Finally, a teachers' union leader with spine!
We have all known teachers whose performance was below par, yet who continued to walk into a classroom in front of three dozen young, innocents without worrying about whether any learning actually took place while there. And we have all fretted about what to do in such cases.
Here, at last, is one union leader of teachers, albeit in the U.S. (not in Canada) who knows that if she and her union do not get out in front of this issue, both she and the union will lose their credibility and any potentially effective role in developing better schools.
Of course, there will be teachers' union leaders around the world who will decry Ms Weingarten's position. They have become accustomed to protecting those underperforming teachers in every school system.
And their teachers havae become accustomed to that protection, at the price of enhanced learning opportunities for students.
It will be very intersting to watch the reactions from teachers union leaders around the globe...as to whether this sacred cow of the education system will survive. We have serious and legitimate doubts that it will, or can.