I Haven't Had a Good Laugh in Years

Principal "accountability"? Are you shitting me? With extremely rare exceptions of criminal wrongdoing, it doesn't exist.

The few who are caught committing misconduct make newspaper headlines. Even some who are caught committing egregious violations, as one such principal at a Las Vegas charter school, end up doing better than ever. The Vegas principal ended up working for Clark County School District although her administrative license has been suspended for 100 days.

The worse these cretins are, the better they do.

This is the problem in a nutshell:

Yet the situation at Wilson High School is not unique. When Lee McCaskill was principal of Brooklyn Technical, one of New York City's elite high schools, he was responsible for creating such rancor among teachers who questioned his decisions that many of the best transferred. McCaskill was the subject of several columns in the New York Times in 2004 and 2005 ("Principals' War Leads to a Teacher Exodus," and "A Bully on the Wrong Side of the Principal's Desk"). McCaskill not only was unscathed by the criticism and publicity but was defended by district officials. In fact, he was allowed to retire days before the completion of an investigation into his daughter's improper enrollment in a Brooklyn elementary school.

I expect that Cahall will be treated with similar deference. The truth is that principals have enormous power as a result of the state education code, board of education policies and court decisions. Unless principals are blatantly incompetent, they tend to remain in their jobs. Nevertheless, principals can be evaluated using multiple measures. The most obvious is the progress that their students make on standardized tests from year to year. They can also be assessed by their own faculty. Every year, United Teachers of Los Angeles uses principal surveys for this purpose. Parents can be included in these surveys. Finally, the ratings of those above principals in the chain of command should count.

Reformers, however, prefer to lambaste unions for protecting lousy teachers. Where are they on the issue of lousy principals?

I'd like to see U.S. school systems adopt the Norwegian model where the TEACHERS select the principals and vote at the end of the school year whether to retain them. That would stop the widespread abuse and wrongful terminations of thousands of teachers because nobody is closely supervising these assholes.

By the way, take a look at the comments following this article from the WP.

Let's hope Michelle Rhee is sent packing.