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A placard-bearing student listens to speakers at a rally held
Sept. 23 to protest teacher layoffs in DC public schools. Some
teachers and teacher union representatives are accusing
Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Mayor Adrian Fenty
of trying to destroy the teacher's union.
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The firing this summer of Luke C. Moore Academy's popular principal, Dr. Reginald Elliot, stirred up a hornet's nest of protest in Ward 5 but was only an especially high-profile case in what some teachers decry as an attempt to put experienced teachers out to pasture and replace them with cheaper, younger educators.
Luke C. Moore Academy, located at 1001 Monroe St. NE, is an alternative school aimed at young people who have attended other schools previously without success. DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee reportedly found the school's attendance rates waning and felt the institution "lacked academic rigor" when she made the decision at the end of June to replace Elliot. The school's vice-principal, Gloria Tisdale, was also removed. Elliot's replacement, Azalia Hunt-Speight, took over Aug. 1.
Rhee has been taking a lot of heat from both teachers and parents not only over the firing of Elliot, but also what some see as a broader attack on the existing public education system in the city. A rally in support of teachers who have been removed and replaced was held Sept. 23 outside the District of Columbia Public Schools office at 825 North Capitol St. NE.
"Teacher layoffs will not only increase class sizes for students but disrupt their learning and potentially make school environments unsafe," read a press release announcing the rally.
"This is about the privatization of public schools," said Nathan Saunders, a teacher and spokesman for the anti-Rhee forces. "There's been a push to privatize health care and now there's a push to privatize public schools. This is about selling out our land to developers at bargain prices.
"She wants to get rid of us," he went on. "Thousands of people have been fired. She (Rhee) fires probationary teachers every year. If you show up late twice, you're labeled substandard. In two years, you're gone. New teachers will remain, and veteran teachers will go. It violates both contracts and municipal responsibility. Rhee and [Mayor Adrian] Fenty are busting the teachers’ union."
Saunders spoke at the rally, as did a number of teachers and parents. A key complaint among parents and educators is that older, experienced teachers are being replaced with younger, presumably cheaper ones, which in turn has led to accusations that Rhee is engaged in union-busting.
"Over 900 teachers were hired this summer," said spokesman Robert Brannum. "New teachers are good, because they can learn from the old ones."
An e-mail to Rhee's office inquiring specifically about the firing of Elliot at Luke C. Moore was answered only with a reply saying that the chancellor's office does not comment on personnel matters.
Candy Peterson, who blogs as The Washington Teacher, criticized the Washington Teacher's Union for being "passive," and she also criticized union president George Parker for his supposed failure to protect unionized members.
In a statement, Peterson accused the teacher's union president of "twiddling his thumbs" while teachers have lost jobs.
"Fired teachers have lost homes, small retirements and poor health care [sic,]" Peterson's statement read.
She called upon the WTU to institute a citywide "work-to-rule" policy under which union members would work specific union contract hours and do only their jobs; pass a motion allowing teachers terminated or excessed in the past two years to participate and vote as full union members, and to allow any union member with opposing points of view equal time and resources. |
