Shedding Crocodile Tears for Principals

When teachers were under the gun, principals by and large were all for "accountability," since it gave them even more obscene power than they already had over teachers they didn't want.

But now it is different. Now "reformers" want principals to be held accountable, even to the point of them doing busy work like observing teachers seemingly 24/7. Principals, who by and large can't be fired from their jobs, want us to feel sorry for them for being overworked:

The direction of education reform – and the requirements of the federal government’s Race to the Top competition in particular – means numerous states are now planning to use tough new evaluation systems based at least in part on student growth, tracked by value-added test scores.

But as the first states begin implementing these systems on a broad scale, some are encountering pushback not just from teachers – which is somewhat expected – but from principals and other administrators.

In some cases they question the practicality of the new system, and in others the entire premise on which it’s built. And even a few supporters of rigorous – and high-stakes – teacher evaluations wonder whether rushing them in might backfire.