Bad Teachers Consigned to the Flames in Fiery Manifesto Signed by Terry Grier

By Margaret Downing Fri., Oct. 8 2010 at 6:21 PM

Categories: Education

Terry Grier goes national

In a story already online and due to come out in the Sunday print edition of the Washington Post, our own Terry Grier joins other superintendents in blaming teachers (well, the bad ones) for the poor state of our schools and children.

He also pushes charters and endorses a faster, zippier way for students to make their way through their classes (credit online!)

The HISD superintendent joined public figures such as Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education and Michelle Rhee, of the DC Public Schools (love her? hate her?) in the self-proclaimed manifesto.

It's about time, the group says, that we drop "archaic rules involving seniority and academic credentials." Poorly performing teachers, they say, "can hold back hundreds, maybe thousands of students over the course of a career."

They say we also need to drop another archaic notion -- "seat time" -- the idea that a kid learns while seated in a classroom for a certain number of hours.

Oh and we shouldn't wait for public schools to get better. There's a crisis right now and "we also must make charter schools a truly viable option."

Hair Balls is going to go out on a limb here and predict that Gayle Fallon, head of the Houston Federation of Teachers, is going to have a slightly different take on all this.