The Choice Channel

“School reformers across the nation thought they had scored a victory in their efforts to weed out ineffective teachers last year in New York. Then-governor Eliot Spitzer convinced legislators to enact a law requiring new teachers seeking tenure to prove that they successfully use standardized test scores and other forms of student performance data in shaping their classroom instruction. Even sweeter, the law was passed over the objections of the state’s largest public employees union, the United Teachers — an affiliate of both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — and its largest local, New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, which has battled the much-lauded school reform efforts of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.” (04/29/08)