Perspective

Alan Odden says that Michelle Rhee's proposal to give DC teachers the option to trade job security for a lot more money, if they want to, or not, if they don't want to, "would raise eyebrows everywhere, because that would be a gargantuan change."

The only real eyebrow-raising element of this is that it's national news. Here you have someone who was brought in to reform an organization that everyone--everyone--agrees was terribly dysfunctional, and her response has been, in part, to identify the employees who aren't doing a good job and replace them with better employees. This isn't just obvious and rational; it's ordinary. It happens all the time, particularly in organizations that are labor-dependant. And that's a good thing, because we're all much worse off when low-performing organizations stay chronically unreformed and low-performing. 

Which raises a broader point: from a p.r. standpoint, taking a stand here and now on this issue is a terrible decision for the American Federation of Teachers.  Teachers have a very good case to make when they say that, compared to other professionals with comparable levels of education who work at similarly difficult jobs, they're underpaid, disrespected, and forced to work in conditions that most people wouldn't tolerate. Fair compensation, dignity, and a basic quality of working life are things that all people understand and have a right to expect in their jobs.

Permanent job security regardless of performance, by contrast, is enjoyed by a small and shrinking portion of the workforce. Most people can't relate to tenure. They've never had it, they never will, and they understand why. Drawing the line there is a strategy of alienation for a group that has fewer friends than it understands and fewer than it needs.