Habits of Highly Ineffective Principals - Debate

Always use the "Nightline Tactic." Whenever someone has a good idea or makes a good point, always call on someone who will disagree with it. Set up committees this way to nullify their effectiveness.

Nightline used to have someone from both sides of every debate, regardless of how stupid one side was. The effect was to take an argument that was 99-1 and make it into a 50-50 argument. What should be obvious is suddenly questionable as people start to think "well, maybe that would work." It was quite ludicrous at times. Equal time, hence equal weight, was given to the reasoned and thoughtful columnist as to the paranoid schizophrenic nutjob.

A corollary is to "always listen to both sides of an argument" since "no one has all the answers." If someone says "Let's focus on practicing basic skills," make sure someone says "We can't drill and kill. We need to teach Critical Thinking."