What is the Best Way to Evaluate Teachers?

[blutoski]

I've already had this happen to me, and I've been teaching for less than a month. So it's something to keep in mind.

This is essentially what turned me off of teaching after I did a couple of years' volunteering to help a highschool teacher do Biology 12.

I didn't like hanging around with 16-year-olds and their petty social competition when I was 16, and I learned I liked it even less as an adult.

Anybody who thinks students will evaluate their teachers objectively is living in a fantasy world.

 

[Vortigern99]

I've found, in my extensive three months of substitute teaching and three weeks of longterm teaching (), that most students are respectful, honest and genuinely interested in learning.

Then there is a middle strata of indifferent, apathetic students, and a tiny fraction (say 5% of the whole) who are lying, disrespectful troublemakers.

Make of that what you will.

 

[blutoski]

Incidentally, Duncan recently announced that 80% of the nations schools are 'failing'. Can that possibly be true? I don't believe it.

It's possible for very high values of 'pass'.

It's entirely up to the person who's evaluating them to define the pass/fail threshold.

 

[blutoski]

How about using standardized tests to evaluate teachers?

The assumption being that if they do not understand the subject matter, then they would be less effective teachers of that subject matter, and shouldn't be allowed to teach it.

The problem is that the assumption seems unjustified.

Subject matter expertise is necessary but insufficient for teaching the subject. Teaching is its own skillset, independent of the subject matter being taught.

(How many of us have had a ****** math teacher who was a PhD in math? - I did)

My personal opinion is that the most important teacher skill (but not the only important skill) in highschool is classroom management.

 

[blutoski]

Abolition of tenure? Sure. To better enable school systems to remove teachers from their positions when those teachers' levels of performance drop to (or below) marginal levels. Also, to help prevent those instances when students register complaints against a teacher, only to be told "Our hands are tied; she has tenure", and get sent back to the same teacher for even more abuse or indifferent treatment.

I'm not sure I've ever heard of a teacher getting away with 'abuse' because of tenure. Tenure just means the accuser and administration would have to prove the abuse really took place before terminating the teacher (not an unreasonable situation, in my opinion).

Probationary (untenured) teachers can be dismissed without proof of wrongdoing, is the difference. ie: without cause.

 

[Dancing David]

To demonstrate that not only do they know the subject matter as it stood on the day of their first content exam, but to also demonstrate that they've kept current with any changes, omissions and amendments to the subject matter.

While we're at it, let's abolish the tenure system.

Wow, while we are at it, what about principals just firing incompetant staff, they can. So why don't they?
Why not fire the principals and the superintendants?

So which standardized test is there for class room management skills?
What standardized test is there for teaching to low, middle, high?
What standardized test is there for coping with behavioral issues?

 

[Dancing David]

Abolition of tenure? Sure. To better enable school systems to remove teachers from their positions when those teachers' levels of performance drop to (or below) marginal levels.

And how is that preformance measured, so it does not become just crony favoring?

Also, to help prevent those instances when students register complaints against a teacher, only to be told "Our hands are tied; she has tenure", and get sent back to the same teacher for even more abuse or indifferent treatment.

When, where and what happened Fnord?

Put it out there, did they go to their schools board, what exactly was the issues and when did it happen.

Most contracts allow for discipline, remediation and termination. So exactly what happened, when and where?

 

[Malerin]

The problem is that the assumption seems unjustified.

Subject matter expertise is necessary but insufficient for teaching the subject. Teaching is its own skillset, independent of the subject matter being taught.

(How many of us have had a ****** math teacher who was a PhD in math? - I did)

My personal opinion is that the most important teacher skill (but not the only important skill) in highschool is classroom management.

This is true in all the grade levels.

 

[mikeyx]

I used to think that if the majority of students in a classroom failed some standardized examination, that the teacher should somehow be held accountable. Now, after a series of well-publicized strikes (as reported in the CNN article, "Why America's Teachers are Enraged"), I am no longer certain that teachers are the sole cause of student failure.

Yes, it really does take some of us a little longer to see the obvious, but that is not the point I am trying to make, so please don't bag on me for not seeing it sooner. This quote from the article is what gave me that oh-so necessary "DOING!" moment:



So let's say that more than half of a fifth-grade class has failed some standardized exam, and their teacher, Mrs. Strawman, is facing removal from her position, in spite of numerous reports of how compassionate, dedicated, motivated, and knowledgeable she is.

What factors, aside from Mrs. Strawman's ability and willingness to teach, could be measured, how can those measurements be made, how should the measurements be reported, and what should be done about the findings?

I would really hate to see yet another another generation of teachers get the shaft while the next go-around of the latest educational theories and their applications fail, especially when the future lives of the students (and their teachers) are at stake.

Results and or Witch hunt, failure is punished by trial by ordeal. We're not midevial enough any more.

 

[chrisgarneau22]

There are bad teachers but I don't think we have a bad teacher epidemic. I think the bigger problem is performance descrepencies by relative SES levels of respective school districts.

 

[Dancing David]

Thank you!

 

[mikeyx]

I used to think that if the majority of students in a classroom failed some standardized examination, that the teacher should somehow be held accountable. Now, after a series of well-publicized strikes (as reported in the CNN article, "Why America's Teachers are Enraged"), I am no longer certain that teachers are the sole cause of student failure.

Yes, it really does take some of us a little longer to see the obvious, but that is not the point I am trying to make, so please don't bag on me for not seeing it sooner. This quote from the article is what gave me that oh-so necessary "DOING!" moment:



So let's say that more than half of a fifth-grade class has failed some standardized exam, and their teacher, Mrs. Strawman, is facing removal from her position, in spite of numerous reports of how compassionate, dedicated, motivated, and knowledgeable she is.

What factors, aside from Mrs. Strawman's ability and willingness to teach, could be measured, how can those measurements be made, how should the measurements be reported, and what should be done about the findings?

I would really hate to see yet another another generation of teachers get the shaft while the next go-around of the latest educational theories and their applications fail, especially when the future lives of the students (and their teachers) are at stake.

Taser toting goon squads

 

[themusicteacher]

Move to the back of the bus, musicteacher. Schools are becoming businesses, it's known as the charter school movement, and O has appointed a big cheerleader as Sec. of Education, Arne Duncan.

And, in NY, there was recently a big flap when Major BooBerg (the snow sweepers showed up late in the last storm and the mayor's ratings tanked) just replaced the outgoing Chancellor of Education, pulled out of the business community, with Cathy Black, from business, Black and Decker or some such, with no education experience at all as his replacement.

Incidentally, Duncan recently announced that 80% of the nations schools are 'failing'. Can that possibly be true? I don't believe it.

I suppose I should have discerned between "education" and "school" but the merits of the argument are the same and I noticed you didn't refute them.

The only reason schools are becoming more like businesses is that people erroneously believe they should or even can be like a business. They can't. At least schools with real educational goals flunk some students or tell them they can't graduate. A school run like a business will be a diploma mill because they'll just be doing what the customer paid them to do: graduate them. They didn't pay for an education, they paid for the piece of paper that says they got an education. This is the real problem with for-profit schools: they treat students and parents like consumers and only want to please them. Real education is about proving to the teacher you can do it the right way and that you understand the material, not "getting what you paid for" unless you are committed to learning.

 

[Dancing David]

Um charter schools are not doing that well, they need extra money and special screening of students to function. The for profit movement has died.

ETA: Saggy has long left the thread.

 

[MummRa]

I love reading all the amazing arguments in this thread. You folks put the nail on the head better than I ever could.

I love teaching my kids, but it is very hard to get them involved if there is no follow-through at home. For my money, parent involvement (and how much parents value teachers and the educational pursuit itself) is the thing most necessary for student success. When the student, their parents, and I can work as a team, things go very well and 95% of kids improve. When parent support is lacking, and the student's motivation follows suit, unfortunately in many cases there is little I can do.

And yeah, I think using one test score to grade kids (and teachers) is BS. I teach dirt-poor English Learners who are miles behind the rich white kids (whom I've also taught). For most of these kids, the only thing keeping them from rich-kid achievement levels is the fact that they have only known English a few years, and their parents (half of whom can't even speak English) are away all day working 3 jobs so they can keep their home.

And don't even get me started on kids who bomb the test because they were mad that day, or stayed up all night playing Halo and then came to school on an empty stomach. Oy.....

 

[INRM]

The last thing we need is holding parents accountable. How would you enforce this? This just sounds like a great way of justifying more government surveillance into the lives of American citizens