It's About Control

South County Independent:

t's not about bullying. It's not about educational quality. Any time the National Education Association, the commissioner for higher education, local school committees and superintendents talk about each other these days, it's about one thing: control.

In South Kingstown, the teachers union has launched into an all-out assault on the School Committee in respect to the firing of three special education teachers. Accusing the committee of bullying because it dismissed the nontenured teachers, the union members showed up at a recent School Committee meeting en masse, bearing signs reading "Hatchet Job" and "Stop the Bullies. Speak Up."

The union has a vested interest in protecting its members. The School Committee wants the ability to dismiss teachers who aren't working up to par. The issue is who is going to have control over who will teach in the classroom: the union or the School Committee. To call the School Committee or school administrators "bullies" because they exercised their right to dismiss an employee is a stretch. If they used this right to threaten all other teachers - which they can't do any way, since most teachers are tenured - the administrators and School Committee might then be accused of the B word. But to say that the administration can't fire a teacher without being accused of bullying is akin to giving every teacher who is hired a lifelong contract.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 11, 2012 2:39 AM
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