Remember Deborah Gist?

As in West Virginia, educators in Oklahoma have reached a breaking point, fed up with stagnant wages and cuts to education funding. The idea of a walkout began to gain traction in mid-February after a proposed salary increase failed to win enough support among lawmakers. A ­superintendent circulated a petition asking colleagues if they would support a teacher walkout.

I WAS REVIEWING the press for Weekend Quotables this morning, when I came across this Washington Post story on the growing revolt among low-paid Oklahoma teachers.

WaPo reports:

At a local restaurant, it was a teacher who served Deborah Gist recently. At the Reasor’s grocery, there’s sometimes a teacher behind the register. And then there was the Uber that the school district chief hailed to catch an early-morning flight — a teacher sat behind the wheel, trying to earn some money before heading to the classroom. There was a stack of student journals on the passenger seat.

“It’s just so wrong that it just hurts my heart,” said Gist, who has been superintendent since 2015.

My reaction to the hand-wringing quote -- Wait a minute. Could this possibly be the same Deborah Gist?

And sure enough, it was.

For those who don't know, or can't recall, it was Gist, fresh out of Eli Broad's training academy, who served as Rhode Island's state superintendent back in 2010. She's the one who pushed local Superintendent Frances Gallo to fire all the teachers and staff at Central Falls High School back in 2010. In the face of national blowback from unions and school activists, Gist was forced to retreat and most of the teachers were hired back. But the school and the entire town of Central Falls never fully recovered from the debacle.

The worst part was Obama's Ed. Sec. Arne Duncan giving his nod of approval to Gist's assault on the state's teachers and the President himself hailing her mass firing as an "act of courage". 

As teacher Paul Murphy wrote in a recent WaPo column,

The staff of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island sure didn’t sign up expecting the president of the United States and the secretary of education to endorse their collective firing. While we may have expected to be treated like dirt by Republicans, we didn’t sign up knowing the Democratic Party would abandon us in such a publicly humiliating way.

It's only fitting, I suppose, that after being run out of R.I., Gist would wind up in "right-to-work" (for less) state, Oklahoma, where public schools are miserably underfunded and teacher pay is at the nation's bottom (ranks 49th), lower even than West Virginia where the rolling teacher revolt began earlier this year.

So sorry, Deborah Gist. Your hand-wringing won't get it. We remember you.

Remember Deborah Gist?

Gist

She's the State Supt. of Rhode Island. You know, the one who pushed a local superintendent to fire teachers and staff in mass at Central Falls High School back in February of 2010. In the face of massive protests, Gist was forced to retreat and most of the teachers were hired back. But the school and the entire town of Central Falls may never fully recover from the debacle, once hailed by President Obama as an "act of courage."

Well guess what? Now two years later, Gist has found God. She now claims that she favors teachers being "involved in the reform process from the beginning. "But, as she explains in this Hechinger Report interview, "being involved" simply means, "do what you're told" and give up a little feed-back ex post facto.

Before the Rhode Island Model is fully implemented in school year 2012‐13, we want to ensure that educators get a chance to practice implementing the system and provide feedback to the Rhode Island Department of Education.

Central Falls firings were first shots fired in current war on teachers

History may well record the mass teacher and staff firings at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island last February, as the opening salvo in this administration's war on teachers and their unions.

The firings sparked outrage among teachers, organized labor and parents. Students organized walkouts in support of their teachers. Supts. Gallo and Gist, who had led the assault with full support from Pres. Obama and Sec.Duncan, were ultimately forced to retreat and bring those teachers, who hadn't moved elsewhere, back into their classrooms. They were rehired only after the union agreed to a longer work day and made other concessions to try and save jobs. At the time, State Supt. Gist promised that the changes would result in "dramatic achievement."

But the damage to the school and to the economically-ravaged town of Central Falls was a fait accompli.

Eric Tucker writing in today's Washington Post describes the fallout from this devastating betrayal by an administration that only weeks earlier had  promised reform done "with teachers, not to them."

Writes Tucker:  

"President Barack Obama appeared to endorse the firings, saying drastic action may be warranted when schools show no signs of improvement. The White House declined to comment this week"   

Yes, Obama went so far as to call the mass firings, "courageous," a clear signal to state education leaders of what was demanded of them if they expected to receive their share of federal Race To Tbe Top funds.

As for the city itself, Tucker writes:

Heavily Hispanic Central Falls is Rhode Island's smallest and poorest city, with a population of nearly 19,000. One-quarter of families live in poverty and 65 percent speak a language other than English at home. The city is under the control of a state-appointed receiver, who says its problems are so dire that Central Falls should consider merging with neighboring Pawtucket. 

The mass firings have proven to be a disaster, both for school reform and for all the citizens of Central Falls. It's been a failed reform strategy everywhere it's been tried. Obama and Duncan are now tight-lipped about their support for the debacle. Ironically, AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten, in her latest call for an end to teacher resistance to Race To The Top,  is holding up the "reform" at Central Falls as a model of collaboration.

Because the district and the union had built a relationship based on trust, they refused to take the easy way out. They stepped outside their comfort zones, took on the very difficult task of crafting a new form of school governance, and, together, have taken promising steps to turn around these schools.

Collaboration indeed.

Behind the war on teachers in R.I.

Did Duncan give the nod to Central Falls mass teacher firings? You bet he did.

Meanwhile, state and local education officials received some high-powered support of their own, when U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan weighed in, saying he “applauded” them for “showing courage and doing the right thing for kids.”

Meet Deborah Gist, the ultimate bureaucrat who stands behind the firings. She's the R.I. State Supt. of Schools who used to hold that same post in D.C. Is there really a State. Supt. of D.C. schools you ask? Yep.

Gist, like her D.C. pal, Michelle Rhee, comes fresh out of Eli Broad's Supt. Academy--of course. It's easy to see why the war in Central Falls was inevitable after her hiring nearly a year ago.

Watch her PR interview video here. Try not to puke. h/t John Young.

Gist currently holds the world record in a skill area every bureaucrat must master on their way to the top of the heap:

“I just thought I’d like to break a world record,” she said. Leafing through the Guinness Book of World Records, Gist dismissed several feats as “a little bit much.” But one caught her eye. There were 62 kisses recorded in a minute and I thought, ‘That’s not too hard,’ ” she said. (Journal)