Out of touch administration is certainly not unique to the profession of teaching. In fact, I'd say it borders on being ubiquitous, yet no other industry comes to mind in which the ability of an administrator to fire a subordinate proves to be so problematic. You seem concerned that the wrong teachers would lose their jobs, while I'm concerned that hopefully many of the right teachers (finally) would.
So what makes teaching (without research) so different?
What leads you to believe the supervisors would get it right? The article at the top of this thread clearly indicates they don't.
The article indicates that school supervisors make no distinction between high performing and low performing teachers, and the result is that high performing teachers leave (on their own... which is different from being let go, despite what your re-telling of the article implies). Of course, I know that teacher's unions typically fight evaluations every step of the way, and force pay to be based on objective measures like years of experience and education level, which have little to do with effectiveness. Basically the supervisors do what their teachers' contracts require them to do... and that's the problem.
