Guest Commentary: Former NYC Schools Chief Joel Klein on School Reform, Teachers Unions and Customized Learning

Joel Klein has been paying a lot of attention to what Liberating Learning's Terry M. Moe has been writing about teachers unions and their impact on school reform and the impact of information technology on education.
Here's what Klein wrote about Moe's new book Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America's Public Schools earlier this year.
"America's public schools are broken, and Terry Moe sets out to explain why. In a bare-knuckled and brilliant account, he shows how the teachers unions use their unmatched political power to control virtually every aspect of educational policy and practice. The result, not surprisingly, is a system that protects the interests of employees at the expense of our kids."
Klein recently took a second look at Special Interest when he wrote a review of the book for the Wall Street Journal. In the review, Klein also critiqued Steven Brill's book, Class Warfare, which also takes a tough look at the impact teachers unions have had on education reform.
"At their core (Moe and Brill) share the reformist perspective and conclude that teachers unions—fueled by the manpower and money they can mobilize and the enormous political power they enjoy as a result—are the major obstacle to solving the education crisis. But they make their arguments from different perspectives, citing different evidence," Klein writes.
"Class Warfare, by Steven Brill, is an extremely well-reported survey of the modern reform movement that is likely to have a big impact and will appeal to a wide audience. Special Interest, by Terry M. Moe, is a carefully researched analysis of the power dynamics underlying today's policy disputes," Klein adds.
Click here to read all of Klein's review.
Click here to learn more about Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America's Public Schools.