Bad Teachers ... and Bad Principals

I've pushed teacher led instructional improvement every way I can for years now. I believe that much of the problem in urban systems comes not from bad teachers -- and principals -- but from a system designed to shut out the contributions on the capable folks. But, there are bad teachers and principals, as this post from a school yard blog makes clear.

When I ran for school board, one of the interesting phenomena I encountered was what I call the "bad teacher story." Most people had them, and they were the first things they wanted to talk about. Even the city council member whose wife was a teacher had one involving their children. And the stories were all the same. Not just that the teacher was bad, but that they were warned when they got her (or him) that she was bad by others who had been there before. And, years later, when their friends kids got her, she was still bad in exactly the same ways. And, of course, the principal told anyone who complained that, "I haven't had any other complaints. You're the only ones." Same format, over and over.

I appreciate those who suggest that the bar does a better job of weeding out bad lawyers. Actually, I'm not so sure. We get the truly incompetent and the thiefs (although it sometimes takes us WAY too long and we leave them out there practicing while we work on it, and don't even tell anyone we're working on it!). But, we don't have the informal, "counseling them out" tactics that many principals use. Of course, on the other hand, not many lawyers, at least not in private practice, can survive for as long doing as poor quality work as the "bad teacher" stories indicate.