And a contemptible excuse for a human being.<\/p>\n
And no, I am not referring to DC schools chief Michelle Rhee, who by all indications subscribes to a similar policy, but rather New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein, because all he thinks that all that has to happen to fix schools is to make teacher’s jobs crappier<\/a>:<\/p>\n Klein told Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute last week that the D.C. contract is marvelous and in fact ground-breaking. ‘This deal slayed <\/span>The<\/span> three dragons. Seniority. Lockstep pay. Tenure. It got them all.’<\/span> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n (emphasis mine<\/span>)<\/p>\n I understand that management does not like labor unions, and does not like the protections that union contracts afford to workers.<\/p>\n So I can understand how an administrator might see a weakening or destruction of a labor union as a step on the road to school improvement, or at least a step on the road to making his job easier.<\/p>\n That being said, what Mr. Klein is saying here is that crappifying<\/span> the teacher’s working conditions is The Only Thing<\/span><\/span><\/span> that is required to fix schools. That is what he is saying when he talks about the<\/span> three dragons.<\/p>\n School reformers view education like investment bankers, and other chief executives, view their jobs: They have no obligation to work for the stake-holders, children and teachers for schools and the shareholders and employees for businesses, they simply have to work for their own personal benefit.<\/p>\n It’s not about education, it’s about making things more convenient for administrators, you see.<\/p>\n I can’t speak to whether or not Michelle Rhee holds the same opinions as her one time mentor Joel Klein,since she hasn’t explicitly<\/span> stated that she holds this view, as Klein clearly has.<\/p>\n