D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty was elected by a large majority of voters in all wards of the city with a clear mandate to fix the city’s failing public school system. So he brought in Teach for America whiz kid Michelle Rhee to challenge the status quo and stir things up. And stir she has.
Rhee is currently fighting a cage match with members of the Washington Teachers Union over her excellent two-tier proposal to reward teachers who agree to give up tenure and have their compensation tied to their classroom performance. Paychecks of teachers who voluntarily sign up for this “green tier” could increase to six figures, enhanced by privately donated cash bonuses that “red tier” teachers (who refuse to give up their seniority) won’t be eligible to receive. Under Rhee’s plan, each teacher decides whether to take a risk in anticipation of future rewards — or stick to the deal they already have.
But WTU officials fiercely oppose even this benevolent form of merit pay, which costs their members nothing. Instead, they prefer the uniform mediocrity of a school system that’s consistently ranked among the worst in the nation. But the stampede to charter schools — which by the way, the WTU has also consistently opposed — indicates that more and more parents are unwilling to sacrifice their children’s future just to keep teachers union members happy.
The union predictably fought back last week, filing a lawsuit accusing Rhee of improperly dismissing more than 70 teachers. But this battle isn’t really about the dismissed pedagogues. It’s about the 50,000-plus children trapped in the District’s failing school system, which spent millions and millions of tax dollars while cheating a whole generation of kids out of a decent education.
If Chancellor Rhee is not allowed to make real, substantial reforms — including pruning out the deadwood and using financial incentives like merit pay to inspire the good teaches in the system — this massively dysfunctional school system won’t be turned around. But if Rhee fails, so does Mayor Fenty. So the real question is not whether WTU officials will suddenly embrace merit pay or Rhee’s other tough-love reforms (they won’t), but whether the mayor clearly informs them that they have no other choice.
