In New York City,  principals are allowed to join a union and that right gives them a protection of sorts, so they are free to speak out once in a while “€” more often than their counterparts in Massachusetts who are forbidden to unionize. So, while in Massachusetts we’re used to hearing silence from our administrative ranks, not so in New York: hence this headline from the New York Times. New York State, incidentally, like Massachusetts, is nationally recognized for its outstanding schools.

Principals’ Union Condemns Plan for 33 (Turnaround) Struggling Schools
“Of the unions representing public school teachers and principals in New York City, the principals’ union had played a passive role in the charged and increasingly divisive dispute over an evaluation system to gauge the performance of teachers and principals in 33 struggling schools receiving federal grants to help improve their results.
“No longer. On Wednesday, the principals’ union president, Ernest A. Logan, pre-emptively condemned the city’s proposal to close and reopen most of those schools under a new improvement model, saying in a strongly worded letter to the state’s education commissioner, John B. King Jr., that it is simply a ploy to shut out the unions…”

Read more.

And from Washington Post Blogger, Valerie Strauss…