To some, the Chicago teachers' strike that ended Tuesday proves what they've been saying all along: That the teachers and their unions, when you get right down to it, care more about protecting bad teachers, seniority and pay than they do about what is good for kids.
So it's no surprise that people who hold those views also think the most important reform we should pursue is to use standardized test results to identify our worst teachers. And, of course, they will get behind any measure that will weaken the unions generally.
Those people are just plain wrong. Their "reform" agenda has driven our teachers into a bunker -- a bunker that teachers have invited their unions to join because they now think the unions are the only friends they have left.
No nation has ever fired its way to a top-quality teaching staff. No nation has gotten to the top of the world's education league tables by going to war with its teacher unions. And there is no country in the world that has produced a first-class education system by firing its worst teachers.
There's only one way to catch up to the countries that are beating the pants off us in the world's education sweepstakes: Ensure that every student in this country has a first-rate teacher. That, in fact, is the strategy that the top-performing countries have been using.
Not a single one of them is worried about getting rid of the worst teachers, because they have a surplus of great teachers. Not a single one of them is at war with their teachers unions -- though many of them have very strong unions -- because their "reform" strategies haven't driven their teachers into a bunker.
So let's take a moment to look at what the top-performing countries have done to fill their schools with top-quality teachers. They have greatly raised the standards to get into their teacher-education institutions. In the top 10 countries, the ratio of applications to acceptances in those colleges is on the order of eight to one. It is about as hard to get into their teacher-education programs as it is to get into institutions training doctors, architects and engineers.
Of course, to do that, they have to pay their teachers well. In most of these countries, beginning teachers are paid what beginning engineers are paid. In the United States, by contrast, a large fraction of beginning teachers are paid a wage that doesn't permit them to support a small family above the poverty line.
