I think many teachers are pretty great. Yet some teachers are failing our children, and we need to be able to fire them. For me, the issue is totally about public sector unions. Public schools have a government granted monopoly on education. Who is on the other side of the bargaining table with the union representatives? It's parents, or the representatives that they voted for. Yet unions themselves are political, and they lobby those representatives. Teachers, and their friends and family are voting too. The bargaining power of parents becomes diluted. This is how teacher's unions become so strong that schools can no longer give children the quality of education they otherwise would get. Check out "Waiting for Superman" for a concrete example of how this is playing out in LA and NYC.
