we want to introduce now george mclaughlin, a guidance counselor at this school. obviously disagrees with this action. george, thanks for taking time and we hope to also speak with dr. francis gallow the superintendent who made this decision. i know you have worked at this school a long time. you have a heard for these kids. so if not this, what do these kids need because things aren't going well. >> well, things are not going well in some arenas within the school and we're trying to work on those things within those arenas, but there are other things that are going very well. one of the problems that we have in this ongoing debate about our termination and lack of improvement in the school is that statisticcle circus and how volleys of statistics are going across the bow and how most of them are inaccurate. i have the stats in front of me p.m. i'm the guidance counselor, one of three. we keep the stats on graduation rates. we keep the stats on failure rates. we've been -- we've heard a thousand times now it seems we have 50% of our students failing all their class

george mclaughlin isn't the only one in his family getting a pink slip, so is his wife who's a chemistryeacher. mr. mclaughlin, thanks for joining us. you just learned that you and your wife could soon be out of jobs. tell us what's going through your mind at this moment. >> thank you, jessica. it's a sad day for me and my family and for central falls, especially our students. what's going through my mind is this was all avoidable, but there's a political -- >> let me ask you. what is the problem at this school? how did it really get this bad? because clearly, there is a problem, only half the students graduate. >> well, look, we have the most transient population in this state. nobody comes close to us. so when they say that 50% of the people graduate, a very high percentage of our students leave our school. they return, they leave again, they go back to other countries. will rogers says don't believe everything you read in the newspapers. don't believe everything you hear about statistics. we have three times as many students accepted to colleges now as they were five years ago. how do

and we want to just listen right down to one of the fire guidance counselors, george mclaughlin, told about it. let's listen. >> i know for a fact, we have three times as many students who are accepted to colleges now as they were five years ago. how do i know that, i'm in the guidance office and i do most of that work. >> the union rep said there's been a 21% rise in reading scores and 3% rise in math scores over the past two years. is that a sign that there was some progress being made, and some of these teachers were doing something right? >> well, certainly, we comment the staff for the progress that they did make. but i think it's important to look at all of the information. what we have is a school where the majority of students do not graduate. the graduation rate is only 48%. and in mathematics, only 7% of the students are proficient in mathematics. more than half of the ninth graders are failing more than two classes which san indication that they are frustrated, and what we know about student achievement, when students aren't successful in their class, they're much more like