Last August, when New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg brought in Joel Klein as schools chancellor to help implement his Children First reform initiative, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten came out in support of the mayor and his education plans. [For more information about Mayor Bloomberg's reforms, go to http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=8#368.] Now, after Klein has made the inevitable tough decisions - including imposing a uniform (if ill-chosen) curriculum on failing schools and a proposal to cut 864 full- and part-time classroom aides - Weingarten has jumped ship. "The UFT simply cannot continue to lend its support to a program that, in these tight fiscal times, costs a quarter of a billion dollars and does so little for our children," she said. Weingarten's preferred "reform" proposal is a city ballot initiative that would require class size reductions throughout the system.
"Teacher's union president turns against schools reform plan," by Abby Goodnough, New York Times, May 11, 2003