The New Republic

Wow, brilliant article, thank you for that. I was wondering what in the world a Democrat like Rahm Emmanual would have done to annoy the teachers so much. MSM outlets have been making much of the teacher evaluation criteria, making the teachers out to be greedy incompetent crybabies. I hadn't heard of the reneging on the raises, nor 20% more day for 2% more salary. Yes, there are a few in the Obama administration who echo Republican talking points. I agree it would be quite helpful to have these distortions resolved before they fester further. And I love your line that they'd "go back to collective begging rather than collective bargaining" without the threat of strikes. Brilliant.

- AllanL5

September 14, 2012 at 3:35pm

Preach. Also, please find a way to get knowledgeable people on the air to rebut Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee every time they appear as talking heads parroting ineffective corporate education reform staples. Claiming that they are the only ones who are willing to put StudentsFirst is complete flimflam. I don't know why there's another Waiting for Superman-like movie coming out in two weeks that is very obviously instigated by the forces that would privatize education, but that and the incipient results we're seeing in places like Louisiana (Jeb calls Jindal a visionary!) should be enough to mark "education reformers'" claims to market, much like the CW on Paul Ryan has viciously changed to bear a closer relation to the truth.

- chaitless

September 14, 2012 at 3:38pm

(BTW, Allan, read Ravitch on this stuff, too. It's abundantly clear that Obama education policy is basically Republican charter schools and high stakes testing, even as he deplores teachers teaching to the test. His Department of Education officials, like Arne Duncan, come out of the recently burgeoning wing of the party that is aligned with Michelle Rhee, anti-labor, and--more importantly--deliberately ignorant of the fact that poverty and not unionization is what seems to be dragging down our school results. There's a reason you don't hear about the need for education reform in, say, Westchester. The upper middle class is pretty satisfied with their public schools--by and large, it's why they self-segregated into the suburbs in the first place.)

- chaitless

September 14, 2012 at 3:42pm

The article makes many good points, but a few items are worth mentioning. The payrise that Rahm reneged on is 4% per year, above COL pay increases, across the board. This is not a rate of payrise that teacher's college educated peers in private enterprise are likely to be enjoying, and they may have a little less job security which surely is not without real monetary value. Also keep in mind that, while this may not reflect well on the rest of the country, CPS teachers are among the best paid therein. This continuing, flat, performance unrelated payrise is also occurring against a backdrop where CPS is largely insolvent. Property taxes have already been increased, but CPS has now exhausted its rainy day fund and has a projected shortfall of 1 Billion (with a B) next year. Additionally the author appears to have neglected to mention that over 500 new teachers were hired to make sure no-one worked longer with the 20% increase in school day length. This is not to say that Rahm's approach is not misguided. But one would imagine the the here union could take the lead with proposing a teacher evaluation system they liked if they wanted.

- Nari224

September 14, 2012 at 7:02pm

Yes, agreed with others, very nice Richard. (If things keep going this way on TNR regarding education policy, I may have to speak it's name in public again - seriously.)

- jet

September 14, 2012 at 7:37pm

Excellent piece. It's crazy to see the rush to charter schools and high stakes testing when there is no data to suggest that they improve educational outcomes in the least. The focus on changing management and evaluation techniques in urban schools seems premature at best, and cynical at worst. Over the last 5-10 years CPS has seen some solid gains in many North and Northwest side elementary schools. Those gains can continue with nothing more than investing in facilities and giving schools a certain degree of autonomy in deciding what their specific needs are. The more disadvantaged schools are where progress is desperately needed. They suffer more from broader social problems than from mismanagement or poor teaching techniques. I would love to see CPS administration commit to working to coordinate local, state and federal social services with CPS in a more efficient manner to make sure the kids in the worst schools are at least given a chance to develop the tools they need to be taught. I should note that I write this as a parent of a CPS student. I had to turn down work this week in order to care for my daughter. I not only supported CPS teachers this week, but was very happy to see the outpouring of support for CPS teachers from parents across the system.

- Attrill

September 14, 2012 at 9:25pm

".....never mind that the wealthy investors who appear regularly on [Kudlow's] show often make ten times, even one hundred times those salaries. ...Why do those who believe deeply in markets suggest that attracting and retaining excellent teachers can be done on the cheap?" I know that's a rhetorical question, but here's the answer: big-time investors are mostly men, while teachers, historically, have mostly been women.

- Jeff_Smith

September 15, 2012 at 4:50am

While this article is generally on-target, it misses a lot. What angered the teachers far more than the bullying on the cuts/longer day was Rahm's tone - he all but said "I'm for the kids and they're against them." This was coupled with Jonah Edleman, one of those corporate education reformers, boasting about how the teachers had been snookered in the state legislature the most arrogant, ugly of tones (you should find his groveling apology after the clips made youtube) - he taunted they'd never be united enough to reach the supermajority the new law required for a strike. On the other hand, this article misses how terrible the CTU is. Karen Lewis, a hideous person who thinks mocking disabilities makes good stand-up comedy, has strongly and consistently opposed ANY meaningful accountability or firings of bad teachers. Truly bad teachers - the current "evaluation" system approves 97%. I strongly suspect that some of the support for the teachers was from a desire to see SOMEONE check Rahm's local power - even people who like him are alarmed at his "I'll do what I want" attitude and power. It's true that there was a majority (not overwhelming) of Chicagoans who supported the teachers. At the same time, Illinois is unusual in that education is primarily funded by property taxes - most Chicagoans don't have to pay, at least directly, for the salary increases. If you asked the same voters how much they'd be willing to have their taxes raised to give the raises the teachers were asking for, the results might have been different. And waiting lists for the charter schools is sky-high, as were applications for the few "public school choice" slots mandated by NCLB. And BOTH sides truly did hurt the kids in their much-praised compromise on the longer day issue. They decided "ok, we'll add 30 minutes of art, gym, and music instruction but we'll hire MORE teachers rather than extend the current teachers). So millions of dollars that could have gone to extending preschool to poor students - something that has PROVEN bang for the buck.

- Lymon1

September 15, 2012 at 5:18am

What about bad parenting? (Elephant in the room.) I was a public school teacher for a while, and will now admit, decades later, a not very good one, but I observed that generally, children with good parents did better in school and in life, while children with klutzy and malign parents did poorly. Yet no one is willing to argue for taking children afflicted with awful parents away from such bad influences and giving them to good parents. Even though I was a mediocre at best teacher, I was a good parent, and my daughter (visiting us today) is doing splendidly (just got a wonderful job and about to complete a very difficult non-MD degree in a respected medical school, even as I who should modestly keep my mouth shut immodestly brags about it. And even though my parents sucked big time. Go figure.

- skahn

September 15, 2012 at 9:18am

Perhaps someone could explain why charter schools is a good concept. Even if it could be shown that charter schools produce better results than public schools generally (and it apparently has not been shown), they by definition involve only a minority of students. The rest of them can go to hell, right? Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 15, 2012 at 2:04pm

Maybe Chicago teachers should think a 3rd time. Their students are about 40% black & 40% hispanic and they are unable to perform at even remedial levels. This week of no classes is the first week in memory when there were no stabbing, killing, raping underclass activities. The first week when pregnant white/Jewish teachers were not threatened to be kicked in the stomach by homies. The few motivated & smart black kids were not bullied by homies for"acting white." Sullen Mexican students could not nurse their hatred of gringos. Next week: back to school! Back to the low IQ failure of the schools' majority minorities. Maybe all they need is another welfare program.

- raygun

September 15, 2012 at 3:18pm

NR, They would offer a more experimental environment for trying out different things, with the end goal of exporting "what works" to the 90+% of schools that are non-charter publics. As you can see, it hasn't really worked out that way. Some reform has been advanced, and with the increase in data and experimentation, people are now generally more gung-ho about referencing studies, but beyond things like "extend the school day", "provide wrap-around services to ensure students are healthy, well-fed, and have a quiet place to study", and (perhaps most importantly) "add free pre-K as a standard across the country", many of the original proponents of charter schools have been revealing that they simply want to privatize the whole system or gut unions. You see all those good ideas? They can be done. They would require some systemic societal changes: equality in school funding (either greater state/federal aid or countywide consolidations of school districts), a much more robust parental leave system, and a general reduction in income/wealth inequality such that it doesn't translate so starkly into our local school systems (and then across generations). These are things that we should be doing anyway, but they are things that very rich people apparently don't much like (a higher tax burden to pay for "those people") and that upper middle class people are also ambivalent-to-hostile on. Far easier to pretend that charter schools are a miracle success and not (as the data actually shows) twice as likely to lag conventional public schools as to exceed them.* And the weirdest thing is the people who are pushing hardest for anti-union, poverty-agnostic reforms are very rich people who are almost completely isolated from the system they're so concerned about. (It's helpful to think at this point of the parallel of very rich people so concerned that Social Security will go bankrupt that they think it's a no-brainer for everyone to just retire in their 70s, even though a much smaller fraction in taxes to fund this program than do the average workers, who do most of the funding and have much more labor-intensive jobs.) Obviously there aren't enough rich people for this to have traction, so they trade on the fact that as upper middle class people move back into inner cities, they must contend with investing in public schools (that have been underfunded due to white flight) or paying through the nose for private schools, so there's clearly a sizeable constituency interested in a miracle cure to urban school districts dessicated by poverty. These are the main consumers of this reform snake oil*, with ancillary support coming from the suburbs, where high taxes support most of the best public school systems in the country and there's always at least some buy-in for the idea that the high property taxes you escaped to the suburbs to pay are delivering too little quality for the cost. *[Pro-charter researchers issued a large study showing that, of charter schools, 20% are better, 40% the same, and 40% worse than public schools. In fact, most of the other ideas you hear bandied rest upon weak or nonexistent scientific support. Even value-added assessment, the subject of a recent high-profile paper that suggested changing teachers to one who more reliably boosts test scores can lead to an extrapolated increase of hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifetime earnings, is rather chequered once you realize the study authors were stressing effects at the margins (as all economists tend to), were not explicitly advocating for wholesale adoption of the technique, and did not adequately address the elephant in the room where some of these things have been tried--the vast cheating scandals that have brought down superintendents and teachers in several states so far and marred Michelle Rhee's tenure in DC.]

- chaitless

September 15, 2012 at 3:31pm

Teachers unions are designed to take money away from the taxpayers, instruction time from the children and freedom to manage and innovate from managers. In this they are very successful.

- homeros

September 15, 2012 at 6:43pm

skahn: "I observed that generally, children with good parents did better in school and in life, while children with klutzy and malign parents did poorly. Yet no one is willing to argue for taking children afflicted with awful parents away from such bad influences and giving them to good parents" Precisely! I haven't read a more succinct account of the truth about education anywhere.

- ironyroad

September 15, 2012 at 7:55pm

Chaitless: as you have said "It's abundantly clear that Obama education policy is basically Republican charter schools and high stakes testing,.... " Quite correct. Substiute health care, nature of stimulus, BP response, financial reform.. the list goes on and on. And there you have the problem with BHO and Dem leadership today. It IS moderate Republican. Moving further right. And thats just fine with almost all at tnr.

- drofnats1

September 15, 2012 at 8:26pm

Karen Lewis is a walking PR disaster. I fully supported the teachers through the strike, but anytime she came on TV I questioned that support. I have a lot of direct day to day experience with CPS, so that overrode my distaste for her and her approach to getting a message across. Ultimately I think her ineptitude just shows how much real support there was from Chicagoans (with a good spokesperson CTU's support could have easily been 10 points higher). I really don't think there is anything specific to Charter schools that is making parents beat down the doors to try to get in. CPS magnet schools (union) have just as many parents trying to get their kids into them, and the competition to get into CPS selective enrollment schools (again, union) far exceeds the demand to get into charter schools. The difference is not union vs. non-union, different management styles, or hiring practices. The difference is that parents/guardians have had to demonstrate a commitment to their child's education by going through an application process. That is what makes these schools desirable - the self segregation of parents who put some extra effort into their kids. That will always result in a better educational environment. It is actually very shocking to me that charter schools are not far exceeding the performance of regular CPS schools based on that one factor alone. Magnet schools are showing better results than regular CPS schools and charters should be in line with those results.

- Attrill

September 16, 2012 at 12:56am

Thank you for your comments chaitless and Attrill. They confirm my sense that the attraction of charter schools, magnet schools, selective enrollment schools, etc., is that parents believe, rightly or wrongly, that their children will get a better education, or least escape the pathos of the public schools at large, in those schools. It has nothing to do with addressing the problems that tha the public school systems face. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 16, 2012 at 11:47am

According to the US Dept of Education, 79% of Chicago 8th graders are not at grade level in English. 80% are not proficient in math Maybe they need remediation. Then, in 500 years black/'hispanics could equal white student scores. In 1,000 years maybe they could equal Asian math scores. The basic problem w/Head Start and all the extras for blacks/hispanics is that if white/Asian students get the same extra help, the white/Asians will still be ahead of whatever tiny increases the blacks/hispanics achieve. Wait, wait, her's an idea: let's pretend all ethnicities have the same capacity. Let's spend billions to change reality. i

- raygun

September 16, 2012 at 2:56pm

Ditto homeros. Teachers' unions remain the number one obstacle to badly needed education reforms as this strike has demonstrated, if more demonstration was needed. No one is seriously expecting teachers to completely compensate for inadequate parenting, poverty, or other social ills. But the evidence is crystal clear that giving teachers raises and blanket job security has done nothing to slow the decline of decent educational outcomes in most of our school districts. It is simply ridiculous to have a six hour school day, with every possible holiday and the whole summer off. Like much else in our system, this schedule is a relic of the 19th Century Prussian model on which it's based, when schools were there to provide an industrializing but still mostly agricultural society an institution for regimenting the population. We can do better, but only over the dead bodies of the teachers' unions and the knee-jerk leftist reactionaries who defend them.

- Robert Powell

September 17, 2012 at 6:57am

Let's flip the question RP. What is the evidence that the lack of educational quality (particuarly in urban schools) is significantly attributable to poor teachers, as opposed to poverty, poor parenting, poor or even oppressive school conditions, etc.? Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 17, 2012 at 7:29am

You don't even have to go there, Dhurtado. If teachers' unions were always and everywhere the main limitation, we would see much better "performance" (the preferred metric of reformers) in non-union states. You see, that's the great thing about the decentralized quality of education policy in the US. There's already somewhere that fits your ideal model. And as everyone should know by now, the states of the Deep South are exactly where one sees the best demonstration of this case. Their educational performance is abysmal. Worst in the nation. Easily showing it's not the teachers and certainly not the unions. It's a systematic thing. It's what happens when you have rank poverty and segregation by wealth that concentrates all the poor kids into the same districts. That's why teachers' unions don't seem to be drawing the same ire in, say, the DC suburbs where upper middle class parents flee for good public schools. And yet, teachers unions seem to be the universal problem in the District itself, somehow. It's as if people are ignoring logic and science and arriving at the answer their ideology strongly prefers. Weird, right?

- chaitless

September 17, 2012 at 7:53am

Dhurtado--obviously all these factors play a role. But it's a lot easier to start reforming the schools, which will certainly help, than to wait until we have created a utopian society to do anything about the grave and obvious flaws in the education system. Chaitless--the problem with this argument is that it supposes un-unionized teachers in the South don't also have cushy schedules, very little accountability, and and an essentially corrupt system too. The unions just provide effective infrastructure for defending the indefensible status quo in places where reform should be easier. The whole system is rotten, and where there are no teachers' unions to defend it (which are a lot fewer than you seem to think), lousy school boards, local politicos, and lazy leftists pick up the slack.

- Robert Powell

September 17, 2012 at 8:14am

So, it's the unions' fault. And if there are no unions, it's still someone. In fact, since the absence of unions correlates with worse districts, you even have to reform a bit harder to get back to where you started, but it's all worth it. "Gotta crush that union", as David Koch said, while taped, to a gonzo journalist impersonating Scott Walker. Also, when you look at the 40% of charter schools that are underperforming matched publics and the 40% that are doing no better and figure out which lazy local leftist to blame for the shortfall, let me know. Because there are kids and parents involved, you know? I always assumed that people siding with raygun would hit the easiest answer: blame the poor kids and parents, themselves, damn the racial animus. But I guess we've moved past the unseemliness of that kind of answer.

- chaitless

September 17, 2012 at 8:27am

Well, it's unseemly and false, which pretty much ends the argument. The actual issue is an education system that is by any rational measure drastically under-performing. To the extent that charter schools can help by whatever means, it's in the plus column. That doesn't mean it's a "solution" or a litmus test kind of issue. As in the case of energy, in education we need more ideas rather than a dogmatic defense of the status quo, the latter by leftists who usually like to think in grand terms of "progress" and "openness to new ideas". Apparently no longer.

- Robert Powell

September 17, 2012 at 11:01am

RP- You still have not answered the question regarding what evidence there is that "under-peformance" of schools is attributable to poor performance by teachers. The fact that problems like poverty and inequitable distirbution of educational resources may seem intractable is no excuse for placing the blame elsewhere. I could have a lot more to say, but I will keep this simple because I would like to induce you to provide a straightforward answer. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 17, 2012 at 2:06pm

I'd like to be as straightforward as possible. To the extent that competent, accountable public education can be a ladder out of poverty we have an obligation to provide it. We should not be sidetracked into looking for complicating issues, excuses if you will, for not doing so. The job of the public education system is to provide access to decent quality instruction, materials, and infrastructure. I don't think anyone would say that we have done so on a general basis. There's a lot of room for improvement, so I suggest that we should start with the factors that are within our control-- extended school schedules, minimum standards for materials and infrastructure, and some accountability in the performance of staff. Doesn't seem like too much to ask given the hundreds of billions we spend every year on an increasingly dysfunctional system.

- Robert Powell

September 17, 2012 at 3:52pm

Robert Powell: "We' have an obligation. Does obligation mean gov't coercion/taxes? Who are you to tell working taxpayers what their obligations are to lazy tax eaters? Are you sure the underclass wants a ladder out of poverty? As we enter a 5th generation of welfare dependent homies, where is the real effort for the recipients to get off the cycle? Your bromides will just keep the hamsters spinning around on their wheel. And the extended school schedules bromide ignores the fallacy of all Head Start/remedial education plans: Give minorities extra extra extra help & they will indeed make some progress against white/Asian students. But if those white/Asian students also got the extra etc help, the gaps would be just as huge as they are now.

- raygun

September 17, 2012 at 6:57pm

OK RP, we have established that you can point to no evidence that the deficiencies in the American educational system are attributable to low-performing or incompetent teachers. Of course, I have not said and do not believe that we should do nothing to address or overcome the true causes of the deficiencies. But I AM saying that blaming teachers and teachers’ unions for the deficiencies, rather than recognizing the sociological causes, is the true cop out. So let’s talk about what could be done to overcome the sociological causes of poor academic performance. How about making sure that there is adequate, and, more important, equitable distribution of, resources to support public schools. In other words, how about financing schools through state-wide sales or income taxes, rather than property taxes, and in any event ensuring that all schools systems have approximately the same amount of resources per student? Along the same lines, how about making sure that inner city schools have the same number of libraries, art programs, computers, etc. that schools in more affluent districts have? Of course, those measures could only partly ameliorate the effects of poverty, the related lack of parental involvement, and the poor school environment that inheres in the threat of violence, etc. But they are at least moves in the right direction. OK, so now let’s ask whether there are things that teachers can do (that they are not already doing) to improve the academic performance and learning of students in the face of those systemic obstacles. Because that’s really your unproven thesis isn’t it? That teachers should be able to overcome those sociological problems, and that the reason they are not overcoming those problems is because they are lazy and/or incompetent, and that teachers’ unions are fostering that laziness and incompetence? Right? So tell me, what exactly is it that you think teachers are not doing that would have the effect of overcoming the sociological problems? Is it just a generic belief that because students are not doing well, the teachers must be incompetent? We are now just going to disregard all of the obvious sociological factors, and assume without proof that teacher incompetence is a major cause? By calling for teacher accountability, you are implicitly arguing that teachers are underperforming. But we have already established that you can’t point to any evidence to support that proposition. That’s not to say that there should not be accountability, but, to my knowledge, there is no proof that lack of accountability is a primary cause of our educational deficiencies. Nor is it my understanding that teachers’ unions oppose the notion of accountability. They merely oppose basing the measurement of teacher performance on test scores, which are unreliable indicators, and which induce a teaching methodology that is in fact detrimental to optimal learning. You say, “But the evidence is crystal clear that giving teachers raises and blanket job security has done nothing to slow the decline of decent educational outcomes in most of our school districts.” Really? What is that evidence? And what about the proposition that if we stop ensuring that teachers are well compensated, we will attract increasingly less qualified people to the profession? You think the correct course is to make sure that teachers are underpaid and have no job security? You think THAT will improve teacher performance and educational outcomes? Sorry RP, this is just scape-goating, pure and simple. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 17, 2012 at 10:47pm

As far as the words you want to put in my mouth Dhurtado, wrong on all counts. The evidence that throwing money at the problem doesn't work is the steadily declining performance of students on tests, in graduation rates, and in higher education during a period in which teacher pay has increased dramatically. Decent pay, sure, but in exchange for it and all the perks, a less reactionary attitude towards reform seems fair. This has nothing to do with "blaming teachers" for the social conditions of their students. It has everything to do with recognition of the obvious fact that teachers' unions are acting nationally as the number one obstacle to making changes in the way schools operate that could, and most likely would, make them more efficient. I spent enough time as a classroom teacher to know the cost of the near-total lack of accountability that's the current norm, and negotiating fair ways to rate performance, adjust schedules, and keep costs under control (see the numbers of the Chicago contract offer) should not be seen as "scapegoating". Your ideas for enriching the school environments in poor communities are fine as far as it goes, let's do it. But while we're waiting for the money to do these things materialize in strapped districts like Chicago, we should be acting vigorously to address the very real shortcomings in the way far too many of our schools are managed. To the extent that teachers' unions stop obstructing every proposal and get on board to help implement needed reforms, they're welcome. To the extent that they resist every practical innovation as is far too often the case currently, they need to lose their sacred cow status among leftists.

- Robert Powell

September 18, 2012 at 4:44am

RP- I apologize if I have put words in your mouth. Here is what you actually wrote: “No one is seriously expecting teachers to completely compensate for inadequate parenting, poverty, or other social ills. But the evidence is crystal clear that giving teachers raises and blanket job security has done nothing to slow the decline of decent educational outcomes in most of our school districts. It is simply ridiculous to have a six hour school day, with every possible holiday and the whole summer off. Like much else in our system, this schedule is a relic of the 19th Century Prussian model on which it's based, when schools were there to provide an industrializing but still mostly agricultural society an institution for regimenting the population. We can do better, but only over the dead bodies of the teachers' unions and the knee-jerk leftist reactionaries who defend them.” I think it is a fair inference from those words that you think there is something teachers could be doing that they are not doing, and that would significantly, if not completely, “compensate for inadequate parenting, poverty, or other social ills.” And that you think teachers’ unions are actively preventing teachers from doing that “something.” Well, what is that “something” RP? It is one thing to say that” throwing money at the problem doesn't work,” and quite another thing to say that there are too many incompetent teachers and/or that teachers are not generally doing what they can to maximize learning by their students. Do you really think increasing the length of the school day, or having kids attend school during the summer, would make a dent in the sociological issues we have been discussing? If so, what is your evidence of that? And if more teaching/learning hours would positively affect learning, what’s wrong with compensating teachers for the additional hours? (The CTU does not oppose longer school days, but wants to be compensated for it. So much for your “over the dead bodies of the teachers’ unions” epithet. And in any event, why is a six-hour school day “ridiculous”? Kids usually have about 3 or more hours of homework assignments on top of that, while also, if they are lucky, participating in extra-curricular activities such as athletics or theatre.) As to accountability, the CTU does not oppose it, but thinks peer review and other methods of teacher evaluation are better than standardized testing. Perhaps there can be reasonable disagreement about that, but I don’t think it is fair to characterize the CTU’s position as “obstructionist.” So perhaps a constructive way to proceed, if you have an interest in doing so, is to identify all of the “very real shortcomings” to which you allude, and then examine whether the teachers’ unions have actually opposed addressing those shortcomings. Care to engage in that conversation? Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 18, 2012 at 10:30pm

Sure, but first I'd cite school reforms undertaken in NYC under Joel Klein which among other things started new schools that raised the graduation rate to 73% from 53% at the schools they replaced, and in general produced real reforms and a number of insightful articles outlining them that are easy to find and worth reading. Mr. Klein is quoted in one such article in the NYT's magazine, "Teachers' unions are the number one obstacle to school reform". I'd also cite the work done by Arne Duncan both in the Chicago schools and as Education Secretary, much of which was opposed bitterly by teachers' unions. In other words, I don't intend to launch into a comprehensive disertation on school reform here. Suffice to say that there is ample material out there on school reform, including a number of studies indicating what works (like more and longer school days; more accountability, both positive and negative, for teachers and principals; more innovative programs, better funding, more community outreach, and etc.). The record is clear that with a few exceptions the unions have fought tooth and nail against reform and for the failing status quo. The fact that limited funds in New York have to be used to provide a "rubber room" in which incompetent teachers (some criminally so) can be maintained on salary to read the newspaper, nap, and shoot the breeze because they can't be fired but are so bad they can't be allowed back in the classroom; my own experience of ten years in special education in Connecticut; and that every report I've read about attempts to implement sensible reforms notes opposition by teachers' unions, leads me to the conclusions I've written. I don't think there's any one "something" teachers can do to effect reform, and I doubt if anything done in schools is going to have a dramatic effect on "negating inadequate parenting, poverty, and other social ills" in every case. But better schools can make all the difference for some individuals, and these kids are worth saving. In the process the general level of performance can be improved. Reform isn't magic, it's hard, complicated work with sometimes elusive payoffs. But it's badly needed, and should not face the opposition it routinely does from the unions and their political co-dependents.

- Robert Powell

September 19, 2012 at 4:22am

With all due respect, RP, why should I give an ounce of deference to your conclusory assertions if you are not able or willing to articulate specific reforms that you believe would be productive, and then point to evidence that teachers’ unions have opposed those reforms. If you could do that, then we could also examine whether teachers might have a legitimate or at least reasonable basis for opposing those reforms. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 19, 2012 at 2:41pm

We're not negotiating a contract here Dhurtado. It's being done in Chicago and elsewhere, and I know you can tell with some specificity the kind of reforms I favor from what I've already written. In terms of "legitimate or at least reasonable", I've never suggested that teachers' unions were irrational in opposing reforms. Just consistent.

- Robert Powell

September 19, 2012 at 3:25pm