rather than perceived weaknesses of the three.

Mar24

More than a dozen teachers who were fired a month ago spoke Tuesday night about the upheaval in leadership and curriculum the struggling Central Falls High School has experienced for many years.

Mar17

George McLaughlin of Central Falls High School joined Buddy in studio on Monday, March 15, 2010 to talk about the morale at Central Falls High School.

Mar17

The U.S. Department of Education needs to change its focus and stop its policy of supporting the closing of failing schools; it does not bring long-lasting change. No Child Left Behind has had unintended negative consequences. Instead, we as a nation need to support teachers in the classroom and stop using teachers as scapegoats in seeking to solve a major national problem. We need to work with teachers, not fire them.

Central Falls Voices

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Teachers Speak Out

For a lot of these students, their teachers are the only stability they have in their lives.

Walter Hourahan
Social Studies Teacher

I care about these students because I once was one of these students who lived in Central Falls and shared their struggles.

Kathy Luther
Athletic Director and Math Teacher

SaveCFHigh on Twitter

Twitter

SaveCFHigh: "This action will not fix the problem and, in fact, will make make it worse. Central Falls students deserve a better solution." - AE

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