September 2011 - Irish American News

September 2011 Irish American News “We’ve Always Been Green!” 17City of DreamsWe recently attended the IrishFreedom Committee’s commemorationat the Irish American HeritageCenter for the 30th anniversary of the1981 Republican prisoners’ hungerstrike. One of the speakerswas our friend GeorgeMcLaughlin who, until recently,was a teacher andguidance counselor at RhodeIsland’s Central Falls HighSchool. That might soundvaguely familiar. It’s theschool where in February2010 the school board firedall their teachers.As you approach that littlecity (the smallest and mostdensely populated city in thesmallest US state) a road signwelcomes you to the “Cityof Dreams.” The city’s websiteis bannered “A City with A BrightFuture.”George said Central Falls remindshim of his teaching days in Brooklyn:“People there don’t have a lotof money. The town is the poorestplace in RI. It has the highest percentageof non-English speakers, thehighest percentage of single-parenthouseholds, the highest percentageof teenage pregnancies. We can godown the whole list.”What happened at Central Falls?“There was a plan to reform theschool because our scores were lowand our graduation rate wasn’t sohigh as other places. What we knownow is that this was all by design, anational design. It led to the firingof every single teacher.” Of courseChicago has had this happen inmany schools, beginning when ourgreat friend Secretary of EducationArne Duncan was in Chicago. Mostpeople don’t know about that.“Eventually we were rehired basedon a side agreement signed by theunion, which gave up a lot of ourrights. We had no right to seniority.We had no right to contest involuntarytransfer. We had no right tocontest evaluations, which from thatpoint on would not be done by peoplewho knew us from within the school.But we were brought back and hadour jobs. Shortly after that they gaveme a bad evaluation; they gave mywife a bad evaluation.” (George andhis wife Anne were media spokespersonsfor the fired teachers.) “Andwe knew we’d probably be gone. So,sadly, we had to exit and find otherjobs.” (George holds a Ph.D. fromFordham University and is a boardmember of the National Academy forGeorge McLaughlinAlternative Education. Annie holdsa cum laude B.A. in Anthropology,an M.S. in Science Education andwas nominated for the PresidentialAward for Excellence in Mathematicsand Science.)I’ve seen figures in the press aboutthe school. Were half the kids failingall their subjects? “No, that is incorrect.I was interviewed by CampbellBrown on CNN and she quoted thisstatistic to me. Many of these newsoutlets had these statistics before wewere fired. They were sent by anonymoussources. And then when thosenews people contacted the CentralFalls School District, they were‘verified.’ I told Campbell Brown: ‘Ihave to stop you and I have to tellyou that’s wrong.’ She asked: ‘Howdo you know that’s wrong?’ I said:‘Because I work in the guidance officeand I have the statistics; and I canshow them to you and verify they arewrong.’ And she said: ‘But I have itfrom a very reputable source.’ I said:‘You do; who’s that?’ And she said‘the Central Falls School District.’Which, as far as I’m concerned representsthe death of fair journalism.To quote the other side in a conflictas a ‘reputable source’ is ridiculous.“It’s the old story; the big lie is believed,the little lie isn’t.”How many kids were actually failingall subjects? “The actual figurewas 4%, not 50%. The media wereoff by 46%.”There’s another figure out therestating that during negotiations theunion demanded as much a $90 perhour for extra work. “Not true. Biglie. Not true… It was repeated adnauseum throughout the US that‘they wanted $90 an hour.’ The crucialelement was job security. You’dhave to be out of your mind to agreeto have a side agreement to a viablecontract and not have a guaranteethat you’d have a job. Who’d agreeto such a thing?”What did Gallo use to justify themass firing. Did her power comefrom Washington? “Under ‘Race tothe Top,’ (a $4.35 billion programannounced by PresidentObama and Arne Duncan inJuly 2009) if you’re an “underperformingschool” theygive you options. Those optionsare a means to reformthe school radically; otherwiseyou don’t get any federalmoney. By the way, thereare no rich underperformingschools; they are always poorschools. They are comparingus to rich communities. Andthat’s really, really unfair toplaces like Central Falls.”So, it’s all about money?“Money, money. This is happeningin urban school districts allaround the United States. And it’sfrightening. This is the destructionof the traditional public school.There is a steamroller behind thiseffort to create charter schools; andthere’s big money behind it… Manypeople in this country who lamentthat there’s not a complete separationof church and state really should belamenting the growing problem ofbusiness and state being joined. If weget rid of all of our traditional publiceducation we’ll have no way of goingback. We’ll just have a series ofmom and pop, avant-garde charterschools which, as in the case of NewYork City, will just open up, get ‘badreport cards’ after 3 or 4 years, andclose down. Then we create anothercharter school.”“We have many, many peoplelike Arne Duncan, the Secretary ofEducation, who’ve never taught, whoare running schools, running schoolsystems. Plumbers would not standfor this. Electricians would not standfor it. They wouldn’t say ‘It’s OK;you can run our union or run ourcompany, and you have no idea ofwhat we are actually doing exceptyou’ve read books about it.’”Folks, I have an idea that no oneas yet takes seriously: issue diplomasat birth. Now, that would be a real“cultural revolution.”This column is condensed from amore expanded, detailed version tobe found online at: IrishAmerican-News.com, Columns, Mick.