The good and the bad

Why is it that whenever anybody makes the fairly obvious point that bad teachers should be removed from the classroom - if, after plenty of support, they simply can't hack it - we're told that this is "demoralising" for teachers? Since those who make this point, as Sir Cyril Taylor, chairman of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, does today, also go out of their way to praise the competence of the majority of their colleagues, it cannot be because they think their critics are anti-teachers per se. And surely it is rather more demoralising for the majority of good teachers and heads to have to cover for their incompetent colleagues until they are replaced?