Hold firm on education reform - The Boston Globe

Hold firm on education reform - The Boston Globe:

"AS HOUSE and Senate conferees hammer out final details of an education reform bill this week, no issue is more contentious than how much power local and state administrators should have to override union contracts in underperforming schools. At such schools, there’s a tension between the formal process for resolving disputes over work rules and the need to make changes swiftly so that children don’t fall further behind."

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill recognize that efforts to improve failing schools must address hair-trigger labor grievances that usually lead to long arbitration processes. The teachers unions are naturally protective of their rights.

And yet the well-being of students has to come above all else. What’s needed is a final bill that gives the state the ability to make major changes in the lowest-performing schools, to adjust compensation to reflect teacher merit when appropriate, and to extend the school day or year for either more instruction time or better faculty training. Providing the state with these powers doesn’t mean that all teachers at troubled schools will be broomed out - practical barriers alone make that exceedingly unlikely - but it would provide greater flexibility at schools where the status quo clearly is not working.