DC Schools Look to Buck the Union

There is a wonderfully delicious battle brewing between the City of Washington DC, its innovative and energetic schools chief, and its powerfully obstructionist teachers union. It seems Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty want to get the Congress to declare the city's school system in a "state of emergency", an action that would effectively grant them the ability to set up non-union schools and thoroughly marginalize the teachers union. Who you ask? The teachers union? Weren't they the lead dogs in the Obama sled? Yes indeed! So here you have it--a big city Democratic mayor and his schools chief believe the chief obstruction to quality education is the organization that supported the new Democratic president from the get-go. Oh how I look forward to watching this play out....I do realize though that the students in the district are the ones who will ultimately pay the price--as Fenty and Rhee are voices in a very hostile wilderness. The Democratic Congress, soaked as it is with union money and beholden as it is to their shake-down tactics, is never going to support this kind of necessary innovation.