By now, most serious studies on education reform have concluded that the critical variable when it comes to kids succeeding in school isn’t money spent on buildings or books but, rather, the quality of their teachers. But, in New York and elsewhere, holding teachers accountable for how well they teach has proved to be a frontier that cannot be crossed.
The evidence of Mohammed’s incompetence—found in more than five thousand pages of transcripts from her hearing—seems as unambiguous as the city’s lawyer promised in his opening statement: ‘These children were abused in stealth… . It was chronic … a failure to complete report cards… . Respondent failed to correct student work, failed to follow the mandated curriculum … failed to manage her class.’ Mohammed’s case is likely to take between forty and forty-five hearing days—eight times as long as the average criminal trial in the United States. When the bill for the arbitrator is added to the cost of the city’s lawyers and court reporters and the time spent in court by the principal and the assistant principal, Mohammed’s case will probably have cost the city and the state (which pays the arbitrator) about four hundred thousand dollars.
Chris Cerf, a deputy chancellor, says, ‘We all agree with the idea that it is better that ten guilty men go free than that one innocent person be imprisoned. But by laying that on to a process of disciplining teachers you put the risk on the kids versus putting it on an occasional innocent teacher losing a job. For the union, it’s better to protect one thousand teachers than to wrongly accuse one.’ Anthony Lombardi, the principal of P.S. 49, a mostly minority Queens elementary school, puts it more bluntly: ‘Randi Weingarten would protect a dead body in the classroom. That’s her job.’
While maintaining that the union in no way condones failing teachers, Weingarten defends the elaborate protections that shield union members: ‘Teachers are not … bankers or lawyers. They don’t have independent power. Principals have huge authority over them. All we’re looking for is due process.’
Dan Weisberg, of the New Teacher Project, independently offered a similar analogy for the other side: ‘You’re not talking about a bank or a law firm. You’re talking about a classroom—which is far more important—and your ability to make sure that the right people are teaching there.’
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