The Associated Press reports that yesterday Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told an assemblage of Iowa teachers that paying them according to their performance “could be demeaning and discouraging.” Clinton also fretted about “who would decide” which teachers would receive merit bonuses.

This is leadership? Paying teachers more for teaching well is a pretty clear way to improve teacher quality, which pretty clearly affects the quality of a kid’s learning. Teachers unions don’t like the idea for a variety of reasons (and Clinton needs their political machines to keep her “inevitability” up), including the reason that teachers paid like professionals (i.e., according to individual performance) might see less need for a union to bargain on their collective behalf.

Fortunately for schoolkids suffering from a lack of quality teachers, however, Clinton did boldly propose a way out of America’s educational morass: school uniforms. As my fellow blogger Bret puts it, you can dress up Clinton’s plans for reform however you like, but it is a naked attempt to protect entrenched union power.