They also want contracts of no less than three years, such as those granted to experienced teachers. Mr. Elmore of Harvard said few superintendents in Massachusetts are interested in exerting their newfound powers over principals. At the heart of the fight over tenure in New York City is a disagreement over the role that principals play in the nation's largest school system. The principals' union, the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, says it is inappropriate to cast them as managers who are ultimately responsible for their schools' performance. Principals simply have too little control over their environment, including such factors as student demographics, to shoulder that kind of accountability, union officials argue.
Principals are master teachers.
They are not managers. Mr. Crew couldn't disagree more. If all removal can ever mean is you get to take a person whose skills are lacking and put them in another school, that undermines the accountability system. In New York City, principals earn tenure after five years in their jobs. Besides being fired for certain specified reasons, poor performers can also be assigned to retraining centers or transferred within the system.