I love listening to school administrators and school board members complain about tenure rules—and how such rules make it hard to fire poor-performing teachers.

That’s because such bemoaning gives me an opportunity to ask a few questions that make folks uncomfortable.

For instance, when one board member complained that her school district just couldn’t get rid of a number of bad teachers, I asked how those teachers had gotten tenure in the first place. She just shook her head and admitted: "Well, our principals don’t like to give bad evaluations because it causes hard feelings and makes their jobs harder."

Duh.

Chatting with a principal one day, we got on the topic of tenure, and he offered a very blunt reason why so many mediocre teachers won this precious job security: In his urban school district, the turnover of new teachers was so high that principals were desperate just to get a warm body into each classroom. And if the teacher stayed around long enough, they got tenure.

Such conversations always lead to the same conclusion: A recognition by board members and administrators that teacher evaluations should be taken more seriously. That teacher retention should be a higher priority. And that somebody ought to be screening teachers before they're awarded tenure.

And yet, a year or two later, nothing seems to have changed for these school leaders—and the complaining goes on.

Del Stover, Senior Editor