Mickey Kaus of Slate on school officials in Los Angeles Unified School District trying desperately to overturn State laws and union intractability that make it impossible to fire incompetent teachers:

At least with General Motors–which arguably makes much better cars than the L.A. Unified School District makes schools–there is the possibility of bankruptcy to force changes in excessively protective union rules. In public education, there’s only the hope that charter schools will eventually expand so rapidly that they displace conventional schools governed by the UTLA (before they succumb to union pressure themselves). Go Steve Barr! ….