For some reformsters and accountability hawks, the dream remains the same– find those Bad Teachers, fire them, and replace them with Awesome Teachers. Crack the accountability whip and fire our way to excellence.

We have discussed some of the obvious flaws with this approach. How do you even define a Bad Teacher, and is it a permanent condition or a day-to-day variable? How do you find your Bad Teachers if you are using a crappy invalid system like test-based VAMification? And where is your magical tree that is so ripe with a limitless supply of Awesome Teachers?

There’s another reason that this approach won’t work. We can start to see it if we ask the question, “Why is the Bad Teacher bad?” But so far that has led to more criticism of teacher preparation programs.

So let me trot out, again, my favorite W. Edwards Deming observation. It’s not a quote exactly, because he made the point several ways without ever reducing it to a handy aphorism. But here’s the basic idea:

So you’re firing the deadwood in your organization. Was it dead when you hired it? Or did you hire a live tree and then kill it?

Source: CURMUDGUCATION: Why You Can’t Fire Your Way To Excellence