“Teachers Are Being Vilified” in Providence, Says American Federation of Teachers’ Weingarten
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten will be in Providence on Saturday for a "Strengthening Local Public Schools" community event at the Juanita Sanchez Education complex -- and said that she believes Providence teachers are being "vilified" in the state takeover of Providence public schools.
Weingarten's most notable visit to Rhode Island came in 2011, when she blasted the mass firing of teachers by then-Mayor Angel Taveras -- SEE VIDEO BELOW.
"I’m not a big fan of state takeovers — but Rhode Island already had one," Weingarten told GoLocalProv in an interview on Thursday. "The rationale for a state takeover is to provide support and services, not to dump on the schools further. One of the reasons that people have pushed hard for democratic control (under elected leaders) is that at least there’s a connection between voter and community and schools directly."
"Unfortunately, the current Commissioner just continues to do the same things that Joel Klein or Michelle Rhee would do. Rather than work with teachers, they’ve set up other 'process' committees that will come out and say all the things are wrong, and what teachers should do in collective bargaining to fix it," said Weingarten. "It's not as though we haven’t seen this movie before — you have to roll up your sleeves and work together and you have to lift the morale. You don’t create a situation were every utterance the boss says divides people more and more."
Rhee was the controversial chancellor of D.C. public schools that famously fired underperforming teachers and evaluated teachers based on student performance -- before stepping down in 2010 -- and Klein was the Chancellor of Education in New York City under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg that challenged the teachers' union.
Weingarten said that she believed Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza had allowed the schools to fall into disrepair -- but that takeover by Rhode Island education commissioner Angélica Infante-Green was not necessarily the answer.
"Here you had a situation where you had city control and the mayor was not giving the school the resources they need — just look at the shape they were in. He was not going to play that role, so this was viewed as no worse CONTINUE READING: GoLocalProv | “Teachers Are Being Vilified” in Providence, Says American Federation of Teachers’ Weingarten