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Chester County Press

An idea whose time has come

08/28/2013 07:24PM ● By Acl

By Uncle Irvin

 

Many states, but not Pennsylvania, have begun to link teacher pay to their effectiveness.

Now, three states have taken the idea further by pulling the licenses of teachers whose students fail to improve. Only one roadblock stands in the way of evaluating teachers and linking success with merit raises and salary performance with loss of license. That one roadblock is the fear of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, a.k.a. the teachers' union. Politicians are not brave enough to do the right thing because of the risk to their re-election.

That's all our legislature cares about - getting re-elected. The hell with accomplishing anything.

We have a couple of local State Representatives, John Lawrence and Chris Ross, who -- along with their brethren in Harrisburg -- are deathly afraid of the teachers' union, so you can count on them to do nothing.

Maybe the rest of us non-union citizens will scare them when they run for re-election.