Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's calls for accountability are always in style, mainly because someone has to take the fall. Still, last week's news that a Rhode Island town had decided to fire all 94 of the faculty and staff of the local high school because of poor student performance was kind of surprising. The Washington Post's blog, Higher Education, calls it a "sad, desperate" decision--reporting that the "school committee in Central Falls, Rhode Island's smallest and poorest city", voted to fire all of the faculty members at local Central Falls High School as a response to scandalously low levels of student proficiency in core subjects. Among other statistical atrocities, in 2009, only 7 % of the town's 11th graders were proficient in math.
President Barack Obama threw his support behind the vote to throw the teachers out, saying "If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year...then there’s got to be a sense of accountability...And that’s what happened in Rhode Island last week.”
Also: A CNN opinion piece says the number of long-term discouraged job seekers is increasing.
Also: Pete Seeger - The Fox
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