“A star figure at the second annual Aspen Institute Ideas Festival - attended by several hundred, mainly liberal intellectual and financial glitterati - was Joel Klein, the former Clinton aide who is now chancellor of New York City public schools. Klein made a riveting case that teachers-union contracts are the main obstacle to improving urban education. “The contract protects the interests of adults at the expense of kids,” he told a rapt audience, describing how it bars pay differentials based on student performance and service in difficult schools; makes it impossible for principals to fire underperforming teachers; and allows teachers to choose their own professional development tracks, regardless of supply-and- demand needs, such as those for more math and science teachers”. –Morton Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.