Do you know why the topic of evaluating teachers brings to mind the waiter at my favorite restaurant? Because each time he brings my food, he says, “Careful, hot plate.” 🙂
The topic of teacher evaluations is a hot topic, that’s for sure. In fact, it sizzles! So let me ask you. If you were in charge of teacher evaluations, what changes would you make? In your opinion, what works? In your opinion, what is broken and needs to be fixed? I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
Thoughtfully,
Diane
I work at a private preschool so I don’t know the current ins and outs of public school’s evaluation process. I have a boss who’s considerate and appreciative of what I do. However, I know that is not always the case everywhere else.
The problems I have run into as far as teachers are concerned come with the school my 9 year old is in. He hasn’t been blessed with passionate teachers. To me it seems they shouldn’t even be in the school system anymore if they have no passion for their job.(Administrators included.)
If it were up to me I would ask these teachers, would you have the same job if it meant making even less money than what you are making now?
Money is sometimes the driving force behind what we do…just ask all those billion dollar athletes.
I make enough money to pay my bills and put food on the table. I’m in it for the heart, not the paycheck.
What can we do to evaluate a teacher’s heart? As soon as I have the answer to that one I’ll let you know. I promise it can’t be found on a questionnaire or standardized test.
The best part about this website is that I know I’m surrounded by other passionate teachers. The evidence of that is here every time I log in and see what everyone else is taking time out of their busy schedules to say.
Thank you for this forum!!!
This is in response to a comment by Sarah in her reply to teacher evaluations. I agree that teachers should have passion for educating the students they are blessed with each year. However, do not put a price tag on passion. I am full of passion and cannot imagine doing anything else as I begin my 31st year of primary teaching. However, I do know that if faced with a salary cut, I would have to rethink my passion. Teaching is not known for high salary scales. And yes, I make enough to pay my bills and put food on my table. However, my health insurance cost is over $670/month* to cover my husband and myself. When I retire, that cost will increase to $1300/month* for both of us.(*currently) My husband is self employed; therefore I have always been the insurance provider for our family.We live a pretty simple life style. We do not have a mortgage payment on our house (never have since we did it the old fashion way of save and build; save and build) and vehicles are paid for. There are many passionate teachers who would have to make a very difficult decision of staying for the passion or moving on to be able to support themselves and their families. I feel that comment would be very unfair if presented to a teacher in an evaluation interview/review.
I have had many evaluations throughout my career by both Parents and Directors. 99% of the time I have not had a issue with what was said.
But I have been Blessed with caring Parents and Directors throughout all of them.
Evaluations are not meant to just critize but to show the Teachers strength as well. Often times I have been very surprised at what a Parent thought of my teaching. One even wanted me to run for President.
I teach preschool. When I hear evaluation, it scares me. The person who should do my evaluations is NOT early childhood certified. Luckily she called in someone to help do my eval the first time, but she will not be able to do that again. Evaluator is old school, sit down, be quiet, etc. I am play based, so it gets noisy we’re learning and having fun. Scares me. I had to explain what I meant when I said that the playground equipment wasn’t developmentally appropriate. I was told to bring stuff to the lunch room so my kids didn’t have to walk to my building in the rain. This person does not get early childhood education. Thought I could bring crayons and paper and keep them busy for 3 hours. It scares me to think what might be said after watching us on any given day.
I am one of those teachers in the public schools who are being evaluated under all of the new standards. No I do not like the evakuation process as it is—not only for myself—but also for my kindergarteners who are being tested in ways that are not developmentally appropriate. I have a Masters Degree in Early childhood and I know Dap (Developmentally Appropriate Practice) and these assessments are NOT it.
In response to the person who thinks that public school teachers are not passionate about thier students and that we would not do this job with a pay cut—in or state we were given a MANDATORY pay cut (we had no say in this matter) by our state government and the majority of teachers are still teaching. Oh and public school teachers spend an average of $494.00 per year on thier students. Please do not think that we don’t care are not passionate about what we do. As a matter of fact if we actually got paid what we were worth, it wold rival those sports figures that were mentioned.
Maybe those teachers were stressed from long hours, unpaid summer vacations and holidays, low pay, unruly students, too much paperwork and unfair evaluations!
If you can read this—thank a teacher!
Nerves, a severe case of nerves. Hours of planning, thinking through every little aspect of a lesson. I love teaching, I love planning, I enjoy my students, buy I hate teacher evaluations. Too stressful.
While I agree with the need to be passionate about your teaching profession, where was it written that we should have to live in poverty? My state is 40th in the nation (at the bottom) for teacher pay. Some months, I have to rob Peter to pay Paul in order to get my bills covered. Many teachers in our district have 2nd jobs. It’s hard to stay passionate day in and day out when you’re struggling to keep the lights on, make the car payment, rent (and no I’m not living above my means – I drive a used car and live in a lower income neighborhood along with many of my students)and buy groceries. Sorry, but that’s a fact. To all those who keep up the cry – “If you love your work, you shouldn’t care about your pay” – Shame on you. Why is it that those in public service – teachers, police officers, firefighters, hear that all the time. The public tries to shame us into not speaking up for ourselves. Yet, every other profession is expected to push for raises – to climb the financial ladder.
I have no problems with the concept of teacher evaluations – I have nothing to hide. My students and I do our best – we cover our GLE’s (and still try to have fun doing it. My problem lies in tying teacher performance (and pay) to test scores. Tie my performance to what you see in my classroom – visit it multiple times, take notes – get the overall picture. Observe my students – see how they interact with each other and with me (this is more real world than a standardized test). Look at my lesson plans – what am I teaching? How am I approaching my objectives? Do I reach as many learners as possible using a variety of methods and modalities.
My students are not part of an assembly line and I don’t work in a factory. Don’t treat my classroom as if every child is exactly the same and should reach the exact same goals in the exact same manner as their neighbors. After all, in the “real world”, performance evaluations aren’t done based on someone’s test score. It’s based on what the supervisor has seen the employee accomplish.
Evaluations terrify me! Each year, I have had to be evaluated by an administrator with no background whatsoever in early childhood. My classroom is not the quiet, stay-in-your-seat-at-all-times kind of room. My classroom is an active one.
This past year, I cannot even tell you what my evaluation said or meant. It was full of numbers that made no sense. And my name was spelled incorrectly several times! (I wasn’t the only teacher who had that problem.)
I have never had a meaningful evaluation. Sad but true. But I am passionate, I love my job, and I love my students. I pay out of my own pocket to attend workshops and conferences on weekends and during the summers so that I can keep up on the latest in my teaching field.
I usually spend around $2,000 out of my own pocket each year for teaching supplies. (My district gives teachers only $150 each year for classroom needs.)
Thank you to the passionate teachers out there who give their all each day!
I appreciate all your comments. As one of the evaluators, I am always looking to make teacher evaluations more meaningful. Any great ideas?
I always tense up when my principal comes into my classroom and sits down in the background, then I remind myself that she always offers encouragement and compliments and a helpful tip. Then I ignore her, relax, and continue whatever I was doing with my students. I love it when I’m doing something silly that helps my kiddoes learn and the principal snickers or stifles a laugh.
Well, as early as the 90s and early 2000, there were already academic reporting the major negative effects of teaching evaluation.
I am also an academic which does not believe teaching can be evaluated by students. By nature, there is a conflict of interests. Also, teaching effects can be more explicts in the long term rather than a short term in class.
The current teaching evaluation systems is mainly about popularity of a teacher, not necessarily linking to a teacher’s teaching effectiveness.
There are many stakeholders after a teaching activity, the pararent, the potential employer, the society, and etc. Why there are only students who are not experts in the teaching content to judge whether a teacher is good or not?
An article by a Prof from the Canegie Maloon Universitiy already pointed out the negative effects and irrelevant to have teaching evaluation done by students. However, year after year, people are still using it.
I understand that there is a double convenience for the policy makers to use such a survey done by students. However, as an academic, I truly worry about future development of the society.
Because teaching evaluation, many academic are “forced” to downgrade the requirements and reduce challenge and useful contents. For example, some academics take out “Quality Control” in Operation Management which needs to use statistics that students do not like.
The end of the day, we are producing more and more semi engineer, semi medical staff, semi designer…..
I think that it is about time to stop using “student survey” as the main instrument for teaching evaluation.