To borrow from John Kerry (something I wouldn’t ordinarily advise), how do you ask a child to be the last student to endure a bad teacher?
Somebody should pose that question to the head of one of the nation’s biggest teachers unions, who is mistaking a cynical exercise in foot-dragging for a bold proposal to get poor instructors out of the classroom.
Under the plan by Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, tenured instructors who are deemed ineffective would get an academic year to improve. Absent improvement, the resolution of a case could take up to 100 days more.
So if a principal determines that Miss McGillicuddy ain’t cuttin’ it, she gets to keep damaging children potentially for an additional year or longer.
On its website, the union declares in peppy self-congratulation, “Some observers may be surprised by the AFT’s determination to lead the way to a more rigorous system of teacher development and evaluation … .”