Recycling Poor Performance

After my post on mediocre hires, I received the following comment. Mediocre, poorly-performing and bad teachers keep re-appearing and that is not good for schools, our children or our future

"I work in a large prestigious private school," starts the commenter, "and the high school section is organized into departments. The previous department chair hired a teacher from out of state. He must have been good on paper because he wasn't in the classroom, in the department, or as a colleague."

The departure of the department chair coincided with the end of his contract. The new chair must have asked for a continuance because he was given a one-year extension, but nothing improved and he was let go at the end of the year. I don't know the official reason, but for the rest of us it must have been lack of subject knowledge, competence, r interest in the students or their progress or perhaps his constant complaining and negativity. There is no way he would have been given a reference. 

The next year he appeared at a small struggling private school, and left during the year. The following year he appeared at a new private school outside the city but still in the county. He left there mid-year as well.

This year, he has been appointed as the Principal of a school on the other side of the country. It looks like he completed a Diploma in Leadership, but he has no leadership experience, no middle-management experience, was fired from one school and left the next two mid-year.

The writer finished with, "Needless to say we have bets on how long this gig will last!"

I think the US has a huge problem in that people will not give references and are prevented from saying anything which might be useful to a prospective employer. One bad experience could be down to a bad fit, but three? I am sure that at least one of the three schools would have done due diligence, and yet he was still hired. Of course, we do not know how many unsuccessful applications this person made, and he may have left off one of the schools while claiming to be studying for the diploma. 

A not unrelated huge problem is that people who are not good at or unsuited to teaching can lose a position accordingly, and then go on to find another. As I have written elsewhere, it should be harder to become a teacher and harder to remain as a teacher and teachers should be much better compensated.

The distressing thing is that the person described above is now a principal. He may turn out to be a good senior manager, time will tell, but somehow I doubt it.

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Further Reading

https://teaching-abc.blogspot.com/2021/02/mediocre-hires.html

https://teaching-abc.blogspot.com/2020/08/yes-bad-teachers-exist.html