Francine Lawrence, president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers, has notified the Ohio Department of Education that the union intends to pull out of the Race to the Top Program, she said Tuesday night.
Ohio was awarded in August $400 million in the federal Race to the Top competition, a program aimed at reforming schools. The Toledo district's share is $10.8 million.
Source: ToledoBlade.com, published on 3/19/2011
The issue is that the Toledo Public Schools (TPS) academic programs have been floundering for nearly two decade. Together with budget shortfall from a shrinking population TPS has to make drastic changes and make them now. TPS is trying to negotiate those changes with local teacher's union but they're not budging.
Right now the TPS teacher union is waging a PR war against TPS to keep every single benifit they have negitiated over the last two decades. This is the latest tatic to force the school board the give in their demands. The problem is TPS doesn;t have the money and if Francine Lawrence and the Toledo teacher union drop this program the teachers loose even more and the school have even less to pay their teacher and maintain the facilities.
This a big game of chicken that Francine can't loose in. Why can't she loose? Simple: Her contract is set in stone and she will continue to earn her six figure salary until the day she retires. So really right now she's heading negotiations for her legacy as she nears retirement and not the good of the children.
No comments:
Post a Comment