Treat teaching as a business

Joel Klein makes a good point:

From the day I became chancellor of New York City's schools, the thing that shocked me most was that the entire system eschewed distinctions based on merit. The unions, in particular, well understood that once we began to differentiate based on merit, the public would be forced to deal with these clearly spelled out differences and would demand that consequences result from these differences. No one wants a low-performing teacher teaching her child.

Critics argue that we cannot fairly evaluate teacher performance, so the current lock-step system is the best we can do. That's ridiculous. Is there anyone who doesn't think that some of his own teachers were great and some terrible?

By neutralizing destructive labor unions, school boards can focus – as does all private business – on performance.  The argument by teachers that performance in their profession is too subjective to quantify is nonsense.  All performance can be quantified and measured.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031105900.html