Own Worst Enemies
The call by former Assistant Labor Secretary William H. Kolberg for business leaders and educators to become partners to improve the schools makes sense (Viewpoints, “Our Education System Needs to Get an MBA,” Jan. 15). Unfortunately, what Kolberg asks of the schools in this regard--commitment to quality education and teacher accountability--is precisely what teachers’ unions predictably will continue to fight to the death to prevent.
Thus, there is nothing to suggest that Kolberg’s recommendation that schools and business cooperatively adopt such policies has a ghost of a chance of happening.
“Schools will have to prepare for major restructuring,” Kolberg counsels his readers. This is empty advice, however. The teachers’ unions have turned it down dozens of times.
PATRICK GROFF
San Diego
The writer is a professor in the school of teacher education at San Diego State University .
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