The sea change at the New York Times continues apace:

The United States has a long and shameful history of dumping its least effective, least qualified teachers into the schools that serve the neediest children. The No Child Left Behind Act requires the states to end this practice. But the states are unlikely to truly improve teacher quality — or spread qualified teachers more equitably throughout the schools — until they pay more attention to how teachers are trained, hired, evaluated and assigned.

To get control of the assignment process, districts will need to abandon union rules that basically guarantee senior teachers the right to change schools whenever they want — even if the principal of the receiving school does not want them — by bumping a less senior teacher out of his or her job.

Read carefully, folks–that’s the New York Times calling for shedding union rules related to dumping mediocre teachers.  As I’ve stated elsewhere: if even the NYT is getting onboard with this stuff, I’d say the debate is shifting in a positive direction.