Rupert Murdoch: Schools Can Learn From Idol

Place Rupert Murdoch squarely in the Waiting for Superman camp, the new documentary about how lousy the US school system is. The News Corp. chief takes to the pages of his own Wall Street Journal today to complain that teachers unions and their political cronies are being richly rewarded while students—and, consequently, America—suffers. A big part of the problem is that the current system is more concerned about protecting bad teachers than rewarding good ones, he writes.

"We have chancellors, superintendents and principals who can't hire and fire based on performance," Murdoch complains, which leads to his takeaway quote: "We have tougher standards on American Idol. And so long as we refuse to measure success by what our children are learning, we're going to have higher performance standards for pop stars than for public schools."