Daily Beast > Teachers are professionals & should be evaluated based on their work, not their seniority

This is the basic problem for any school system, including Ridgefield. There is a place for unions. There is a place for guilds, but there is NO place for protecting mediocrity; meritocracy is what is needed.

When the principal at P.S. 40 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, talks about the impact on students of one of her best teachers, Malvola Lewis, her eyes fill with tears.

After growing up in homeless shelters, Lewis earned an education degree from Brooklyn College and returned to her old neighborhood to teach at P.S. 40, a historically hard-to-staff school. Now she’s one of the school’s strongest teachers; her students are making more progress than almost any other class in the school. And they love her.

Lewis is a terrific teacher. Despite her exceptional work, though, she (and thousands of teachers like her) may be laid off shortly because of antiquated seniority rules in New York City. The real losers will be children.  

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