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DC’s Rhee. Union buster or change agent? Shouldn’t our union leadership be able to tell the difference? (Update)

Where are are unions??


Fred Klonsky

Ken Swanson has joined the world of blogging.
Swanson is president of the Illinois Education
Association. He promises to post twice a week.
I look forward to it.

But his first attempt is a wash-out as far as
I’m concerned.

A couple hundred words, generalities about the
present situation in national and state
politics. And then this:



Finally, with all the attention on DC and the
coming of a new administration, you may be
hearing more about the Chancellor of the
Washington, DC public school system. Michelle
Rhee has been a change agent and has generated
much interest and difference of opinion
regarding her approach. Please use the link to
read an interesting article in the Atlantic.



That’s it. Michelle Rhee, who has taken the
lead in a national campaign to attack teacher
unions, to shred a bargained agreement, to
destroy tenure and seniority rights, and to
fire teachers and other employees without due
process and our state president calls her a
“change agent” who has “generated interest and
difference of opinion?”

In Sunday’s Washington Post, they
describe the latest attempts by Rhee and Mayor
Fenty at smashing the DC teachers’ union:



Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Schools Chancellor
Michelle A. Rhee are discussing a dramatic
expansion of their effort to remove ineffective
teachers by restoring the District’s power to
create nonunionized charter schools and seeking
federal legislation declaring the school system
in a “state of emergency,” a move that would
eliminate the need to bargain with the
Washington Teachers’ Union.



While it may be too much to ask that our state
leadership actually express union solidarity
with our colleagues in Washington. But I don’t
think it is too much to ask them to refrain
from lauding the union busters by calling them
“change agents.”

Update: Apparently Ken wasn’t the only one who
found the puff piece on Michelle Rhee in the
Atlantic magazine a good read.

Andrew Sullivan, columnist for the
Atlantic wrote:



“Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions,
but has no educational value for kids; it only
benefits adults. If we can put veteran teachers
who have tenure in a position where they don’t
have it, that would help us to radically
increase our teacher quality. And maybe other
districts would try it, too,” - Michelle Rhee,
chancellor of the Washington DC public schools.

The lengths to which Rhee must go just to apply
basic standards of accountability in the
teaching profession is mind-boggling. And
reading the comments from the leaders of the
teachers’ unions really does drive home the
point. Until we really do bust the teachers
unions, the next generation of kids in public
schools is at risk. I’m one of those DC
residents, whose taxes are poured into often
useless schools with often dreadful teachers.
I’d like to see a tiny bit more value for
money.

The best profile of Rhee is, of course, in the
Atlantic, ahead of the curve as usual.
It’s by Clay Risen.



Nice company you found yourself in, Ken.




— Fred Klonsky
Fred Klonsky's blog
2008-11-17
http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/dcs-rhee-union-buster-or-change-agent-shouldnt-our-union-leadership-be-able-to-tell-the-difference/

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