Featuring the same practical guidelines for ridding schools of incompetent teachers as the 1984 edition, this new edition incorporates substantially revised material on three topics: criteria and information sources for evaluating teaching effectiveness, remediation procedures, and grounds for dismissal. The book presents an eight-step systematic, organizational approach to resolving several interrelated problems: (1) the legal barriers to dismissing tenured teachers for classroom incompetence; (2) the technical problems of evaluating teacher effectiveness; and (3) the human obstacles, chiefly supervisors' unwillingness to discharge teacher evaluation, remediation, and dismissal responsibilities. The eight steps are: (1) establishing teaching excellence as a high district priority; (2) adopting and publishing reasonable teacher evaluation criteria; (3) adopting sound procedures for determining whether teachers satisfy these criteria; (4) providing unsatisfactory teachers with remediation and a reasonable time to improve; (5) ensuring that appraisers have the requisite competencies; (6) providing appraisers with necessary resources; (7) holding appraisers accountable for evaluating and dealing with incompetent teachers; and (8) providing incompetent teachers with a fair hearing prior to making the dismissal decision. The final chapter recommends strategies for creating environmental conditions conducive to success. A commitment to ongoing leadership is essential. An appendix contains the District Evaluation Practices Inventory, designed to be used in conjunction with this handbook. (143 references) (MLH)

Research suggests that hiring and retaining high quality teachers is probably the most important school related factor in providing a quality education for students, as well as improving student achievement. Because of the importance of providing all students with highly capable and qualified teachers, this study explored characteristics of incompetent teachers and barriers to their dismissal to help school leaders better understand, and hopefully reverse, the negative impact caused by incompetent teachers. The three goals of this study were to develop a more complete understanding of: 1) characteristics that cause teachers to be identified as incompetent; 2) barriers to removing incompetent teachers and replacing them with quality educators; and 3) to determine effective practices for working with and dismissing incompetent teachers. Incidence rates, characteristics of incompetent teachers, barriers to the dismissal of incompetent teachers, and effective practices in overcoming barriers to dismissal were examined through the eyes of public school principals in the state of Missouri. Findings were broken down to determine how a principal's gender, level of experience, grade level and size of the school in which the principal serves, and location of the school affect how a principal views teacher incompetence. Findings indicate the most prominent characteristics to be ineffective instructional practices, lack of classroom management, poor relational skills. The most significant barriers to dismissal were reported to be time, laws protecting teachers, and potential litigation. Effective practices for working with or dismissing incompetent teachers included frequent observation and communication, consultation with key stakeholders, meticulous documentation, and the development of effective hiring practices. Results from this study may be used as a catalyst for conversations on changing policies related to teacher tenure. Schools may use results from this study to guide professional development for current administrators on the topic of working with incompetent teachers. Administrator preparation programs may use results to guide learning processes about incompetent teachers for future administrators.