The Washington D.C. public school system announced Friday that it was letting 241 teachers go – some due to licensing issues, but most due to poor performance. Amazingly, firing teachers for poor performance has been almost unheard of since teachers’ unions became a force in public education some 40 years ago. But in a contract essentially brokered by D.C. Chancellor of Public Schools, Michelle Rhee and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, there is room for teachers to lose their jobs under the IMPACT program which stipulates that teachers are judged on “classroom observation visits by principals and outside education experts. The system also rates teachers based on their students' achievement.” But now, Washington Teachers Union President George Parker is saying that the IMPACT system is flawed. And Randi Weingarten is saying that “the IMPACT system needed more evaluation itself.” Then why in God’s name did these two union leaders sign off on this in the first place? It seems that Rhee has played by the rules, but now the two union leaders are challenging the agreed upon rules. This is pathetic! Then Weingarten made things worse by saying, “"Everyone who teaches gets better with time and gets better with experience, just like ballplayers and others." Wrong. Only talented ball players get better with time. The bad ones don’t and are soon out of a job. You see, professional sports is a meritocracy where only the good athletes survive and thrive. The bad ones are let go without much ado. This type of meritocratic system, badly needed in public education, owes Michelle Rhee a debt of gratitude for her efforts to bring it about in D.C., with its astronomical per student spending and abysmal record in student achievement. And it is very irresponsible of Weingarten-Parker to start whining about a system that they helped put into place. But given that these two are union leaders and therefore not in the business of making public education better, why am I not surprised?