And from the superintendents...

I haven't heard if this is something our superintendent is doing, but it seems that the superintendents are pointing out how arbitrary some of the "turnaround" limits are:

San Francisco schools superintendent Carlos Garcia voiced the frustrations of many in the room, asking Duncan why two years was set as a target, noting that he has some principals who are making great progress at turning around their schools, but have been in place longer than two years.

"They are doing phenomenal things," Garcia said, as his colleagues in the packed ballroom cheered him on. "I'm supposed to fire them."

Garcia, citing his own experience as a turnaround principal, said it took three years before he saw real change at the school he led, which became a Blue Ribbon school. Making changes in staffing and programming took time, he said. The new regulations, he said, may make it harder to recruit principals for high-needs schools.

"If it's going to be two years, how are we going to get people to do that work?" he asked.

Duncan responds in part by saying what he wants " is get the best educators in the country to go to the toughest schools."
Hello, Secretary Duncan? Cogitative dissonance? I know educators have a reputation of being self-sacrificing, but if you really think that teachers are going to line up to work at schools at which they can be arbitrarily fired, schools, by the way, which are already incredibly difficult workplaces, then you think the teaching profession is made up of martyrs.
It isn't.