I Will Not Quote Donald Trump, No Matter How Appropriate

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Second post of the day on education.

We got the LA Times story right here about teachers being paid not to teach. Malkin’s comment: “Nice non-work if you can get it.”

Brian Doherty at Reason.

Conor Friedersdorf has a post up at The Scene:

“What do I propose? Merely that teachers be hired and fired under the same rules that govern the jobs of most Americans. That means principals should have wide latitude to fire teachers at will, that layoffs should cull the least talented rather than the least senior teachers, and that school districts should not be required to spend several years and several hundred thousand dollars to fire awful teachers. One charge against charter school and voucher proponents is that we want to do an end run around unionized teachers. I plead guilty.”

In the comments, Freddie from the Gentleman argued the pro-union case. Now, at the Gentlemen a post from Will about Michelle Rhee and the DC system changing the incentive structure for teachers. Conor also responds to Freddie about changing the incentive structure.

E.D. Kain at The Gentlemen:

“Unions can be a problem at times.  There’s no doubt about it.  Sometimes teachers need to be fired, and maybe some rules need to be altered in order to pave the way to a better system.  But that doesn’t cut to the heart of the problem, which is that we have a shortage of teachers, and since we have a shortage of teachers it’s going to make school districts a lot less likely to let the bad ones go, or to prevent them from attaining tenure after their first two or three years.”

More posts or thoughts about the LA teacher situation? Put ‘em in the comments.

UPDATE: More from Conor.

UPDATE #2: John Schwenkler steps into the fray.

UPDATE #3: Two more from Conor, here and here.

UPDATE $4: And the ball swings back to E.D. at the Gentlemen, responding to John.

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Filed under Education

Tags: Brian Doherty, Conor Friedersdorf, E.D. Kain, Education, Freddie, John Schwenkler, Michelle Malkin, Reason, The American Scene, The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Will