Rhee and Weingarten face off in battle of D.C. teachers unions
By: Harry Jaffe
Examiner Columnist
March 13, 2009
Who would have thought that the nation’s epic battles over education reform would be fought in the trenches of Washington, D.C.’s wretched public schools?
Right here, right now, factions led by worthy opponents are battling over these fundamental questions:
Do teachers deserve to keep their jobs forever, regardless of whether their students learn? Should good teachers get paid more than mediocre ones? Would students benefit from national standards, and should teachers be judged on whether their students meet those standards in regular testing?
Consider what took place in the nation’s capital last Tuesday. In his first speech on education, President Barack Obama waded right into the fray. “Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay,” he said, “even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom.”
The president’s shot across the bow of teachers unions certainly gave ammo to Michelle Rhee. The chancellor of D.C. Public Schools has been waging war with the Washington Teachers’ Union for more than a year over what’s known as merit pay. And tenure. And testing.
In the union camp, Obama’s endorsement of Rhee’s position has to weaken Randi Weingarten. She leads the American Federation of Teachers, the New York-based national union over the local WTU.
Weingarten has moved to D.C. and works here at the union’s office, ostensibly to manage the nation’s second-largest teachers union, with more than a million members. But lately she’s been going head to head with Rhee over a contract for the local union, with 4,000 members.
The two met once at Rhee’s office on North Capital Street and once in AFT’s headquarters. They are scheduled to meet again, this time with a third party who might help them come to some agreement. George Parker, actual head of the local WTU, is no longer on the front lines.
Rhee and Weingarten are indeed worthy opponents. Both are smart and forceful and aware of the stakes in the local union contract, which is shaping up to be a decisive battle on tenure and merit pay.
One difference is that Rhee is clear and emphatic in her public statements and private negotiations. She talked about rewarding good teachers with more money, and she offered a contract with generous salaries to back it up.
In public, Weingarten has said she will entertain “performance pay,” and she favors rewarding some teachers over others. But the contract she and her union presented to Rhee rejected any semblance of a system that would reward teachers who raised test scores for their students.
Weingarten’s public statements appear to be propaganda. Her weakness might be that she’s a politician, fighting on many fronts, interested, perhaps, in a run for the U.S. Senate seat in New York. Rhee’s strength is her single-minded focus on fixing D.C.’s schools.
When Rhee and Weingarten get together for their next skirmish, perhaps the third party should be Obama. On merit pay, we know where he stands.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at hjaffe@washingtonian.com.
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