You know a debate has gone negative when the biblical references come out. As reported by this riveting Washington Post article , Washington, D.C.'s teachers are in the middle of an all-out generational war over Chancellor Michelle Rhee's proposal to offer dramatically higher pay to instructors who boost student achievement and are willing to give up tenure. For the veteran teachers, here's Jerome Blocks, 59:
"It's degrading and insulting," said Brocks, to ask that teachers give up tenure and go on probation for a year if they choose the more lucrative of the two salary tiers under the plan, which is at the center of contract negotiations between the city and the Washington Teachers' Union.He said that Rhee wants only to purge older teachers and that for instructors to sell out hard-won protections against arbitrary or unfair dismissal is unthinkable.
"For Michelle Rhee or anyone to ask that is like Judas and 30 pieces of silver."
Um, Mr. Brocks, the proposal wouldn't require any veteran teachers to opt in to the performance-based plan, nor would it allow any teacher to sell out any other teacher. So please explain the Judas analogy?
The younger teachers, meanwhile, are turning to the blogosphere to voice their opinions:
"Pardon my ignorance, but why is the Chancellor able to e-mail me back with a multiple sentence response, but [union president] George Parker cannot send a one-word reply?" asked "Dee," author of Dee Does the District , who identifies herself as a first-year special education teacher.
Go Dee! The Quick and the Ed is right this time; Michelle Rhee's plan is both cool and audacious. And, judging by the generational split, the wave of the future.
