ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses a key component in the ways to improve a school: hiring better teachers. The most significant way to rapidly improve a school is to add teachers who are better than the ones who leave. Great principals know this and work diligently to hire the best possible teachers. Some principals look for candidates who are a good match, teachers who will fit in and become like their school. Great principals have a different goal: to have the school become more like the new teacher. If two teachers have different experience levels and different talent levels, the one with more talent will be better in the long run—and most likely in the middle run, and probably in the short run. Exceptional principals consistently value people because they do the right thing for students and for the school, not merely because of seniority or other arbitrary factors.
