Don't worry so much about protecting teachers' tenure, or ripening the plum administrative jobs they aspire to, or making education cheaper for senior citizens who don't want to pay for "other people's kids."

The Education Equality Project seeks to pay good teachers better and get rid of ineffective ones and hold administrators and parents accountable for children's performance.

David Brooks' recent column in The New York Times makes the case that Barack Obama has been too slow to embrace this group's reforms, that's Obama's taking the easy way out by not taking on the teachers' unions.

That aside, the politics of this movement are fascinating.

Among those involved in the group are the Rev. Al Sharpton, of whom I and other conservatives are not fans; former Congressman J.C. Watts, a conservative favorite; Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, a rising conservative Democrat; and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, who should be a conservative favorite for his willingness to take on education's special interests (i.e., those who put adults' concerns before children's in crafting policy).

I wish this group luck, for the sake of us all (including those grumpy senior citizens, who need to realize that the kids who'll be paying for their Social Security as U.S. lifespans increase are the children the Education Equality Project are trying to help get the decent education they'll need to become productive, tax-paying citizens).