Want to Ruin Teaching? Give Ratings

CAT Tracks Editor's Note:

I'll be brief...

...conserving my blood pressure today for the low water pressure in the City of Cairo.

Behind every bad tenured teacher...

...is a bad school principal.

A school principal...

...too incompetent to recognized incompetence (refuting the adage that "It takes one, to know one")...

...or simply too damn lazy to do the paperwork by which a school district CAN dismiss a tenured teacher, teachers' union or not.

We are a product of our personal experiences...

During my tour of duty in Cairo School District Number One, I had more than my share of bad principals...

...hell, had like a dozen in a decade, three in one year...followed by two the next. (Disclaimer: Ain't sayin' that all five were incompetent, but with five principals in two years, something was rotten in CSD #1.)

Had a principal once who stood before his gathering of educator's and admonished them:

"The cost of education has done went up!"

"Done went up?" Yep, even English teachers in Cairo recognized that faux pas.

But...

...they were wise enough to zip their lips.

Because...

...he was the same principal who (when offered input by one of his enthusiastic minions, input with which he didn't agree...mostly because it didn't issue from his mind), he was the principal who reared up off his throne, slammed his hands down on the desk, and roared:

"I have the power of God over you!"

Folks, I can get a witness, several. I don't make this sh*t up! As the adage goes: "Truth is stranger than fiction."

And you know the scary thing...

Aside from his being a thin-skinned, proper-English-impaired bully, afflicted with an acute case of megalomania, he was better than most of his successors.

At least he maintained order in the building so that teachers could teach...

So spare me the announcement that Principals are the silver bullet of education reform. I've seen Principals against whom silver bullets were longingly considered. I've seen principals who inspired thoughts of stakes through the heart (a ray of hope rejected in the reasoned light of the futility of finding such an organ.) I've seen too many principals who lacked, well, principles...educational, moral, or otherwise.

So...

Excuse me if I don't champion the principle of placing my basket of eggs in the hands of such an unknown quantity.

Trust me on this...

...most principals wound up being principals because they couldn't handle the classroom or didn't like the classroom. They did NOT arrive at their position of power with a burning desire to be an educational leader.

Follow the money...