True, there are high performing urban school districts that don't need to turn over their teaching staffs to boost student progress. Long Beach, CA. for example, has a teaching corps many high performing suburban districts would die for. But if you're a parent in St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, Newark, Los Angeles, Kansas City (the list goes on) and your superintendent says there's no need to bring in teachers with sharper skills and higher expectations, well, I'd start lobbying for a new schools chief.
In the United States, teachers are rarely fired for being ineffective teachers. A few school districts have tried. Los Angeles and New York City come to mind. But those efforts were swamped by the tight protections granted teachers unions that have the luxury, in many cases, of electing their own contract negotiators. It wasn't even a close contest.
But in D.C. we're seeing Rhee's strategy, holding poor teachers accountable for doing their jobs while rewarding the best teachers, play out over time. Based on my reporting, that strategy appears to be paying off. Not all schools improved under Rhee, but the ones that did, to varying degrees, swapped in better teachers.
Given the reform momentum in other states, the controversial Rhee reforms no longer look so controversial. Which explains why Henderson's firings, an act once considered educational heresy, were greeted mostly with silence.
Perhaps the correction has commenced.
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Reader Comments Read all comments (6)
Julie Dearborn of CA 4:07PM August 10, 2011
Terry of AZ 9:28PM August 09, 2011
Linda Johnson of CA 12:50PM August 09, 2011