At Last! An Evidence-Based Rebuttal to the GE Approach

One of the most frequent suggestions we hear from corporate types on independent and international school boards is for the school to adopt a General Electric (GE)-style rank and fire program. Invariably, these board members point with admiration to Jack Welch's vaunted (and just as invariably mis-represented) practice as former CEO of GE of ranking his personnel and lopping off the bottom 10% every year. "I just don't understand why we can't fire the bottom quarter of our teachers every year," is what one person said during a recent board retreat.This item from the Financial Times debunks the usefulness of the Welchian approach; in fact, GE itself has abandoned the practice. "Assessment and grading demanded thousands of hours of tedium from executives who hated doing it." Finally, someone says it!