Labor Updates (12/12/07)

Ed Week Blogger Weighs In On Dc Reform: Education Week blogger Marc Dean Millot – echoing similar concerns voiced by DC labor leaders -- equates Mayor Fenty’s and Chancellor Rhee’s school power grab to a bid for a “political fiefdom.” Existing rules require the Chancellor “to have well-documented grounds for her decision” to remove workers, wrote Millot on Monday. “Why does every government agency…have these rules? Because we don’t want every new administration to hire and fire arbitrarily; we want government’s administrative functions to be insulated from electoral politics.” But Fenty and Rhee’s legislation “would separate all of these employees from the system – with severance but without appeal, and the Chancellor would the have the authority to decide whom to rehire,” at her will, wrote Millot.