I was only a few sentences into this NYT article when I knew instantly who'd written it – it's resident hack Michael Winerip (here's everything you need to know about him: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2010/07/popular-principal-wounded-by.html). This is yet another sob story about how terrible, unfair, harsh, barbaric, etc. the Obama administration's requirements are for turning around chronically failing schools. It's Winerip at his biased best.

I especially love the quote from the head of the Boston Teachers Union about how he and his union brethren feel "steamrolled". They've been so accustomed to saying "JUMP" and everyone saying "How high?" that when anyone questions them (much less demands accountability), they – the most powerful interest group in the country! – resort to whining about how powerless they are and how wicked profiteering hedge fund managers are steamrolling them. I've said it before and I'll say it again: YA JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!

Earlier this year Massachusetts enacted a law that allowed districts to remove at least half the teachers and the principal at their lowest-performing schools. The school turnaround legislation aligned the state with the Obama administration's Race to the Top program incentives and a chance to collect a piece of the $3.4 billion in federal grant money.

From Washington this makes abundant good sense, a way to galvanize rapid and substantial change in schools for children who need it most.

In practice, on the ground, it is messy for the people most necessary for turning a school around — the teachers — and not always fair.

Often the decisions about which teachers will stay and which will go are made by new principals who may be very good, but don't know the old staff.

… And how much to blame are teachers for the abysmal test scores at Orchard Gardens, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade turnaround school here, that's had six principals since opening seven years ago?

The goal of the turnaround legislation is to get the best teachers into the schools with the neediest children, but often, experienced teachers get worn down by waves and waves of change and are reluctant to try again.

"You fear being pulled by the latest whim," said Ana Vaisenstein, who has taught in Boston for 12 years.

"Sometimes in education, there are so many changes being made at once, the important things get lost," said Courtney Johnson, a five-year veteran.

…While the Boston union supports the team approach, it was dead set against the Race to the Top legislation, which allowed districts to empty out half the turnaround schools and make teachers reapply for their jobs. But it lost that battle with the Democratic-controlled legislature and Democratic governor, its traditional allies — a sign of how much has changed, so fast.

"Steamrolled?" asked Richard Stutman, who leads the Boston Teachers Union. "There isn't a union teacher in this country who doesn't feel steamrolled. Yes, we feel steamrolled."

Look, I don't doubt that some school turnarounds result in turmoil – that's sort of the point: to shake things up! – and some hard-working, dedicated and effective principals and teachers probably have to find jobs at another school, but frankly I don't give a crap. We ned to stop running schools for the ease and convenience of the adults in them. If, in pursuit of what's best for kids, some adults are treated unfairly, I view that as a small price to pay in light of the horrifying life outcomes (not to mention untold damage to our society) when at least FIVE MILLION children are trapped in chronically failing schools – literally, in some cases, schools that have been failing for 50 years! Why doesn't Winerip write about kids who suffer when lame, toothless "turnarounds" fail again and again. After all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome. Thank GOODNESS Obama and Duncan are at long last saying, "NO MAS!"

PS—If anyone knows the scoop on the organization mentioned in this article, Teach Plus, please let me know

------------------------

----------------------