Why Rhee is wrong on collective bargaining and teachers’ unions
Rhee claims to support the right of teachers to collectively bargain. She says she supports their rights to bargain base compensation and professional development. “But they should not actually be co-managing school systems, and many decisions do not belong on the bargaining table. For example, it would present a huge conflict of interest for unions to be negotiating performance evaluations when unions have to represent effective and ineffective teachers alike. Districts should be able to create evaluations, reward teachers’ success, empower parents with more choices, and run the school system while held to high standards for accountability and success.”
Nonsense. Unassailable research [here, here and here] directly refutes Rhee’s false dichotomies and strawmen. Peer Review and Assistance has been shown to work and indeed, teachers are the toughest critics of their