4 ms·

The articles I've found have all conveniently avoided answering the biggest question: why didn't the "adults" running the school figure this out sooner? ideally

The articles I've found have all conveniently avoided answering the biggest question: why didn't the "adults" running the school figure this out sooner? ideally, before she was hired? That the students figured it out is proof it was certainly possible to figure out.

notimetorelax 10y ago
IMHO, two reasons: - Adults are not super humans and can make mistakes - and 17 year olds are as capable as adults. In engineering people frequently ask - why nobody thought about it - well because nobody did.
- paulftw 10y ago
  Part 2 of this investigation should be "whose job it was to check new principal's credentials and and how they profited from looking the other way" Edit: was that person the only applicant? If not why did the process identify them as the most suitable candidate?
  - tbrownaw 10y ago
    Part 2 of this investigation should be "whose job it was to check new principal's credentials and and how they profited from looking the other way" That really shouldn't be taken as a given. "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence." Or by laziness, overwork, miscommunication, etc.
  - blowski 10y ago
    If you're doing root cause analysis of a system failure, you're not looking to blame an individual. If you find something malicious then, sure, deal with it. But assume good faith in all parties from the outset and you're more likely to succeed in fixing the problem.
    - trprog 10y ago
      That's no way to witch hunt.
    - SilasX 10y ago
      True, the postmortem should not be focused on blaming any one person. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't ignore the presence of such crimes or prosecute them!
  - DanBC 10y ago
    > If not why did the process identify them as the most suitable candidate? Because hiring is entirely broken in many industries.
    - TillE 10y ago
      Yeah, but that's just an arbitrary subset of "nearly all processes are broken in most industries".
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    The key answer is in what you wrote: "whose job it was". People do jobs mostly to get paychecks, so like water flowing downhill, will avoid investing effort into anything they can avoid. The students OTOH, had a strong non-monetary motivation driving their efforts, so they obviously dug deeper and more thoroughly.
- deadbunny 10y ago
  Also they said there were a group of students taking weeks to research this, compared with overworked people involved in the hiring process.
caf 10y ago
This article ( http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-06/principal-resigns-after-school-reporters-probe-credentials/8421766 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-06/principal-resigns-afte... ) has a quote from Superintendent Destry Brown: "He said the district, which does not typically ask for official transcripts until after a hiring decision has been made, will likely change its vetting process."
- derrickdirge 10y ago
  What an excuse. He describes a very poor practice that they still failed to follow.
  - moftz 10y ago
    All it takes is just one person in the first spot in her listing of jobs on her resume to fail to properly vet her. Once you start having job experience, people don't look as hard at your resume. Nobody wants to do all the legwork verifying transcripts and calling up references, they just assume someone else down the line did the work. The resume looks impressive but she's not claiming a Harvard doctorate so it doesn't sound totally incredible. I laugh that they can't even find records of her getting a bachelor's. That's when you know someone at her first job was either very lazy to not even verify her or she got in because she knew someone and they didn't bother to check anything.
xherberta 10y ago
To give the adults a little credit, the students may have had more time to work on the mystery. The adults on the hiring committee were simultaneously holding down jobs, maintaining homes, changing diapers, cooking for their families, etc. The hiring committee probably had deadlines for researching the candidates and making final decisions, whereas the students didn't have the same sort of time constraints. (I don't mean to minimize the achievement of the students! But you asked for factors that could have allowed the adults to miss this one.) The woman was probably fairly charismatic to pull this off. The hiring committee surely had several face-to-face meetings with her and was swayed by her charm. The students would have seen her 'fake principal' self rather than her 'job interview' self. They didn't get the full snow job, so they were perhaps freer to think more objectively. Also, I'm sure there's a false sense of safety in numbers for the hiring committee: if one person (or every person) had vague doubts, they might think, "Oh well, everyone else seems to think she's okay."
Digory 10y ago
If you read between the lines, it seems odd to me that the district superintendent "encouraged" the investigation prior to publication. Sounds like a turf war. So if this decision was made by the Board without staff assistance, I can see them being swayed heavily by a female candidate who had international experience. It's the ol' out-of-town expert bias.
cr0sh 10y ago
The next question would be: Are the students going to investigate that question next?

notimetorelax 10y ago

IMHO, two reasons: - Adults are not super humans and can make mistakes - and 17 year olds are as capable as adults. In engineering people frequently ask - why nobody thought about it - well because nobody did.

paulftw 10y ago
Part 2 of this investigation should be "whose job it was to check new principal's credentials and and how they profited from looking the other way" Edit: was that person the only applicant? If not why did the process identify them as the most suitable candidate?
- tbrownaw 10y ago
  Part 2 of this investigation should be "whose job it was to check new principal's credentials and and how they profited from looking the other way" That really shouldn't be taken as a given. "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence." Or by laziness, overwork, miscommunication, etc.
- blowski 10y ago
  If you're doing root cause analysis of a system failure, you're not looking to blame an individual. If you find something malicious then, sure, deal with it. But assume good faith in all parties from the outset and you're more likely to succeed in fixing the problem.
  - trprog 10y ago
    That's no way to witch hunt.
  - SilasX 10y ago
    True, the postmortem should not be focused on blaming any one person. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't ignore the presence of such crimes or prosecute them!
- DanBC 10y ago
  > If not why did the process identify them as the most suitable candidate? Because hiring is entirely broken in many industries.
  - TillE 10y ago
    Yeah, but that's just an arbitrary subset of "nearly all processes are broken in most industries".
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  The key answer is in what you wrote: "whose job it was". People do jobs mostly to get paychecks, so like water flowing downhill, will avoid investing effort into anything they can avoid. The students OTOH, had a strong non-monetary motivation driving their efforts, so they obviously dug deeper and more thoroughly.
deadbunny 10y ago
Also they said there were a group of students taking weeks to research this, compared with overworked people involved in the hiring process.

caf 10y ago

This article ( http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-06/principal-resigns-after-school-reporters-probe-credentials/8421766 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-06/principal-resigns-afte... ) has a quote from Superintendent Destry Brown: "He said the district, which does not typically ask for official transcripts until after a hiring decision has been made, will likely change its vetting process."

derrickdirge 10y ago
What an excuse. He describes a very poor practice that they still failed to follow.
- moftz 10y ago
  All it takes is just one person in the first spot in her listing of jobs on her resume to fail to properly vet her. Once you start having job experience, people don't look as hard at your resume. Nobody wants to do all the legwork verifying transcripts and calling up references, they just assume someone else down the line did the work. The resume looks impressive but she's not claiming a Harvard doctorate so it doesn't sound totally incredible. I laugh that they can't even find records of her getting a bachelor's. That's when you know someone at her first job was either very lazy to not even verify her or she got in because she knew someone and they didn't bother to check anything.

xherberta 10y ago

To give the adults a little credit, the students may have had more time to work on the mystery. The adults on the hiring committee were simultaneously holding down jobs, maintaining homes, changing diapers, cooking for their families, etc. The hiring committee probably had deadlines for researching the candidates and making final decisions, whereas the students didn't have the same sort of time constraints. (I don't mean to minimize the achievement of the students! But you asked for factors that could have allowed the adults to miss this one.) The woman was probably fairly charismatic to pull this off. The hiring committee surely had several face-to-face meetings with her and was swayed by her charm. The students would have seen her 'fake principal' self rather than her 'job interview' self. They didn't get the full snow job, so they were perhaps freer to think more objectively. Also, I'm sure there's a false sense of safety in numbers for the hiring committee: if one person (or every person) had vague doubts, they might think, "Oh well, everyone else seems to think she's okay."

Digory 10y ago

If you read between the lines, it seems odd to me that the district superintendent "encouraged" the investigation prior to publication. Sounds like a turf war. So if this decision was made by the Board without staff assistance, I can see them being swayed heavily by a female candidate who had international experience. It's the ol' out-of-town expert bias.

cr0sh 10y ago

The next question would be: Are the students going to investigate that question next?