what you need to do? this is the balance you need to strike in order to hold on to your job and get this reform done? here is a great quote, again out of the newsweek article this week. it says that people really supported our education reform efforts, but they thought we could do it without firing teachers or closing some of the schools. they like the fact that test scores went up, graduation rates went up, et cetera. we probably have to do a better job educating people that if you want real reform, if you want it to be fixed in our lifetime, then we have to do these controversial things. we didn t educate people enough on the front end. we didn t connect the dots between the accountability measures we were putting in place and the increased result that is were coming from them. a new mayor should and will do a better job at that. look at joel klein s article in the new york times this week, he left the new york system. he said everybody knows what needs to be done. we just have
she negotiated a ground-breaking contract with the teachers union that included provisions for performance pay and ending tenure as a job for life provision. that means teachers who were rated as ineffective are immediately terminated. if they re rated minimally effective, they have possible pay raises frozen. if they show no improvement, they also get fired. that s tough love. but with the state of the washington, d.c. public school system, many argue that s exactly the kind of toughness that was needed for real reform. darrel bradford is the director of education for everyone, a group in favor of school choice that was co-founded by newark new jersey mayor cory booker. all right. i want to start the conversation this way. look, a lot of the stuff she did that was considered toughness and good was firing teachers. yeah. is that fair? is that the at the heart of the problem here? i think what we were finding, you know, before chancellor rhee was chancellor, she ran the new teac
have had the opportunity to serve the young people of the city. the thought of not being in this role anymore is heartbreaking to put it mildly. rhee repeatedly angered the union closing down schools, firing teachers and even her own daughter s principal. when you have a union that is protecting schools that are failing, at the expense of kids and parents you will have a fight. reporter: that fight extends far beyond washington, d.c. remember this exchange between new jersey governor chris christie and a member of the teachers union there? you are not compensating me for my education or my experience. then you don t have to do it. then there is a new documentary from davis guggenheim. he portrays a broken public school system, hampered by the union leadership. one more piece of the education reform puzzle taking shape across the country.
why things were happening. i think when you look at the aftermath of the election and the feedback we got on why they didn t support, a lot of it was he closed down schools and fired teachers. one of the things we didn t do well, we are not firing teachers to be mean or anything like that, but because we are solely focused on making sure kids are getting a great education and children deserve the best teachers in the classroom. the evaluation system is not fair and your faxes are wrong in the way you are firing teachers and the way you are evaluating. i think it s interesting that she would say that. we used to have a system where the only way that the teacher was evaluated was based on what the principal said. it was subjective. now what we have is a robust evaluation system where 50% is based on data. whether or not the teacher was able to move student achievement
alaska? i don t. chris: wait, wait, wait. i want to talk about one more race in washington. incumbent mayor fenty lost by a fairly decisive margin to the city council president vincent gray. erin, what happened? i don t think obviously, washington tonians were not happy with fenty leadership. there is questions about how he rehandles the education system. anti-incumbent year. they want fresh face. mr. gray is not a fresh face on the city council. chris: charles, you want to talk about the school reform as signature race. his signature point was school reform. he had superintendent out there firing teachers and being tough on competence in the worst school district in the country. being aggressive on this. strongly opposed by teachers unions who opposed fenty.