Education
Unexplored concepts have been all the rage when it comes to Rhode Island’s education system (and the money that supports it) of late. Consolidation! Funding formula! State-level contract! South Kingstown Superintendent Robert Hicks offers an important directive: In the short term, we should subject any proposals to these questions: How do we know we’ll get…
Prompted by Justin’s analysis, I decided to take a closer look and compare the 2004 (PDF) and 2007 (PDF) statewide education expenditures (per student). First, as Justin noted: [T]he statewide per-student spending on “instructional teachers” (as opposed to the broader “instruction”) actually rose $880, from $5,490 to $6,370, or 16%. Both the size of the…
This is classic Crowley: Repeat the lie. Repeat the lie. Repeat the lie. No matter how wrong, no matter how damaging. Repeat the lie. This must be posted in the Projo editorial room somewhere: The lie. Crowley’s first step to this particular platform was finding a bit of data that looks, in the light of…
Jim Hummel, filling in for Dan Yorke, has had three unionists on the program since 3:00, and as I’ve pulled up flooring and cleaned my jobsite, I’ve been itching to make three points: 1. Regarding the teachers’/union’s behavior at the latest School Committee meeting, NEA lawyer John Liedecker pointed out that the police had said,…
Andrew’s call in to the Matt Allen show, last night, turned into a longer form interview about the East Providence School Committee meeting. Stream by clicking here, or download it. To the conversation about Anthony Carcieri’s microphone volume (or lack thereof), I’d add my impression that Carcieri fully anticipated a disruptive atmosphere and was focused…
Jim Hummel made the point, while filling in for Dan Yorke today, that teacher union contracts are the product of years — decades — of cumulative negotiations. Compromise on X for reason A, one year, and expect to make it up a few years down the road. Consequently, a rollback (his point goes), as appears…
Let’s recap the events that helped bring last night’s East Providence school committee meeting to an abrupt end. The third speaker of the public comment period was East Providence teacher Mary Texeria. As Justin alluded to in the previous post, Ms. Texeria made a tough but fair statement saying that she would be willing to…
Via Jay Nordlinger comes what we can only hope is not a vision of Rhode Island’s future: French teachers hurled shoes and other objects at police Monday to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s high school reforms, prompting police to respond with tear gas. France’s leading teachers’ unions demonstrated in the western city of Saint-Lo at a…
The following are some audio clips from the East Providence School Committee meeting. Keep in mind, while listening, that the sound isn’t entirely representative. For one thing, I was sitting near the taxpayer group, so they might be overrepresented in the general sound level (although still greatly outnumbered). School Committee Chairman Anthony Carcieri makes his…
So parking has already spilled over to the supermarket parking lot across the street, and it was clear from conversation that the women standing at the crosswalk with me were teachers from another district. As we crossed, the policeman directing traffic told them to “be loud — my wife is a teacher.” (There’s a six-figure…