In a city where over half of the population are African, the DC Public school system ranked as the worst in the country. This is due to major incompetence and misappropriation of resources, by the governing agencies, that plays our children and teachers as pawns in a political and economic game. There can be no greater evidence of this than the news that has come out this week about a "mistake" in budgeting that resulted in hundreds of school teachers being fired from their jobs at the beginning of the year. Now that it is out, let's see how DC puts these teachers back to work if at all. See how teachers are taking this news.
WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) — The Chancellor of the DC school system said Tuesday that budget numbers used to justify the firing of 266 teachers were wrong. Michelle Rhee told members of City Council that there is a $34 million dollar surplus, and not a deficit of more than $40 million.
"What I'm looking at is every legislative remedy to make these teachers whole who should not have been let go," said Councilman Harry Thomas, Jr.
Rhee had originally called for a housecleaning of city schools and has been criticized for her negative descriptions of teachers who worked in them. She followed her complaints about teacher performance last year with a plan to fire more than 260 teachers because she told city legislators there wasn't enough money to pay them.
"There are many teachers who we have learned through this process were great, dutiful employees that were released based on falsified numbers, and now we learn that there are numbers in the system that, quite frankly, could have avoided the pain that we caused the teachers," Thomas told 9NEWS NOW
"Are you saying Chancellor Rhee's administration deliberately misled the council," asked 9NEWS NOW.
"It seems to be that way. We're going to check and make sure," Thomas responded.
"I don't think, at this point, any of us know the numbers anymore. I think that there has to be an investigation, " said George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers Union.
