School in RI hires back teachers....why?

First of all, teachers are not the only factor in the equation. Parents must provide am adequate home life and promote the value of education. Parents must motivate and insist that their children attend school regularly. Parents must provide assistance with homework, a proper environment for study. Where is your blame for parents? Teachers have students 6-7 hrs a day ( if the students show up) The rest of the time belongs to the parents and the community.

What you fail to see in this whole situation is the area this school is in. In this neighborhood 90% of the students live in poverty. 52% dropout before graduation, many students speak are ESL students stuggling in a second language. No teacher can motivate all their students all the time. Most teachers cannot compete with the daily influence of gangs, drugs and apathy...

When are you going to realize that most teachers would not step foot in this neighborhood and give the teachers who teach there credit for doing what most will not. This is not a white middle class school with a PTA and family nights. Surely you get that? If the teachers are fired...who is going to want to come teach there? Who is going to risk losing their job teaching students who bear no responsibility in their own education?

We can demand all types of standards be taught, implement "turnaround models" etc but until the students and their families see value in education...no real change will occur.

No Child Left Behind law says that all students will be proficient. Really, all? Yes all students. That is the equivalent of saying this....All teams will make the playoffs, furthermore, all teams will go to and win the championships. This is regardless of the player's ability to play, the player's desire to play, even if the player never shows up to practice, or whether the player can even walk.. Those who cannot play will be given extra assistance, while those who show ability will be left to practice on their own time. If the team fails to make and win the championships then the coach will be fired and a new coach brought in, regardless of how many coaches are gone through.

I have several relatives who are teachers, and all of them are struggling with Bush's "no child left behind" mandate. It's one of the worst things to happen to US education in recent history and has resulted in an overall weakening of our education system which will negatively affect us for decades to come.

The big problem is that no matter how good of a teacher you are, faced with ever growing class sizes, not all kids are going to pass the mandatory tests. And even if you just "teach the test", that doesn't mean kids are actually learning anything. Furthermore, tying teacher performance to student performance just isn't realistic. Say a teacher gets a class of nothing but very bright students whose abilities are years beyond other students the same age. Obviously these students will pass the standardized tests without any effort on the part of the teacher, but does this mean that teacher did a "good job"? Likewise, a teacher gets a class of under-performers. Kids who are 2 or more years behind other students their age. Can that teacher then be fired for not being able to cram several years' worth of teaching into 1 year to bring the kids up to date?

Answer carefully, because if you aren't careful, then only the "good students" will get "good teachers", while the bad students get bad teachers - therefore widening the schism between the good schools and bad schools even further. Or, worse, you'll create a system in which teachers will pass students no matter how much or little they know. Oh wait, that's happening now....

I don't doubt that at least some of the teachers in the RI school system were truly underperforming and really should have been let go. But it's unfair to simply dismiss them all when in reality, most of them were probably inheriting the problem children that somehow made it through the previous year when they really shouldn't have.

I'm sorry - but I don't believe that you have all of the facts. In many areas schools are dealing with students who are living in poverty (due to loss of the parents jobs in manufacturing, etc.), students who speak little english (in some districts over eight different languages are spoken by students), and parents who cannot assist with homework because they themselves speak little english. Government has made "deals" with school districts that reward them monetarily for "cleaning out" the school staff - including maintenance and cafeteria staff. Teachers with less than the number of years of tenure agreed upon by the district and government are released - the teacher's ability has no bearing. I fail to see how terminating the teachers who are performing well will aid the students. I also see no correlation between poor grades and cafeteria/maintenance employees. In one school I know of, students were able to receive college credit for some coursework done in high school. Classes were also given towards the International Baccalaureate Diploma. Teachers for those programs were "cleaned out" and those classes will probably not be available as there is no other teacher in that area of the state certified to teach them. Does that improve education? Teachers should be evaluated individually and not be treated as though they are on the Supreme Court - there for life.

When I was in school, during the stone age (LOL), teachers seemed to answer a calling to teach. Now, many of them go into teaching because they can't get into anything else. The could care less whether the kids get educated as long as they draw their paychecks and get the summer off. Now, folks, I said, many of them, not nearly all of them. But, teachers don't stand up for what is right for their students, I guess because they know it won't do any good, or they are afraid to. Sad situation for the kids.