chicago public schools fires city's best teachers

[Hannah Bell]

While Chicago schools chief Ron Huberman is demanding that so-called 'unsatisfactory' rated teachers be immediately fired, he swifty terminated what many would consider the cream of the Chicago teaching profession. The termination of 54 tenured teachers, until a few weeks ago considered among Chicago's best, becomes final on July 1, 2010.

Two weeks ago, CPS Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman notified 54 teachers in the Chicago "New Teacher Center" that he was firing them due to the budget cuts. Those teachers — who were mentoring first and second year teachers across the city — were all either National Board Certified or about to be. Their ranks also included Golden Apple Teacher of the Year winners (or those who had been nominated for the Golden Apple) and were all teachers who had received only excellent or superior ratings their entire teaching careers.

During the same time he was eliminating teachers who had been proven and selected because they were the "best," Huberman was trying to distract attention from what he was doing by trying to focus on the elimination of what he called "bad" teachers. To add cruetly to the irony of Huberman demanding only the best teach Chicago's children while firing them at the same time - all these highly-rated teachers from the New Teacher Center were terminated. That means that they are no longer CPS employees and are not allowed to work or even substitute in the system until they reapply and do everything from drug testing and background checks to submitting their resumes and applying again.

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1506§ion=Article