On Administrators Impacting Student Learning

By far the most significant influence any head will ever have on student learning in his/her school rests in hiring the very best teachers one can find, and retaining only those who demonstrate a high level of teaching competence.

In far too many of our schools the public school standard is applied to rehiring decisions: Is this person bad enough to let go? The question should be: Has this person demonstrated a teaching ability (measured by student learning) that at least comes close to the school's aspirations?

The biggest obstacle is this: You can become very unpopular letting go nice people doing a "reasonable" job, stoking the fears and paranoia of all the teachers, egged on by those who are leaving and their supporters. Suddenly you are the target, and the attempts to undermine your efforts can be ferocious.

The only way to counter this phenomenon is to make it very clear what the bar is for successful teaching at your school; and to constantly reinforce your appreciation of the staff who are doing outstanding work. But no amount of effort will increase the "popularity" of a head making tough decisions on retaining mediocre staff.

My advice (having been a staff target for much of my career): When you look in the mirror every day, ask yourself if you and your principals are doing all you can to ensure that every kid is interacting with effective and superior teachers. Providing this is ultimately your only reward---but it's the only one that really counts!

Kevin Bartlett recently acted on these convictions at IS Brussels:

"The other thing we are trying to do along similar lines (feeling backed by Collins in Good to Great and the Social Sector, who says that it’s tough to get the wrong person off the bus in schools, and that we’ll always make some hiring mistakes. so we must use ‘early intervention’, in other words move them on at the first opportunity) ) is be much tougher about only retaining outstanding teachers at the end of the initial contract. We’ve shifted the emphasis from an implied ’It’s up to the leadership to prove my incompetence’ to ’it’s up to me to prove I’m outstanding’. We use the example of the simple question addressed by Michael and we say, ’this is effectively a rehiring, so it’s up to you to make sure that we want to re-hire you with enthusiasm’.

We’re far behind in this attitude shift, compared to say, Bill Gerritz, who’s been tougher for years, but better late than never.