By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein compared firing incompetent teachers to prosecuting a murder case in an interview Saturday — and said it's easier to put away the criminals than dismiss the bad teachers.
Klein spoke with London's Sunday Times and said that five to ten percent of teachers are not even capable of doing their jobs, the New York Post reported.
"It's easier to prosecute a capital-punishment in the US than terminate an incompetent teacher," Klein told the Times.
Klein ended his eight year run as chancellor in November and was replaced by Cathie Black, an education policy newbie who has lately drawn criticism for saying that birth control could solve school overcrowding.
During his tenure as chancellor, Klein became a strong advocate for charter schools and told the London paper that the United Federation of Teachers was resistant to the schools because their high performance threatened them, the Post reported.
"The union is going to protect incompetent workers, that is their job," Klein said.
