Teachers Unions Defend Institutional Incompetence
Openmarket.org
No good deed goes unpunished.
Take Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s brave decision to lay off 3,600 employees — including teachers and principals — of 24 of New York City’s worst-performing schools, all with an eye toward rebooting them with new staff, management plans, and curricula. The outgoing staff were told they could reapply, but would have to compete with thousands of new applicants. The goal: Turn around the schools by turning them inside out.
Naturally, the teachers’ unions pitched a fit, and have done everything they can to thwart the Mayor’s plan.
The irony is that, as is so often the case, unions brought this pain on themselves. Bloomberg’s original plan was to institute a comprehensive instructor evaluation plan in order to, as The Wall Street Journal editorial board put it, “smoke out the lowest performing educators.” But New York’s powerful United Federation of Teachers (UFT) strongly objected to this effort to locate incompetent instructors, forcing Bloomberg into his plan B — mass layoffs at the two dozen worst-performing schools.