MAYBE SOME PROGRESS – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  Public-employee unions are under intense pressure.  They will respond differently.  The unions under some of the most intense pressure are teachers' unions, and now comes a proposal from a major union leader that gives hope for reasonable compromise.  From The New York Times:

Responding to criticism that tenure gives even poor teachers a job for life, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, announced a plan Thursday to overhaul how teachers are evaluated and dismissed.

It would give tenured teachers who are rated unsatisfactory by their principals a maximum of one school year to improve. If they did not, they could be fired within 100 days.

Teacher evaluations, long an obscure detail in an educator’s career, have moved front and center as school systems try to identify which teachers are best at improving student achievement, and to remove ineffective ones.

The issue has erupted recently, with many districts anticipating layoffs because of slashed budgets. Mayors including Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and Cory A. Booker of Newark have attacked seniority laws, which require that teacher dismissals be based on length of experience rather than on competency.

Ms. Weingarten has sought to play a major role in changing evaluations and tenure, lest the issue be used against unions to strip their influence over work life in schools — just as Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin and Ohio are trying to do this week.

COMMENT:  Shrewed move by Randi Weingarten.  Unions will do far better, and make important contributions, if they act wisely and rationally, rather than simply resisting.  The best union leaders do understand reality, and are often politically savvy.

At the same time, those confronting the public-employee unions, and that includes Republican governors, must proceed with sane and successful strategies.  Grandstanding is not enough.  There are several stories making the rounds this morning that point out that, while Republican governors are generally supporting Scott Walker in Wisconsin, some, including the great Chris Christie of New Jersey, are expressing reservations about the rigidity of Walker's style.  Eventually, confrontation wears thin.  Citizens want things settled, and they want reasonable concessions from public employees.  Christie has succeeded.  So has Mitch Daniels in Indiana.  Both are tough, but with a sense of what is possible and what is reasonable.  Both are immensely popular.

February 25, 2011