The principals have been mostly silent?
many principals simply do not have the time or resources to help the teachers at their school sites become better educators. Just like teachers, they are overworked and the demands on their time too often makes it very difficult for them to help teachers, struggling or not.
It is one of the things that really drives me crazy in the current education debate. I wish that more administrators would start speaking out against the unreasonable demands on their time. I also wish that they would acknowledge that sometimes it's easier for them to keep a struggling teacher rather than to go through the process of hiring someone new.
Yet, their voices have remained mostly silent in this debate.
If we are talking about removing struggling teachers with professional status or tenure, I agree that it is a difficult proposition that necessitates a lengthy paper trail unless the individual has committed a crime of some sort.
On the issue of time, it is incumbent upon the administrator to learn how to manage and prioritize their time. The managerial end of the role can monopolize your time, but it doesn't have to. Effective administrators identify priorities and develop structures and systems that allow them to allocate necessary time to those priorities.
As it is the role of the principal to remove ineffective teachers, so to is it the role of the superintendent to remove ineffective principals. If a principal doesn't have their priorities straight, the impact at the building level will be clear.