Below The Beltway

The case against public education, Exhibit XLVIII:

For seven years, the Los Angeles Unified School District has paid Matthew Kim a teaching salary of up to $68,000 per year, plus benefits.

His job is to do nothing.

Every school day, Kim’s shift begins at 7:50 a.m., with 30 minutes for lunch, and ends when the bell at his old campus rings at 3:20 p.m. He is to take off all breaks, school vacations and holidays, per a district agreement with the teacher’s union. At no time is he to be given any work by the district or show up at school.

He has never missed a paycheck.

In the jargon of the school district, Kim is being “housed” while his fitness to teach is under review. A special education teacher, he was removed from Grant High School in Van Nuys and assigned to a district office in 2002 after the school board voted to fire him for allegedly harassing teenage students and colleagues. In the meantime, the district has spent more than $2 million on him in salary and legal costs.

Last week, Kim was ordered to continue this daily routine at home. District officials said the offices for “housed” employees were becoming too crowded.

Lest you think this is an isolated incident, the New York Times reported more than a year ago that the City of New York spends as much as $ 81 million every two years to pay teachers who aren’t actually teaching, and that’s on top of the $ 65 million it spends to continue paying teachers like Kim who have been accused of wrongdoing.

All of this, of course, is an outgrowth of the protections that teacher’s unions have written into their contracts over the years, especially in large systems like New York and L.A. Because of these protections, it’s difficult to fire a teacher who has been accused of wrongdoing, and it’s impossible to let go of teachers that the system no longer has positions for. Exactly how this improves the quality of education, I don’t know, nor do I understand why President Obama continues to pander to these same teacher unions while declaring war on poor inner-city schoolchildren.

Update: Hit publish before I gave a h/t to The Other McCain