About 1,500 people jammed the street in front of City Hall in Providence, R.I., on Wednesday to protest last week's dismissal of the city's entire teaching force.
"I thought the only insanity was in Wisconsin, not in Rhode Island," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told the crowd, which raised signs and banged drums.
Weingarten calls the terminations insane, but city officials say they had no choice: The city is facing an estimated deficit of more than $100 million for the next fiscal year, or roughly 20 percent of the city budget.
Providence's new mayor, Angel Taveras, says he is considering school closures and layoffs for many city workers, but teachers are feeling the pain first, because of a state law that requires districts to notify teachers by March 1 if their jobs are in jeopardy. He says he chose terminations instead of layoffs because it ensures that teachers the city can't afford will be completely removed from the city payroll.
"With a layoff, for various reasons, you can be responsible for paying teachers who are not teaching in a classroom," he said. "In addition to that, if they go into the substitute pool, you're paying them their full pay and benefits, and that's costing an enormous amount of money. I can't allow the taxpayers to be on the hook for paying teachers who are not teaching."
But union leaders point out that the dismissal of nearly 2,000 educators means the city can ignore seniority rights as it re-staffs classrooms.
"By firing all of the teachers, Mayor Taveras is not solving an educational or a fiscal problem," Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union, said. "He's making a political decision to take control and silence workers."
