I'm taking some ribbing from all sides on this post from over the weekend on the bizarrely anti- "quality public education" rally planned for this evening on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse.
One common refrain: The teachers union and its leaders don't really care about the issue but they have to make a public stink or the bad teachers will get angry and then all hell will break loose.
OK, but then we are supposed to assume that Randi Weingarten was winking and nodding when she said in this morning's newspaper that she had been beseiged by an "avalanche" of complaints from bad teachers who worried that their jobs might be taken from them?
It sure sounds like the UFT is serious.
Another: This really isn't that big a deal, since the city always has had teams of lawyers trying to get rid of incompetent teachers, that the vigil is just a little sideshow, etc.
Why do I think this is a big deal? Tonight's vigil, whether or not it is bogus, has the potential to shine a spotlight on a shocking level of dysfunction that pervades our city's education system that makes the New York Knicks look like a smoothly-run operation. If the public ever clues in on the fact that so much time and attention is spent dealing with all these bizarre cases involving the (extremely small) subset of ineffective and just plain wacky teachers, it doesn't exactly help the franchise.
I'm not exactly sure why the UFT wants to let the public in on the dirty little secret it helped create.
Meanwhile, the noose is tightening around public education's neck. The NY Observer, for instance, is accusing Weingarten of being in the "job-protection racket." Uh, yeah, that's sort of the point of paying dues, folks.
Make sure you bring an umbrella tonight, folks.