Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Latest Negotiation Strategy--Lay Off Every Teacher


The city of Providence, RI, has issued layoff notices to ALL of its teachers.

Yes, ALL.

Of course, no city can lay off all of its teachers. So the question remains--why do this?

I think the answer is simple. Since Providence requires lay off notices to go out by March 1, this covers their asses should they decide to go after senior teachers. They are jockeying to terminate their highest paid teachers, and they are sending pink slips to everyone as a way to make sure they can do it.

If you doubt this, read the last paragraph of the CNN piece:

The city and the union will soon start negotiations on the teachers' contracts, which expire June 30. City and school district officials stressed that Tuesday's move was not related to the contract expiring.

The war on teachers rages on. Frankly, I can't even believe it. Every day brings some new horror to teachers somewhere. If politicians had gone after Osama bin Laden with the same relentless vigor with which they pursue teachers, he'd have long ago been squatting in Guantanamo Bay.

When was it decided that teachers were the enemy? When did we become the bogey man and the scapegoats for every situation in the country? Obama wants to recruit 100,000 new teachers? Is he serious? Who in their right mind would want to become a teacher in this hostile environment?

Of course, some group is always the scapegoat for society's ills. God forbid we blame the Wall Streeters and hedge fund managers who brought about this fiscal crisis. Far better to persecute teachers than prosecute the bastards who got us here.


6 comments:

NYC Educator said...

Great post.

I can't think of a thing to add and I'm not at all sure why I'm even commenting.

BronxEnglish said...

Only a very few have begun to wake up. This is all about the new Gilded Age, in which Rich People are Pure and Holy and Awesome to the Nth Degree...and the rest of us. . . the middle class. . . the unhorsed. . . and the poor. . .are execrable. . . are excrement. THAT'S what this is REALLY all about. It doesn't matter in the least that we go to work, and do the best we can, and add extra hours, and spend thousands of our own monies (I'm up to about $1900 this school year. . . how's 'bout you'?) to prop up our classes...we are abject failures. ONLY the TFAers, the ones with the least education. . . the least experience. . . .are qualified to teach our kids. And that's a fact. . . Jack.

Anonymous said...

And let's not forget the $847.44 for postage stamps to send out these notices,while they're crying about their fiscal budget troubles! What crap! Stay tuned to see who gets re-hired.

zulma said...

It is time to have recall elections on all those elected officials who are making these insane decisions that will hurt the working class.

Everyone should decide a day and time, hopefully on a weekend, to storm their state capitol. If we all across the nation do this unprecedented protest on one day, the message to all the union bashers, the self-serving politicians, the oligarchies will understand the impact of "WE ARE ONE!"

Anonymous said...

@BronxEnglish: absolutely correct. We veterans are no good. We're not only stupid, we're just along for the ride so we can collect our riches at the end. We know nothing, and we don't have anything to offer the Rhee-ites. Michelle Rhee has demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that her methods of taping small children's mouths and making their lips bleed, and drving them around in her personal car after hours while belittling them for being so dumb that they don't know how to direct her to their homes, are the good and correct ones for bringing 90% of her students from the 13th percentile to the 90th percentile. Therefore, we should just complacently slither off in the middle of the night to find a place to die.

$1900, huh? What percentage of your salary does that represent? How many prep periods and lunches do you have to work through? How many hours do you spend on lesson preparation and marking papers? However much you do, BronxEnglish, it's not enough. Clearly you and I are overpaid, lazy-ass, tired buffoons who deserve to be replaced by the brilliant and energetic 22-year-old TFAers. See you on the unemployment line, my friend - oh, but wait, when they throw us out of our jobs, there won't be enough money to sustain us on unemployment. Guess we really will just have to crawl off and die.

Anonymous said...

We actually weren't laid off. We were fired.