Gray Claims Fenty Just Wants to Fire Unionized Teachers
Mayor Accused of Deflecting Responsibility
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 18, 2009
D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray angrily accused the Fenty administration Thursday of seeking to "scapegoat" the council for impending public school budget cuts announced this week and called the reductions a pretext for firing unionized teachers.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee announced late Wednesday that the District would be forced to lay off teachers as part of an estimated $30 million to $40 million cut in the $770 million public school budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. They said the reductions are needed to close a spending gap created when the council approved a round of cuts to the city budget July 31.
Gray (D), who has left open the possibility of an election challenge to Fenty next year, said the mayor and chancellor were attempting to deflect responsibility for cuts in a budget that the mayor signed last month without any mention of possible teacher layoffs.
"What galls me is that this is being put at the council's doorstep," Gray said. "If they want to do this, they ought to take responsibility for it."
Rhee and Fenty declined to comment. The council's cuts last spring and summer totaled $20.7 million, which included cancellation of a 2 percent adjustment for inflation ($8.1 million); fewer slots for 2010 summer school ($9.1 million); and setting aside -- with Rhee's consent -- $3.5 million after a disagreement over enrollment projections.
Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) accused Rhee of misleading parents into thinking the council did not adequately fund the school system. "We gave them more money than they ever had before, and now they are saying they are $40 million short?" Brown said. "That just doesn't go together."
Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), chairman of the Finance and Revenue Committee, also said that the council "didn't cut anything," but that he had "full confidence" in Rhee's management skills.
Gray and George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers' Union, questioned Rhee's decision to allow principals to hire about 900 teachers over the summer, even after widespread forecasts that the District's economy would continue to deteriorate. At the same time, about 75 veteran teachers who were let go last spring from schools where enrollment had declined or academic programs changed have yet to be placed in appropriate jobs, they said.
Staff writer Tim Craig contributed to this report.
I can not fathom this line of thinking.
Here she is talking about her views in the October ’08 Atlantic* interview:
“Nobody makes a thirty-year or ten-year commitment to a single profession. Name one profession where the assumption is that when you go in, right out of graduating college, that the majority of people are going to stay in that profession. It’s not the reality anymore, maybe with the exception of medicine. But short of that, people don’t go into jobs and stay there forever anymore.”
and
“…I’d rather have a really effective teacher for two years than a mediocre or ineffective one for twenty years.”
But wait – here she is in her reassuring March ’09 “Letter to Teachers”
“High-performing veterans are the people I most want to RETAIN. [in italics and bold in the original] They’re invaluable. I need them to serve our children as classroom teachers, mentors, and professional developers. They’re the BACKBONE of our system.”
“Teach For America and the DC Teaching Fellows are important programs that help us bring new teachers into DCPS. But I have absolutely no plans to use them to replace our great veteran educators and I NEVER will.”
Who you gonna believe? Michelle Rhee or Michelle Rhee?
*references in the order mentioned above:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200810u/michelle-rhee
http://www.k12.dc.us/chancellor/documents/Letter-from-Chancellor-Rhee-March-13-2009.pdf
Chancellor Rhee has been disre[s]pectful to teachers, parents and students since she started her job."
Agreed, but you forgot citizens in general.
Chancellor Rhee has been disre[s]pectful to teachers, parents and students since she started her job."
Agreed, but you forgot citizens in general.
Candycane you are exactly right. Fenty is taking the ideas of Anthony Williams, but let’s not forget he’s taking Dr. Janey’s ideas and running with them too. I won’t go on a tangent on how Fenty references “best practices” like he is actually investing time and effort to improve his management practices, but Fenty penchant for copying is quite evident.
Folks need to understand that back under Janey, Janey had a plan to rid the system of several 100s of teachers too. Janey planned on using the guise of NCLB standards to rid the system of uncertified teachers. Janey did ax a few hundred that did not have certification, but could not cut the rest because they had a contractual agreement that allowed them 2-3 years to get certification. This was circa 2004.
? - [Anyone wonder where the teacher certification debate has gone? Remember when there was a big push for folks to take the additional credit hours for certification? The need to be highly certified in the area they teach? Oddly there’s no longer talk about documented teacher quality. Now the school system is touting people with a 5-week training course. So teacher quality by any reasonable measure must be a joke.]
Janey wanted additional funds to implement more educational programs. Mayor Williams and Chavous were playing their own games trying to gain control over DCPS or functions of DCPS. Remember Fenty was Chavous’s legislative aide prior to running for the Council. Chavous advocated taking facilites out of DCPS control. Anyone heard of Allen Lew and his office?
So how was Janey going to replace the 100s of teacher positions? No other than Teach for America and the New Teacher Project with Michelle Rhee. Folks think this was just some ingenious idea dreamed up over the summer, wake up folks. Rhee had been party to this plan for over 5 years. She is just the direct operative now. When Rhee was presented as Chancellor her firm had $2-5 million in contracts with DCPS.
Looking at the proposed DCPS budget for 2010, total labor costs are estimated at $572M or 75% of the budget. (see www.cfo.dc.gov) DCPS is proposing 3,837 teaching/General education positions for a total cost of $340Million, which is 45% of the budget. (Central Administration is 30% of the salaries.) With this current news I don’t know if these numbers hold up, but that was the plan on paper.
So why is it a big push for cost savings with teacher salaries?
If DCPS has 75% of it’s existing budget tied up in existing labor, how does DCPS pay for all the private operators they plan to bring in and run the system. Call me cynical but no matter what side you are on this debate YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF ANY GOVERNMENT SEEK TO SAVE COSTS AS SIMPLY GOOD GOVERNMENT OR TO IMPROVE GOVERNMENT SERVICES ELSEWHERE. No matter what side you take, you’ve never heard of a government trying to reduce costs because it’s the sensible thing to do. Rhee-Fenty want this money to pay the private operators they plan to bring in to run DCPS.
Ladies and gentlemen, it seems like I’m going off on the deep end but companies sit back and identify government functions they can provide to make money. where do you think these red light cameras and speeding cameras came from? What we see here with public schools and private operators is on par with the alleged competition in the utility industry. This is Enron wanting access to essential services money. This is like Wall Street wanting to manage Social security. I might be cynical, but I’ve worked as a consultant most of my career. People in private industry sit back and think of ways they can make money off government funds all day everyday. They have been planning and cracking the education egg for years. now the gates are opening.
Just like with Enron, 10-years from now we will look back and see how we were duped.
I wish both of them would fly out of The District on Rhee's broomstick! ConcernedAboutDC as usual you are right on target with your comment.
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