Why do school principles insist on being called Doctor?
 

Have you guys noticed that most people with Ph.D ed's introduce themselves as Dr. so and so?

It is just part of the education culture. Sort of " I put up with more cr@p than you so I am better than you". And you better believe they think they are better than you. Had a school superintendent (and basically a good person) who simply could not fathom that people would not blindly "trust" her.
On the other side, school Principal is usually a lousy job. Somebody is always gonna be unhappy with you no matter what you do. Some handle the job well and some should be fired or shot. Some are just putting in their years to get that high three or five for retirement.

Because they want to get something out of that two weeks work it took to get the degree. (That's how long a friend of mine told me it was going to take for him to write his dissertation for that degree)

It is not just Principals or other school administrators. It is just about every "doctor" that is truly not a Doctor of Medicine. I had a choral director one summer while I was in high school that insisted we call him "Dr. Gabe" (Gabe was his first name). Also, I here ads on the radio for a chiropractor that calls himself "Dr. Dan". :rolleyes:

Okay, I am overexaggerating and generalizing but it seems there are many non-doctors of medicine that love to be called doctor.

Two weeks? Is your friend buying the degree on line? Try doing that at an accredited university in a field other than Post Modernist Tiddlywinks! Get one in Physics or even Art History and then claim that it only took two weeks.

Kerry is referring to how long the said person told him it would take to write his paper to earn his doctorate degree, not how long the whole program took.

I am a teacher and some of the masters and doctorate programs are a joke. You simply pay to get the degree and do very little work to get it. Some of them you don't even write a paper or do research. The universities are simply in it to make money because they know many teachers will take the simplest route. At least for mine, I had to do research and write a 100 page thesis, but it was only for a Master's.

In the Texas public school system, especially within districts larger than 2A, that “Dr.” prefix is more accurately an indication of being a “Droid”.

because they didn't spend eight weeks in evil administrator school to be called mister....

I know a musician who calls himself Dr. just for the hell of it and nobody questions his right to the title.

By the same token, there was a trend on the Northshore here on the Island for female real estate brokers { I will not call them another name } to add the snobbish suffix Esq. after their names.

I had great fun with this when selling my house recently.

How about I give you 3 weeks to show me that you get your PhD from an accredited school? I know my wife got her MSN and had to write some sort of huge paper in a couple of weeks but the rest of the work tool longer than that. Why don't you show me how you do it in 3 weeks?

Doh!! Forgot about that. I hear Nigeria is into selling degrees but even then they do it way faster than in 2 weeks.

Has it ever occured to you the degree they earned is called a "Doctorate" Just because "Dr." is in front of the name doesn't associate them with medicine. "M.D." after the name is more to clue me in with medicinal practice.

My old man hates the title game. He's retired Air Force (29 years active duty), and once, when the president of the local university introduced himself as "Dr. so-and-so," Dad, extended his hand and said, "General so-and-so, but you can call me Dan; pleased to meet you." They worked together professionally for some time, and did become pretty good friends. Love that story.

Just to throw out something else. You can now earn a DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice) and be called Doctor. In fact, from 2012 on, IIRC, All Nurse Practitioners will be DNP. Previously, you can be a Nurse Practitioner with a Masters of Science in Nursing. If you are, you are grandfathered in. If you want to take the fluff courses, you can get your DNP and be called Dr.

Who is this addressed to? I didn't get the feeling that anyone confused THAT kind of Dr. with the PhD kind of Dr.