Steven Brill has a jaw-dropping article in the latest New Yorker on the New York City public school system. Rick Hess brought NYC school chief Joel Klein to AEI a few months ago to discuss his reform efforts, and there is no doubt Klein is doing an admirable job; but to understand the insanity—no other word will do—Klein is up against you have to read Brill’s piece, which is chock-full of tremendous reporting. Most noteworthy is Brill’s discussion of the incompetent (at best) teachers who are kept out of the classroom in so-called “rubber rooms” around the city but nonetheless kept on the payroll for years—several continuing to make over $100,000 a year—thanks to union protections.
Meanwhile, in BusinessWeek Vivek Wadhwa highlights call centers created by entrepreneurs in Ohio who pay their best front-line workers more than 100K a year. That’s not a typo. Wadhwa’s article debunks a number of myths about trade, outsourcing, and other politically charged topics (AMERICAN readers may recognize Wadhwa’s name for his essay on the country’s other immigration crisis).
When Newt says there is a world that works and a world that fails, these are two good examples of what he’s talking about.