A must-read: "The Exhaustion of the American Teacher"

[TexasBushwhacker]

6. Not to mention that principals play favorites

New teachers or teachers the principals don't like get stuck teaching the basic classes with slow learners as "punishment". Teachers that they like are "rewarded" with honors students who can practically teach themselves. In Texas, most of the secondary principals are ex-coaches, so they always give coaches good teaching assignments. I had a masters in science education but was never going to get more than one or two periods of biology, my main teaching field, because those classes were set aside for coaches who had majored in PE. Remember the comic strip Funky Winkerbean with the coach that was always showing films? We had a coach that would go sign up for a TV and VCR for every Friday for the entire school on the first day of in-service. But he always got great evaluations because the soccer team got trophies. That was in the days before standardized tests though. I'm sure he retired as soon as he could.