Michelle Rhee’s firing of 80 teachers ruled illegal, according to Washington Post’s Bill Turque
The DC Employee Relations Board today sustained a prior finding that 80 teachers received no “substantive rationale” for their terminations and the firings were “arbitrary and capricious.” In February, Rhee expressed sublime confidence in her legal standing and wrongly predicted that the arbitrator’s finding below would be overturned.
She characteristically misstated the the ruling: “The arbitrator, if you look at the ruling …., said a lot of these teachers were ineffective and should have been fired” (link)
Today’s ruling will be costly the DC government.
UPDATE: Rhee’s arbitrary and capricious firings cost DCPS at least $7.5M plus costs of training replacement teachers and hefty litigation fees. As one commenter wrote: “I agree that kids deserve high quality teachers. Have you noticed that since Rhee turned over half the teaching corps in DC that student achievement has stayed flat or decreased?
Maybe all those teachers who left (by being fired, retiring or quitting) weren’t the problem and maybe the teachers who have replaced them — hired by Rhee and company – aren’t up to the task.”
Posted: 4:10PM, September 22, 2011
Management who made the Decision to fire the Teachers
should have to pay not the tax payers