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When the Policy Hammer Falls »  Breaking the Vicious Cycle of
Meaningless Evaluations   In this editorial, Collin Hitt of the
Illinois Policy Institute argues that strong teacher tenure
protections create a vicious cycle in teacher evaluation:  In a
nutshell: Today, teacher evaluations are not used to inform
personnel decisions. Therefore, on balance, they are not
conducted with earnest (sic). Therefore, they lack accurate
information. Therefore, as poor meters of quality, they have no
business being used to inform school-level policy. Therefore,
they cannot be used to inform personnel decisions.  In other
words, principals are smart enough to know that the evaluation
process itself is an ineffective way to get rid of a bad
teacher. So what do practical-minded principals do? The
editorial quotes Dr. Timothy Knowles of the University of
Chicago:  In interviews with 40 principals, 37 admitted to using
some type of harassing supervision—cajoling, pres