Having spent a few years in the classroom as a teacher, and as an avid lover of public education, there are few who would argue that I am not an advocate for teachers' rights and professionalizing the occupation of teaching. I believe that teachers should be recognized as the honorable, challenging, and indispensable individuals that they truly are. Furthermore, I believe that the requirements to become a teacher and the subsequent pay should reflect a national valuing of educators, all of whom should earn paychecks that are commensurate with their performance, not the length of their tenure.

It is this last belief, of course, that has drawn a great deal of attention and criticism over the last few years, and particularly over the last few months in Washington DC. Since the District's newest chancellor, Michelle Rhee (a former Teach for America Teacher who herself started the New Teacher Project) rolled out a plan to do away with the traditional tenure structure, seismic rumblings have torn through the core of teachers in DC's classrooms. As seen in the Washington Post article predicting a clash of the titans in the form of Michelle Rhee versus veteran teachers, the issues here seem to be rooted more in personal ego and hubris than in what is best for our children. Veteran teachers refuse to move away from their traditional pay structure towards a new program, which they see as demeaning process that would require them to earn their positions through interviewing with principals and proving their distinct worth. Rhee is a woman whose record of dismissals and schools closing has already left gargantuan footprints on the district's public schools, and her plan to shake up the system that allows teachers to remain employed whether or not they make classroom gains is controversial at best.

The question looming, then, is what is the big deal? What is it that teachers fear? While many can tell you that Rhee has miffed many educators during her first year at the helm, few can argue about her intentions and desires to close the achievement gap in DC schools. It seems to me that if educators truly held their children’s' best interests in mind, they would want nothing more than to improve their personal performance, better instruct our children, and be handsomely rewarded for their efforts. Yet, these same teachers are doing more to send a message to Rhee that old dogs don't really want to learn to sit or to jump, even if it means rescuing our children from the burning towers of education, which, of course, aren't ivory anymore.

So it's disappointing that just like everything else in our nation's capital, our public school system is less about bettering our domestic affairs and is more about politics as usual. What a sham. What a shame.