Dr. Crew also made it clear to superintendents that he expects them to remove principals who have not been doing a good job.

The district removed several principals as required by the grants.

The new rules would allow city and state education officials to swiftly and permanently remove incompetent principals from the school system.

Under the contract, superintendents who want to remove principals will have to document their reasons with the annual performance reviews.

Any effort to remove principals based on the new grades could require changes in their contract, according to their union.

And it called on the Chancellor to consider removing principals from the worst 200 of the 1,100 schools in the city.

The tenure process makes it difficult to remove principals or to alter their duties, but tenured teachers in administrative jobs have no such protection.

When he failed to remove principals immediately, he was roundly criticized.

The 1996 school governance law grants him the power to remove principals from their schools for "persistent educational failure."

He said he could not afford to choose poor candidates because union rules made it hard to remove principals.