Henry Kissinger Validated

Henry Kissinger once remarked that the battles in academia are so bitter because the stakes are so small. Gosh was he ever right.

Right now Baltimore schools “CEO” Andres Alonso has taken some time out from comparing Baltimore schools unfavorably to Cuban schools to engage in a slapfight with the teacher’s union over one 45-minute period per week.

The teacher’s union says this period should be available to teachers to do their lesson plans or grade papers. Alonso thinks they should be involved in some type of group grope he terms “working collaboratively with colleagues or receiving professional development.”

Now nothing makes me happier than the spectacle of a handful of educrats making total asses of themselves, but this is silly, it is demeaning to all parties, and it is a metaphor for why Baltimore public schools fail and will continue to fail.

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Regardless of my feelings about the usefulness of “working collaboratively with colleagues” in a 45-minute session is value added, the fact is that the “CEO” of the school system should be able to require this, in fact, individual principals should be able to do so. If the “CEO” is reduced to bargaining over this type of thing, and principals can’t direct it, then there is really no management whatsoever of the Baltimore school system and we have no right to be surprised when it continues to exist as a social welfare system for its employees not as an institution of learning for our children.