No Fair Hearing for You!
1. Unfettered power of principals can be a disaster, particularly with Bloomberg-indoctrinated Leadership Academy grads. Anyone who doubts that can follow the saga of Peter Lamphere, who appears to have received U ratings for the crime of leading his chapter. Peter had to go to court to have one rating overturned, and I believe he still has one outstanding.
2. The current appeal process is a total sham, rubber-stamping absolutely anything any principal says. What percentage of principals are crazy? I don't know, but the very first principal I ever worked for was a lunatic, and much of the staff bailed out around the very short time I was there. No one like that can really judge anyone fairly.
3. The notion of rating an entire school on value-added is a poor one. It would pretty much give the mayor even