An advocacy group that has targeted unions representing service-industry workers and grocery employees is setting its sights on public school teacher unions ? with a pledge to offer 10 teachers it deems the nation's worst $10,000 each to quit teaching. The Center for Union Facts on Tuesday will launch a campaign arguing that teachers' unions block education reform such as teacher merit pay and impose union rules that make it virtually impossible to fire bad teachers. Teachers unions say the group is spreading misinformation. The Washington-based nonprofit group is spending $1 million on ads and a billboard in New York's Times Square, and launching a Web site with data it says it's collected from public records requests documenting what it considers to be the extreme lengths unions go to protect bad teachers.
See "Ad campaign, contest target teacher unions as obstacle to reform", Mark Jewell, Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 10, 2008