Monday, October 15, 2012

Evaluating Teachers


Here's an interesting article. 

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: Want to Ruin Teaching? Give Ratings

A government-run teacher evaluation bureaucracy would be a disaster for the teaching profession — and thus the future of public education — in our country.

http://nyti.ms/OzYWzt

I work in a private school where my Head of School has the power to hire and fire and my Head of Upper School has the responsibility to evaluate the effectiveness of individual teachers. I like this because the US Head knows me as a person and as a teacher. Every year he helps me to reflect on what unique traits I bring to my job and what areas I CAN improve. Do we want to be taught by robots who all act and respond the same way? Should different classrooms be different because of the unique personality of the teacher? Or, do we want to set minimum standards and hope that teachers reach higher on their own? (Seems to me that all of these questions can be applied to evaluation of student performance as well)
I wonder what you think about this article and what teacher evaluation looks like at your school. 

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