East Providence, Rhode Island, school board members are exhibiting more chutzpah than Wall Street executives. Board members in the cash-strapped district want to avoid the district's obligations to negotiate pay and benefits with teachers. The board claims that state mandates barring districts from running up deficits trump other obligations, including negotiating with the local teachers' union.
Their tactics aside, the school board is actually seeking some fairly reasonable cuts, considering the tough times:
The union has since filed an unfair labor practice suit claiming district actions erode the union's bargaining power.
Meanwhile moving a few miles west to Providence, outgoing Rhode Island state schools chief Peter McWalters issued a directive giving principals in this troubled school district more say in teacher hiring and layoffs. The new authority circumvents the terms of the Providence collective bargaining agreement which take a last-hired, first-fired approach to layoffs and also grants more senior teachers greater preference in job assignments.
This next related item represents a new low for teacher quality. Currently West Virginia law actually limits the information a district is allowed to discern from its interviews with prospective teachers. By law, such interviews can only be used to verify coursework and training (weighing seven factors such as experience, certification and degree level), and not to get at any other aspect of a candidate's potential.
Governor Joe Manchin is now trying to nullify the law, in a bill introduced this session.However, the state teachers' union has officially declared "war" to ensure Manchin's efforts are for naught.