Outrage, anxiety after Providence mayor fires almost 2,000 teachers

CNN.com ^ | 2/24/11

[LdSentinal]

CNN) -- The firing of every teacher in the Providence public school system has set off a wave of anxiety, anger and uncertainty in the Rhode Island city, with a union leader blasting the mayor's decision as anti-union maneuvering along the lines of what's happening in the Midwest.

Mayor Angel Tavares said in a online message Wednesday that he authorized the previous day's move to dismiss almost 2,000 teachers and staff to allow for greater flexibility once the budget process is complete. Tavares also said the final number of layoffs needed to balance a multimillion budget deficit will be determined later.

Still that explanation did little to assuage those teachers in the firing line, nor did a closed-door forum Thursday with Superintendent Tom Brady on the matter.

"The mood in the meeting today was extremely grim," one such teacher, Lori Iannucci, told CNN affiliate WPRI. "Teachers felt very negative, unappreciated. No questions were answered."

Teachers said that their union wasn't notified beforehand of the termination notices. At Thursday's meeting, they said they were given general assurances that the situation could be resolved within the next month.

But Steve Smith, president of the city's teacher's union, said he believed the decision "makes no sense at all to teachers or the community." He accused Tavares of "making a political decision to take control and silence workers" -- a group that, he said, has consistently and continually worked with city leaders to implement reforms.

"It's shocking that in the midst of working in a collaborative environment ... the mayor says you're fired," Smith told reporters. "This sounds very much like what's going on in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana, where lawmakers want to get rid of collective bargaining and remove the voice of workers."

[TheOldLady]

"Teachers felt very negative, unappreciated. No questions were answered."

This is the kind of non-thinking drivel that passes for a political argument with the teachers? Just fire them all, everywhere. Big, marxist government out of the schools.

[Judith Anne]

Teachers are paid by tax money; part of their pay (tax money, remember) goes to pay union dues; the union dues (tax money, remember) goes to elect democrats. NONE goes to elect any Republicans. No teacher has any say in where the money goes, either.

Sweet deal, the democrats have, getting ALL the taxpayers to subsidize their socialist candidates, especially the ones who despise them and would never vote for them in a million years.

Bastards.

[monocle]

The city could use this opportunity to rid themselves of incompetent teachers by hiring back only the best teachers thereby avoiding the hassle of lengthy proceedings to fire individual teachers. On the other hand, the mayor could attempt to employ the opportunity to bring more skilled Democrat propagandists.

[TheOldLady]

Now, now. We don’t use that language here. Just call them bastids; that gets by the censors. ;-)

Seriously, you’re 100% right.

[trubolotta]

You are right on target here. This is standard practice in many districts if there is a possibility a budget won’t be passed or a contract negotiation may be delayed. Either all the pink slips will be rescinded or enough of the less senior teachers will be riffed to meet the budget or contract costs.

The story looks more like a setup piece for a sequel where teachers triumph over the evil politicians trying to destroy the union or schools. Sort of a false victory where there was no possibility of defeat in the first place.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Another thing to thank Jimmuh Carter for ... his thank you gift to the teachers unions was the Dept of Ed, and their power/influence skyrocketd. 30+ years later, we’re still paying.

If our newly-minted Tea Party Conservative Congressmen really wanted to make a meaning full statement about cutting costs and reducing government, they would propose eliminating the Dept. of Ed. as a first step. Then each year eliminate another unnecessary and unconstitutional government agency.

[EDINVA]

Their long-term, continuing goal should be to ‘defund the left.’ They have a LOT on their plate. I’m willing to see them defund NPB/NPR, and Planned Parenthood. They can all go the PRIVATE fund raising route, IMO.

Then, Congress can look at the agencies and depts that do nothing but suck up and spent taxpayers’ dollars with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Remember Jimmuh’s Dept of Energy that’s spend how many gazillions of dollars but has nada result 30+ years later? We are facing $5/gallon gas thanks to the unrest in the ME and, more importantly, the environmentalists and Obama’s Administrations continuing to prevent drilling. (despite a court order overturning their ban!)

[trubolotta]

I agree and would recommend patience. It’s also good strategy and tactics to not telegraph planned actions to an enemy and be prepared with overwhelming force to make the public case and demolish their arguments. That takes careful thought, planning and time. We should give them that benefit of the doubt but maintain our vigilance.

[houeto]

In Rhode Island you would assume so.

He was endorsed by SEIU.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I am not sure what the Dept. of Education was supposed to accomplish but the stated reason for the Dept. of Energy was to make us oil independent in X number of years. Instead they are making us more dependent.

What is the mission statement for the Dept. Of Agriculture? Commerce? EPA? HUD? Etc.? None have accomplished whatever it is they set out to do. They have only grown in size and budget. They all take money from the productive private sector and dump it into make-work, victim-seeking efforts to keep the Democrats in power. These recent riots over public employee unions attest to that.

I was not expecting the Republicans to actually try to eliminate the Dept. of Education. I was saying to suggest it would be making a real statement to those who are opposing these small cuts they are now proposing. As someone said, Politics is the Art of the Possible so along that line they are doing what they can. I was suggesting the say, “If you think these small cuts are something, how about we eliminate the Dept of Education and then see who the NEA and AFT will terrorize?

[EDINVA]

IIRC, the GOP Congress that was installed in ‘95 did try to defund or shut down the Dept of Ed. What would the loss be?
I’m all for it.

From the Dept of Ed website: http://www2.ed.gov/about/contacts/gen/index.html

“The Department is headquartered in Washington, D.C., where about 3,600 staff work in several buildings:

Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)
Department of Education Building
400 Maryland Ave, SW
Washington, DC 20202

Potomac Center Plaza (PCP)
550 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20202

Capitol Place
555 New Jersey Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20208

1990 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006

Union Center Plaza (UCP)
830 1st Street, NE
Washington, DC 20202

L’Enfant Plaza
490 L’Enfant Plaza, SW, Room 2100A
Washington, DC 20202

“Another 1,400 staff work in ED’s ten regional offices. These staff help represent ED’s goals and views in their region, particularly in the areas of student financial assistance, civil rights enforcement, vocational rehabilitation services, and audits and investigations.”

So you have 5000 government workers who do what, exactly?
They also occupy some pricey real estate in DC, too.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

What would the loss be?

None to the taxpayer but a lot to the incestuous circular financing between the Democrat politicians and the Public Employee Unions. For them, the more government employees, the better.

The benefit of smaller, less intrusive government, as visualized by the founders, is that it leaves the money and the decisions of what to do with it in the hands of the people. Government exists at the expense of the citizens. Bureaucracies, whether government or business, have a tendency to expand and tighten controls. That stifles innovation and economic growth.

I am against labor unions, period. They, too, distort the market and free choice. When you have an I'll-scratch-your-back-and-you-scratch-mine relationship between unions and governments, the size and controls increase and the costs mushroom. That can't happen in the private sector because it increases costs and competition won't allow that to succeed. In government costs seem to be unimportant as long as the right groups are being rewarded.

Adding government departments is simply to pander to interest groups. The politicians always present a plausible and heart rending argument for them but that is deception and the departments rarely, if ever, achieve what was promised. Instead, they have those famous "unintended consequences" which exacerbate the problem while creating others.

Who knows what the Department of Commerce does but it certainly does not help the private sector. Instead it takes money, out of the private sector by taxing to support itself but once there, government agencies never go away. They just grow.

What does the Department of Agriculture do? I think it was supposed to stabilize the market by regulating supply and demand. Firstly, you can't regulate supply and demand, it creates itself. It is either there or it is not. Instead the government has created a costly system which distorts the market with subsidies and the buying and storing of surpluses. Why subsidize a product and then buy the resulting surplus and store it at great government expense? Look at the distortion of subsidizing ethanol production, which actually uses more petroleum than it replaces, but leaves a food corn shortage.

Those examples apply across the board. The key common denominator is that the favored groups donate to and vote for Democrats. Then the resulting federal government union employees have their union dues extracted from their paychecks and much of it donated to the Democrats. They have a sweet racket going there and we are the losers.