Last summer we asked Randi Weingarten, the head of the 1.4 million–member American Federation of Teachers, the second--largest teachers' union in America, to put a number on the percentage of incompetent teachers in New York, where approximately 0.01 percent are fired for cause every year. Weingarten wouldn't say. Pressed, she responded "up to 2 percent." When we repeated Weingarten's estimate to Michelle Rhee, the chancellor of the District of Columbia school system, she laughed derisively. Rhee, an outspoken woman who has been trying to watch her words lately, wouldn't offer her own estimate, but it is safe to say that she believes 2 percent is a ridiculously low estimate of the percentage of incompetent teachers in any inner-city school system.
Weingarten and Rhee are the two principal actors on the most important stage in the ongoing drama of school reform in America.
…Weingarten has been on the defensive lately, fending off hostile questions on Morning Joe and other TV shows, which have begun to zero in on the difficulty of getting rid of poor teachers in the public schools. The cruelest blow was struck late last summer by The New Yorker in a widely read article by Steven Brill titled "The Rubber Room." It described, in vivid and sometimes ludicrous detail, how New York City teachers charged with misconduct or incompetence kill time outside the classroom in the "rubber room"—on full pay—while union lawyers and administrators wrangle and dither over firing them. The article quoted a New York public-school principal as saying that union boss Weingarten "would protect a dead body in the classroom."
To NEWSWEEK, Weingarten insisted, "That article had no impact on me." She went on, "I have always seen myself as a school reformer."
…in January, Weingarten…gave a speech suggesting that student scores could be one measure (among many) of teacher performance and—in what seemed to be a nod to "The Rubber Room"—proposed to improve the "glacial pace" of disciplining teachers accused of misconduct.
Education reformers greeted her speech with relief but considerable wariness. "Words are important, and hers were good ones," said Kati Haycock of the Education Trust, a -Washington-based advocacy group. "But actions are more important—the devil is in the details." Sure enough, Weingarten almost immediately seemed to back away from her reform-friendly rhetoric. In Houston, school superintendent Terry Grier welcomed Weingarten's speech—and was immediately blasted by Weingarten for "deliberately distorting" her position on teacher evaluations. Grier wants to use student scores as a part of a teacher's evaluation. "I thought we were saying the same thing," Grier told NEWSWEEK.
The real test will come in Washington. When Rhee took over the D.C. schools in 2007, "8 percent of our eighth graders were on grade level, but all the adults in our schools were rated as exceeding expectations," Rhee recalled to NEWSWEEK. "How can all the adults think they are doing an excellent job but producing at an 8 percent success level? There's a wild disconnect there."
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Schoolyard Brawl
A leading reformer and a union head square off over teacher tenure.
By Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert | NEWSWEEK
Published Mar 6, 2010
From the magazine issue dated Mar 15, 2010