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Yes more districts should follow the example set by Central Falls

I don't believe that firing all the staff of Central Falls school district will turn around the school. I know for a fact that there are many factors that impact performance of schools. I know there are some teachers who have given up on the educational process due to the critieria thay are expected to meet. In American we have accepted that public education should incli=ude so many factor that are not related to the education of children. Too many people think teachers should act as social workers, mother/father the all in all. Parents need to have expections of themselves and the children they are rearing. I don't know nay person in the country that has the task of trying to educate a child in this country having all the solutions to a child's needs, especially in the time frame of 5and a half to 7 hours aday. Parents need to accept more responsibility for their children and their educational process. What might need to happen is that every parent with a school age child should pay for that child like they do in Africa and other foregin countries. American's take so called "free education for granted and too many use it as a baby sitting situation where they don't contribute to said child's development. I bet if you checked the movement of most of these children,you will find that they move from school to school and all over the place. How can they be expected to perform when their eduactional process is all over the place. Teachers are supposed to teach a states circulm and then get these children ready to take almost meaningless test to satify a education board. That folks is not education!

I think this is ashame!. It's the children of our future that are getting hurt with this discussion. What's our future of United States with all these cut backs and teachers being fired coming to??

Yes!!
Here in California A school had the same problem and that school district let all the administrators go and kept the teachers.

This from an old retired teacher who taught in the public schools back in the early nineteen sixties... I applaud the Central Falls' school district in Rhode Island for their decision... It's time school districts across the country begin demanding the very best for the children under their watch care... Our children deserve the very best, rather than the dumbed down education taking place in our schools across this nation...

I give them an A++...

More school districts should do the same. If our schools are ever to change there must be accountability on everyones part including parents. I also think we need to stop thinking of public schools as being free, we need to start paying for the education of our children. We pay for everything else, the best cars, homes clothes etc.

I agree with 4 out of 5 of the previous remarks and think that this country would be a lot better off if the incompetents who are running this country all got canned. We are being rapidly taken over by the foreigners who have either bought this country or those who have invaded it as illegal immigrants and those in office today who want to simply give away all the assets of those who have worked most of their lives paying taxes into a giveaway society of more and more government. I know that that last sentence qualifies as a run on sentence, but so do the problems our government pose to us, the tax-paying citizens, run on without end. Let's continue with what the school in Rhode Island started and get a hold of our country again. "Throw the bums out!"

Yeah buddy! I don't know what the outcome will be any more than any of you do...? However it seems to me the teachers, like the kids, will get away with doing no more than is necessary these days. The kids don't want to put out the effort and mommy and daddy are way too important to put out some effort to teach the spoiled little brats to "try to learn."
Teachers are paid fairly well. But, they are not paid what they earn while they have todays boys & girls. In far too many ways the kids are really advanced beyond what any of us were in the '40's & '50's but they are stupid, arrogant, ill-advised in almost everything they are getting into, unwilling to put out the effort to learn to read, write, spell, or perform basic math applications: like making change for instance.
That the kids are aware of their short-comings is obvious in their wilfull physical and verbal abuse of the teachers, in the classroom, today.
So, if the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, then the chopping needed to start at the top. If you want to have a really good garden you pull out all the weeds, old plants, and replace, or fertilize, the original soil. You cannot simply replace the kids but they will do it themselves through attrition. It used to be that they were held back if the effort and result was not showing in the student's work...
Good for them. Start fresh and clean with an agenda that will bring the kids minds back into the classroom and let them find reason to learn... That's the teachers real job. NOT baby-sitting a bunch of brats...
Roger Patterson

I find this almost unbelievable that this could happen anywhere in America. I am sure that this is a very isolated case and will never be repeated. Here in Minnesota, this could never happen as the Teachers Union is the most powerful lobby in the state and owns the Democrats who are in the majority in both the House and Senate. There are plenty of public (government) schools that are failing their charters, but here in Minnesota we reward failure and punish success. The union agenda seems to be to destroy competition like Charter Schools any way possible and at the same time dominate the DFL Party to keep the tax dollars flowing into the union coffers so they can keep buying those democrat votes.
Rhode Island is the first state that I have heard of that actually did something for their children instead of the politicians and the unions. In a world where you can site examples of the unions protecting the most incompetent of teachers, it is a sign of hope that we my yet change the corrupting influence of the largest lobby in our country.

I see numerous problems with this decision. For starters it was a mandate from the federal government which has no place in education. Education is a state right granted by our constitution although our government seems to ignore the constitution, especially the latest administration. “Their decision has been lauded by education heavyweights including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan”. There should be no U.S. Secretary of Education, again it is solely a state right.
An even bigger issue is how you hold a teacher responsible for students and parents who simply don’t care and will not try to succeed and please let’s not pretend that is not an issue here. We don’t hold upper management in our banking system responsible for irresponsible decisions they made that cost the taxpayers billions maybe even trillions of dollars but we will hold a teacher responsible for a student’s apathetic attitude? Surely we are not so far gone that we can’t see the fallacy in that thinking?
As for the old retired teacher who taught in the public schools back in the early nineteen sixties and his dumbed down education taking place in our schools across this nation, t he teachers didn’t chose the curriculum which is in place. It comes from our government who’s goal is to dumb down the citizenry of this nation. Look at the “No Child Left Behind” debacle. By the year 2014 schools are to have all students at 100% proficiency. This includes students with IQ’s below 80 so the only way to even come close to this unrealistic goal is to lower the standard for the other students.

Finally someone has the gonads to get rid of everyone & start over!

A clean slate with teachers will not change the peformance of a school and money will not solve all the problem. Here in Texas we pay high property taxes to support our schools, and still the lowest performing schools or students are the ones who have the least amount of parental support, if any. Why isn't the responsibility placed on the parents? If you look at private schools for an example, they do not have to accept or keep children with any learning or behavior differences and if you are not an excellent student, you will not receive a scholarship to attend.

Public schools are expected to deal with all social,learning,and behavior problems and there is simply not enough money to suppor what is lacking at home. Firing the good staff with the bad was a poor decision. The board and Superintendent should teach in this school themselves and then lets see if they make an improvement in the performance of the students. They appear to be just fat cats who are "do as they say, not as they do". It is easy to talk a good game, lets see if they can hold the teaching jobs themselves.

Apparently Becky is a graduate from the Rode Island school.

I am opposed to the blanket dismissal since a large number of good teachers are in positions where they are the exception at the school rather than the rule. It’s hard for great teachers to excel to the point that they can impact the overall performance of a school. I do believe that performance evaluation by a third party would show where policy and administration is deficient rather than educator deficiency.

Firing of an entire school is pretty radical when considering the impact it will have on the students in mid year studies.

I think it was the only decision to be made!!! There is a problem with the teachers if the children are not learning. They should have stayed after school for nothing to help these kids!!!These kids are our future and as I see it if we do not care about them now then we do not care about our own future.

AM RETIRED AND DEAF. MY EXSPENCES KEEP GOING UP AND LOST MY SPOSE IN 2005. DONT WANT THE DEM. HEALTH CARE AS THEY DID IT BEHIND CLOSED DOORS AND GAVE SOME STATES PREF. TREATMENT. JUST HAVE ALL CONGRESSMAN START OVER AND NEVER WILL BE RIGHT, THAT YEARS AHEAD WILL HAVE TO RE-DO.

SORRY TYPED IN WRONG BLOCK NOW HOW TO SEND. JWF

I have a problem believing that the teachers are at fault. As a 1961 H.S. graduate, I
have seen the education system change radically. It refers to the dumbing down of the
American public, including re-writing history and even removing parts of history so that
students have no access to the material. The education system, just like the healthcare
system, has also been overrun with illegals. When you have 100's of students who can't
understand the teacher, or even begin to read, then the only way to make sure everyone
passes is to lower the bar for everyone. This is against everything that involves the
desire to achieve. Also, there is a big problem with parents today. They send their
kids off to school to learn the curriculum provided by the government - - all the while
expecting the teacher to discipline the children - - something that should have been
learned at home before they were sent to school. The administrators are at fault as well. They need to challenge the system and get the state to administer the curriculum.

It seems to me that this hasn't been very well thought out. First this is a horrid precedent to set. If there is a problem getting good teachers now how are you going to get them when they will never know how long they will have their job? I can't believe no one is holding any of the kids accountable. There is an old saying, "Never try to teach a pig to sing. You'll only frustrate yourself and annoy the pig." We have dumbed down education. We expect the teachers to fill in for parents. The kids expect things to be given to them they are unwilling to work for their education. What's going to happen when you replace all the teachers and there is no difference in test scores? This is all very upsetting to me. Am I going to be replaced because some ignorant, gang banging, meth using, spoiled brat doesn't want to learn. When I give standardized tests the kids have the bubbles filled in before I finish reading the instructions. Does that make me a bad teacher?

My husband is unemplyed since we had to fly to Germany due to her stroke and then she passed. He doesn't get unemplyment because we were out of country. He has been looking for a job every morn. on the computer. I am the sunshine secretary at church and have to send cards to shut in's and ill people and the postage rate keeps going up and we have no income. I hate comp.b-day cards, but have to stoop to them soon. It is sad, that we slowly loose everything preciouse in life! Christa