Remember earlier this week when Schools Chancellor Joel Klein was taking potshots at the teachers' unions in New York City?
For all of our successes, the simple fact is that, by any measure, we are not providing at least half of our students with the skills they need to compete in the globalized, service-based economy of the 21st century. Let me repeat: At least halfof our kids are not getting a basic education. [Emphasis original]
What makes this fact all the more startling is that there is nothing new about it...
In New York City, under the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg, we are trying to undo this dire situation and replace it with a system of 1,200-plus schools that all New Yorkers would be proud to have their own children attend...
Successful schools can't operate successfully according to a system of adversarial, contract-based regulations. Schools must be much more organic in their culture. And regulatory control - externally through law or internally through contract - must be replaced by discretion at the school level and real, performance-based accountability.
This will require a radical transformation, which many in the system will find difficult to accept, but I believe such a transformation is essential.
No organization that has its incentives wholly misaligned can succeed. Take, for example, the three pillars of the teachers-union contract: de facto life tenure, lock-step pay and seniority-based assignments.
COLLECTIVELY, these provisions mean there is no employee accountability in the system, no meritocracy and no incentive to take risks or innovate. If the very best and very worst teacher - the one who works hardest and the one who simply punches a clock - get paid based on length-of-service, the system will inevitably drift toward mediocrity rather than strive for high-performance (although, thankfully, there are many exceptions among our teachers).
This doesn't sound like a man who's willing to back down. I wish him luck.
Posted by kswygert at October 24, 2003 03:23 PM