"Just like any other job..."

And before anybody starts in with the "Teachers shouldn't whine about losing seniority or tenure. In the private sector people have to perform or they lose their job."

I'm going to skip the argument about where, exactly, in the private sector this occurs (remember that time all those bank ceo's trashed the US economy and lost their jobs because of poor job performance? no, me neither), because even without that discussion, the argument is still bogus.

Here's the pitch that's being proposed to recruit new hires:

"Come work for us. You can never have a real raise if you want to keep working for us, though your employment and pay will also be dependent on your performance evaluation. The evaluation will be designed by people who don't know how to do your job, and it will be based on factors that don't have anything to do with how well you do your job."

If anyone can look me in the eye and say that's how they handle hiring at their private sector workplace, then I'll listen to their rhetoric about how teachers have to suck it up and deal with employment the way folks do in the "real world."