ST. LOUIS – It’s a little-known fact that school superintendents are among the biggest supporters of teacher tenure reform.

A new poll of Missouri K-12 superintendents bears this out. Sixty percent of the 192 superintendents recently surveyed by the Show-Me Institute favor teacher tenure reform, depending on the specifics.

Why?

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Because the bulletproof-level job protections make it difficult for school leaders to get rid of inept and ineffective teachers. And that makes it far more difficult for individual school principals – who are directly accountable to superintendents – to control who is on their staff. And that directly impact student learning.

“The desire to have greater autonomy over hiring and firing is not singular to Missouri,” reports BeforeItsNews.com. “Nationwide school districts have been adopting a policy tool that – in addition to empowering parents through school choice and more equitably funding students – gives those closest to students greater decision rights over how to staff schools to best serve students.”

That increasingly popular policy tool is known as “weighted student formula.”

Essentially, “weighted student formula” gives more decision-making powers to school principals because they’re the administrators who are closest to the children.

The theory is that principals who have the power to set their school’s budget and to make hiring and firing decisions can then be held accountable for student performance by the superintendent – who serves as the liaison between the school board and the school district’s employees.

At least that’s the idea.

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In practice, however, this approach is “constrained by teacher tenure and collective bargaining rules,” reports BeforeItsNews.com.

One Oakland school principal explained that without limits on teacher tenure, teacher seniority and other union work rules, the system doesn’t work so well.

“Sometimes it feels like we have all the responsibility, but we actually don’t have any of the freedom,” the unidentified school leader said. “If you can’t choose who you’re going to hire … then some of your budgetary autonomy goes away.”

Giving principals “more autonomy over hiring on the front end (can) help mitigate some of the unintended consequences of guaranteed tenure,” BeforeItsNews.com notes.

“Across the nation, several school districts have already taken advantage of weighted student formula and others are exploring the policy’s potential. Missouri school district superintendents have already voiced their desire to have a greater level of autonomy over staffing decisions,” the news site reports.

“Weighted student formula and tenure reform could work hand-in-hand in Missouri to give school leaders more control to use public resources to better meet the needs of students.”

No wonder school superintendents are some of the biggest –albeit reserved – supporters of education reform.