Teaching Teachers Unions

The head of the teachers union has written Newsday to express opposition to any changes to the current system of teacher evaluation. There are no suggestions for correcting an evaluation system which is clearly not working; only that the changes are bad. In support, he refers to unspecified “educationally sound measures” and the “best educational research” that have been the basis of the system for years. We are now living with the results. There is lip service to having the best teachers but his union, like all unions, is congenitally opposed to rewarding better performance. Finally, at the head of his list of things that will suffer if there are any changes are “impromptu discussions of world events”. More discussions of world events would be a good thing but could these teacher led classroom discussions possibly involve promoting any world events such as the union’s positions on school budgets, pension reform, political candidates and the like?