I was just sent a "did you hear about x?" email about two people I know who have just been hired by the same large for-profit charter school group. What was interesting is that each now has the title "National Director : abc". What was more interesting is that each is on the incompetent side of the performance spectrum. Hiring one says something about the organisation. Hiring both speaks volumes.
"Joe", has a training background. Years ago, he worked for a prestigious institution and left, or was persuaded to leave for lack of effort, lack of initiative, lack of task-completion, lack of follow-through. The widespread if not unanimous view was that he was a "great guy for a beer; don't want to work with him." Joe went to work for a large non-profit; after two to three years, the CEO was pushed out and Joe left with him. The reports were again, lack of effort, initiative, task-completion, and follow-through, and again, "great guy for a beer, don't want to work with him." After that, Joe went to a retailer which offered training packages with their various product lines. Two or so years later, he left. According to him, he did not like having to sell products with or during his training sessions. The reports from others in the retailer's head office : lack of effort, initiative, task-completion, and follow-through and again, "great guy for a beer, don't want to work with him."
And now Joe appears in this large charter school chain as "National Director : Training".
Meanwhile, Suzy was a Site Principal in a middle-of-the-road for-profit group of schools. She was not really responsible for anything other than making sure central office directives were implemented and procedures followed. Her Vice-Principal Academic, Business Manager and Vice-Principal Student Affairs all reported directly to central office. Even her Heads of Department were members of subject area committees which were run by, you guessed it, central office.
Suzy's had been an internal promotion and after five years or so as Principal, she left. There were no announcements before or after, she was just farewelled one graduation. Reports were of someone who was pleasant, but not really noticeable, and she was not missed.
Suzy appeared a year later as Principal of a small, struggling private school and attempted to introduce several of the policies and programs of her former school grouip but without the central office element. She left after two years to join the charter chain as "National Director : Teaching and Learning". Curiously, her replacement at the small school came from the aforementioned group, and again, just as in her hire two years earlier, both the vacancy and any search were unannounced. Suzy's departure was announced in an end-of-year letter to parents, and her program and organizational efforts were described by teachers as "too soon to tell".
So two people who were both characterized by immediate colleagues and others who came into contact with them as mediocre end up becoming "National Directors". What does this say about their new employer? I have two answers to this and one conclusion. Firstly, there may be or must be something terribly wrong with the recruiting, selection and vetting process. Or secondly there isn't, they know what they are getting and have terribly low standards.
Either way, this raises a huge red flag and prompts the question : would any good educator want to work with such colleagues or for such an organization?
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