In a school serving families who already feel powerless and alienated from public institutions, the principal may stay for decades. Given that such a person does not conduct meaningful personnel evaluations, teachers who sit and pass out assignments will like teaching at those schools and stay. More energized staff will find the situation increasingly frustrating, and tend to transfer out. Over time, these schools, typically serving poor communities, come to be led by at best indifferent administrators, and they will be staffed with more than their share of at best marginal teachers. The cumulative effect is not merely school ineffectiveness, but a virtual immunization against school improvement processes.
Some schools are wonderful.
Others may require substantial changes before any new program or restructuring process can succeed. Most generalizations about schools fail to consider complex local realities. Seek solutions that have been proven to work in similar situations . There is one national problem about which generalizations are possible. Funding for research and development of programs has been inadequate.