Trent England Briefly Flirts With Being Hippy Progressive

Damnit, Trent, you were so close!

New York City has a vast public school system immersed in political correctness and enmeshed in union power. This means it is easy to complain even against a good teacher. In fact, The Rubber Room suggests that students use complaints against teachers they simply dislike.

 YES!  You see, this is why due process and just cause matter!  It's a fundamental matter of fairness, and if a group with the conservative bona fides of the Freedom Foundation can see that there may just be h.....

This also means it is hard to fire a truly bad teacher.

What to do? The politicians found a way out - one that does not upset the union or even force the bureaucracy to make decisions. The “rubber room” is actually a series of offices maintained by the school system where teachers are “reassigned” to sit at a desk all day … and do nothing.

OK, maybe I was a bit quick in sending that gift subscription to Worker's World over to the Olympia office, but we haven't gone full Pinkerton yet.  I mean, of course the union would be upset if its members were being treated unfairly, and it's good to see Trent acknowledging those concerns instead of pejoratively trying to spin this into a story about lazy labor.  Wait:

For the bureaucracy, it was a perfect solution since it protected the powerful while only hurting taxpayers and workers. The taxpayers had no idea this was happening. The teachers should be grateful to still collect a paycheck.

For the union, it was also a grand bargain. No one forced them to spend money actually representing teachers in disputes. And as long as they keep teachers on the payroll - still plugged into “The Matrix” - the union still gets its power in money and numbers.

So, after acknowledging in the open that some of these teachers are perfectly innocent, the good Mr. England then proceeded to ignore that and make this about union money and power.  Not unexpected, sure, but we were close to a breakthrough.

For a different perspective on Rubber Rooms, try the now dead blog Rubber Room Reality.