Similar to the LA Weekly article I sent around ("LAUSD's Dance of the Lemons"; http://edreform.blogspot.com/2010/02/lausds-dance-of-lemons-why-firing-desk.html), this front-page NYT article highlights how difficult it is to fire even the worst teachers in NYC:

Ridding schools of subpar teachers has become one of the signature issues of national education reformers, but the results in New York City show that, as is true in many school systems around the country, the process is not easy.

The city's effort includes eight full-time lawyers, known as the Teacher Performance Unit, and eight retired principals and administrators who serve as part-time consultants to help principals build cases against teachers. Joel I. Klein, the schools chancellor, said that the team, whose annual budget is $1 million, had been "successful at a far too modest level" but that it was "an attempt to work around a broken system."

Mr. Klein and his boss, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said they were hampered by cumbersome state laws that had been heavily influenced by the teachers' union here, although many of the rules that govern the cases were agreed to by the city.

"The process makes it virtually impossible to remove a teacher within a reasonable amount of time," Mr. Klein said in an interview. "Nobody thinks that the number of cases is reflective of the teachers who should be removed."

Such complaints have put teachers' unions on the defensive. Last month, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers and the former head of New York City's union, promised to study the issue of removing teachers and asked Kenneth R. Feinberg, who allocated compensation to families of Sept. 11 victims and most recently worked with the Obama administration on executive pay, to develop a more efficient system.

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Progress Slow in City Goal to Fire Bad Teachers

By JENNIFER MEDINA

Published: February 23, 2010

www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/education/24teachers.html