Reactions to new Baltimore City Contract

So I spoke with Liz Bowie over at the Baltimore Sun earlier this week.    She wrote this article about the new Baltimore City contract.    I'm not exactly looking for a job in Baltimore City- as it sounds based on some of my quotes.   I love my job.   And my students.   I'm not going anywhere for the time being.   I'd much rather my own school district rewrite it's evaluation system to include some of the tenents found in the BCSS contract.   There's room to create something better than what we've got in Montgomery County.   Much better.   And I think Baltimore took a step in the right direction.   Kudos to the city and its union.

Randi Weingarten - The Hero of Reform

Valerie Struass recently printed this defense of Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and newly cast villain of   'Waiting for Superman.'     But as Joe Williams points out in Strauss' column, this could not be further from the truth.  From Denver to Pittsburgh to New York City to Baltimore, the American Federation of Teachers has been at the forefront of public school system reform.   This is hardly the face of an obstructionist.   As Williams notes:

Randi Weingarten is the last person you could possibly describe as hiding in a cave, plotting to destroy America. She has appeared on so many panels and television programs as part of the WFS roll-out – and she’s taken quite a public beating in many of them – that ‘cowardly terrorist’ is the last phrase you’d use to describe her. (You’ll notice that the NEA, which unlike the AFT has been totally absent from just about any real reform discussion in the last few years, hardly even appears in WFS. Surely because Randi granted access and the NEA didn’t.)

It is a shame that Weingarten has not gotten more credit for the role she has played in advancing these reforms.   Jay Mathews takes time to celebrate her role for the recently negotiated  (but as of yet unapproved) contract in Baltimore City.   And celebrate we should, for if the current reforms prove successful in anyway, Weingarten will not be the villain, but the hero of this story.

Baltimore City takes the plunge.

The Baltimore City Agreement is here.   Still trying to figure out the details.