The city’s principals and teachers unions this week did, well, what unions do: They united, double-teaming state Education Commissioner John King to protect their least effective members — while throwing kids under the school bus.
In separate letters, principals-union boss Ernest Logan and teachers-union head Michael Mulgrew asked King to stop Mayor Bloomberg from shutting 33 failing schools, replacing half their staff and then reopening them. They want the city to resume “negotiations” instead.
King needs to route the missives straight into the circular file.
Let’s face it: These guys gave Bloomberg no choice but to resort to his school “turnaround” plan to boot lousy staff.
Mayoral aides have talked with the unions to craft a system for evaluating school officials — and then talked some more. And more after that.
They received no good-faith response.
That’s because Mulgrew and Logan have no intention of ever letting their members be properly evaluated — and possibly fired.
After all, they are elected to protect teachers and principals — even those who are unfit. (Witness the rules they’ve imposed that force the city to keep paying creeps like Alan Rosenfeld, even though — as The Post has been reporting — the city is too scared to send him back to the classroom.)
No one can seriously believe the talks the unions seek will lead to a meaningful evaluation system.
Don’t believe it? Then look at the ads the state’s largest teachers union began running yesterday: “Our students are more than test scores,” huffed New York State United Teachers boss Richard Iannuzzi.
But the law requires considerable use of test scores; they’re key to the evaluations.
On Tuesday, meanwhile, Logan called in a high-profile evaluation foe, Diane Ravitch, to convince members to oppose the rules.
None of these leaders, by the way, had one positive suggestion to move forward.
Which is why King has but one intellectually honest option:
Let Bloomberg proceed as proposed.
And let the chips fall where they must.