Central Falls, Rhode Island Fires All High School Teachers in Attempt to Fix Major Problems

The smallest city in the smallest state in Rhode Island is making national headlines with their recent decision to fire and only rehire at most 50% of their schoolteachers at the high school level. This controversy came about due to extremely sub-par test results by the students of Central Falls.

Central Falls is consistently under performing and as a result the school board choose to use a "turnaround" model. This "turnaround" model is quite extreme. All administrators will be fired and all teachers. The max allotment of teachers that can be rehired is only 50%.

The problems facing Central Falls as laid out on www.msnbc.com are:

• Only 7% of 11^th graders were proficient in math
• Only 33% were proficient in writing
• Only 55% were proficient in reading
• In 2008, 52% of students graduated in 4 years while 30% dropped out of school.

These problems are huge and are very hard to dispute. The big question however is what is the root cause of all of this? Bad teachers? No resources? Parents not being involved? Lack of support from the community?

This decision has many supporters and many who oppose it. The teachers were presented with the idea to work longer days and participate in summer programs. In the end, they opted for the alternative.

Many parents and taxpayers are arguing that teachers can certainly take these extra steps in order to help the youth of Central Falls who in the end are of course the biggest losers in this situation. Many are arguing that the taxpayers pay the teachers to educate their children and feel this is not being done at the level it should be.

Then of course there is the other side. The teachers who feel they are being unfairly treated and working under poor conditions with limited resources. The parents who support them and feel that to say all teachers should be fired is not only unfair but will not help the situation. The parents who have witnessed first hand what certain teachers have done to help their children.

In the end the decision is made. The question is will those suffering most the youth of Central Falls be the ones that benefit? Is there something bigger that is the problem that needs to be addressed? Will decisions like this deter good teachers from teaching in communities where they are needed more than ever?

Only time will tell. One thing is for certain this controversy has Central Falls divided.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35562693/ns/us_news-education/