New York City Taps Lawyers to Weed Out Bad Teachers

An aggressive drive meant to weed out incompetent tenured teachers in New York City is under attack from the local teachers’ union and some teacher-quality advocates, who describe it as a “witch hunt.”

The Teacher Performance Unit, made up of five lawyers and headed by a former prosecutor, will help principals prepare cases to fire tenured teachers who fail repeatedly to raise student test scores and are also found lacking during principals’ observations.

The plan also includes peer-intervention and other help for struggling teachers. Only if a teacher continues to fail to show improvement despite those interventions will the process for removing a teacher...