Editorial: Obama's clean slate

When it comes to turning around the country's failing public schools, educators shouldn't pose the biggest roadblock for reform. But they could.

President Obama has proposed a bold plan to close 5,000 troubled schools and reopen them with new teachers and principals over the next five years.

That could mean firing an entire staff, or turning over a school to a charter-school operator. Unions for teachers and education administrators aren't too thrilled about that.

Because the federal government cannot shut down public schools, states and local districts would need to step up to the plate. The big question is whether they have the will to fight labor disputes.

There's a strong incentive for districts to participate in this program created under the federal No Child Left Behind law - $5 billion. The plan calls for spending $1 million for each school turnaround.

Philadelphia would be a good place to start, with its 85 failing public schools and a 50 percent dropout rate.

Or across the river, in Camden, where all of the district's 21 troubled schools failed to meet federal math and language-arts benchmarks last year.

But the program's success nationwide hinges on local contracts with teachers' unions.

Obama faces an uphill battle against that powerful voice in the Democratic party. Teachers' unions have traditionally resisted sweeping changes, especially if they cost teachers their jobs.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan released few details about the school-turnarond proposal when he unveiled the plan last week. It may require fine-tuning to avoid labor problems that some districts have encountered when replacing an entire teaching staff.

New York's school district has a reserve pool of about 1,100 teachers whose jobs were eliminated. They are still on the payroll, but working mostly as substitutes.

The best way to make the turnaround plan work at the local level is to offer union leaders a place at the table, with both sides willing to compromise.

"We are ready and willing to get in there to roll up our sleeves and turn around these schools," said John Wilson, executive director of the National Education Association, the largest teachers' union. It shouldn't take long to see if he means it.

Critics say drastically restructuring schools hasn't worked, and point to mixed results by private management companies. But those bad lessons from previous experiences should help schools avoid making the same mistakes.

The Obama plan offers a refreshing chance for a clean slate to fix ailing schools. It would focus much-needed attention on struggling middle schools and high schools, and the abysmal graduation rate, especially among minorities.

The Obama strategy would fall in line with the five-year plan of Philadelphia schools CEO Arlene Ackerman to put additional resources in underperforming schools and reopen them as renaissance schools.

Too many public schools have been failing students for too long. Closing the worst shouldn't mean they can't be reopened under new management.