Teacher's Union Open to Obama's Pay Tied to Student Performance

WASHINGTON (AP) — A teachers' union said it is open to President-elect Barack Obama's effort to tie pay raises to student performance.
Many teachers dislike the idea; Obama was booed when he mentioned it at union meetings in 2007 and again this year.
Yet Randi Weingarten, the newly elected president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Monday there is a role for teacher raises based on how students are learning.
"Of course there is," she said in a speech at the National Press Club.
She described the teacher pay system in New York City, where school-wide bonuses are based on overall test scores in high-poverty schools. Weingarten, as head of the New York teachers' union, negotiated the system last year with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The new system is working, she said: Teachers already are getting bonuses for improving student achievement in 128 of 200 eligible schools.
"If an innovation is collaborative and fair, teachers will embrace it, and it will succeed," she said.

Obama Needs to Fire Teachers Union

I know the mighty teachers' union can't be fired but they ought to be.
The teachers union allows a lot of lousy teachers to keep working. Teaching is arguably the most important profession. They're feeding the minds of our children and if you look at poor geographic areas and even in certain neighborhoods within any city, they're not feeding them very well. 
No doubt, teachers need to be paid more money -- but only the good ones.

Obama could better explain how he's going to improve education, how is he going to take on the teachers' union. 

Newsweek: But with the general election underway, Barack Obama has a chance to show that he can move at least as far toward real change in education as John McCain. Obama deserves kudos for drawing scattered boos earlier this month for mentioning charter schools when appearing via satellite before the National Education Association. (He was expected to be received more politely by the other big union, the American Federation of Teachers, at its convention last weekend.) But that was just a baby step. Now Obama needs to embrace a Grand Education Bargain—much higher pay for teachers in exchange for much more accountability for performance in the classroom. Good teachers need to be rewarded with more pay and respect for being members of our noblest profession. They need more resources. But they also need to be removed from the classroom when they fail to improve. Obama occasionally says as much, but goes fuzzy when it comes to how.