Firing of all teachers at Rhode Island school roils students

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — Ashley Delgado graduated from one of Rhode Island's worst-performing high schools and wanted to go to college — if only she could get there.

When Delgado's parents could not take her to visit Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., her French teacher at Central Falls High School, Hope Evanoff, took her by train and helped her seek financial aid. Delgado, among the minority of students who graduate on time from troubled Central Falls, is now a sophomore at Lesley. Evanoff is among 93 high school instructors and staff who will be fired after the end of the school year in a desperate move to improve student performance at the school.

"Maybe we need to raise the bar, but we definitely don't have an issue that requires firing everyone," said Delgado, 19, who attended a candlelight vigil last week in support of Evanoff and other fired teachers.

The mass firing set off a national debate over school reform that reached from this small, impoverished city to Washington, where President Barack Obama called it an example of the need to hold failing schools accountable. But many of those most directly affected by the radical shake-up — students, parents and teachers — deplore the firings and complain no one has listened to their opinion.

One teacher defender is Marisol Vega, 39, who has five children in the school district, including three at the high school. All have earned academic honors, she said.

"If all these kids are doing so good, the teachers must be doing something good," said Vega, who volunteers at the middle school, teaching students the skills needed to run a business.

The firings were provoked by dismal student performance at the high school: In 2009, fewer than half of its students graduated within four years. And standardized tests last fall showed just 7 percent of eleventh graders passing math, 33 percent passing writing and 55 percent proficient in reading. The school educates just over 1,000 students.

Rhode Island's education commissioner identified the high school in January as one of the six worst in the state and ordered its leaders to pick from one of four reform plans. When talks with the teachers' union broke down, Central Falls School Superintendent Frances Gallo chose the most extreme option, to fire the staff. No more than half can return under federal rules.

The mass-firing tactic is used to turn around 20 to 30 schools in the U.S. annually, experts estimate.

Both sides say they want to negotiate to avert job losses, but the firings stand for now. Gallo said the average high school teacher in her district earns more than $72,000. Secondary teachers elsewhere in Rhode Island received an average of $61,830 in May 2008, according to the most recent federal data.