By Harrison Blackmond, Michigan State Director
After months of taking heat for their role in the failure of public education, teachers’ unions are on the offensive.
In January, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the country’s second largest teachers’ union, released a plan for speeding up disciplinary hearings for teachers. The AFT hired Kenneth R. Feinberg, an arbitration expert and a lawyer hired by British Petroleum to distribute $20 billion to victims of last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, to investigate teacher discipline and make recommendations.
Mr. Feinberg’s plan dealt with “teacher misconduct” such as conviction of a felony or other crime involving moral turpitude, alcohol or drug abuse, physical and sexual assaults. He recommended a 100 day window for resolving such cases. Ms. Weingarten described Mr. Feinberg’s plan as a “thoughtful and common- sense approach…..fairer and…faster.” But what may be most notable is the more significant issue that Mr. Feinberg specifically did not address: what to do about ineffective teachers.
Clearly, efforts such as this one by AFT are intended at least in part as a response to and/or a distraction from more drastic changes to policies on teacher evaluation, hiring, firing, and tenure laws that are being considered in several states including Michigan. At least one governor, Chris Christie of New Jersey, has proposed eliminating tenure altogether.