Rod Paige, who called the NEA a “terrorist organization,” (after having falsified the “Texas Miracle”) doesn’t admire her for making teachers’ lives and jobs better. Ms. Weingarten isn’t overly concerned about rank and file, who had no say in this whatsoever. Fortunately for her, 3 out of 4 teachers can’t even be bothered to vote in union elections. Most are transitory passers-by–and that doesn’t help kids.

I agree that this signals a movement, a bad one in my view, and it reinforces my long-held notion that the UFT has no vision whatsoever. Klein got his foot in the door with the lead teacher position in 05, pushed it a lot more here, and has plans for the future, unlike my clueless leadership.

So if you like merit pay, it’s definitely time to celebrate. You’re right—this is big.

But the UFT will continue to say it isn’t merit pay, even though it can certainly be distributed to individual teachers.

Incidentally, I did not write the piece that went up this morning. That was reality-based educator, my co-conspirator.