Education

[nic]

54 minutes ago, nic said:

Same way we do in industry I would guess. Performance appraisals and rankings. I am not sure how this is currently done in schools. Seems like it is mostly years of service with standard pay raises. In the engineering services world, it's easy to see who generates a good product and whether it's done in a timely manner. Customer feedback counts and we actively seek that out. If an employee is not measuring up they go on a Performance improvement plan to try and correct the issues. If they go uncorrected they are let go. If the average raise is 4%. Employee raises range from none (very few people here) to 6 or 7% for the top performers. Bonuses can be given out at the end of the year too. 

 

Seems like school admins should be able to evaluate talent. 

 

When I was coming through a school system behind 5 older siblings a lot of the same teachers were still in the system and it certainly seemed like the parents knew who the good and bad teachers were after that many years.

The laughing emojis made me laugh. Are you all thinking ..."yeah good luck with that"? Maybe that is something we need to work on.

[GSG]

57 minutes ago, nic said:

The laughing emojis made me laugh. Are you all thinking ..."yeah good luck with that"? Maybe that is something we need to work on.

 

Yes and no. I'll say first, that I do agree that there should be some sort of evaluation standards to keep good teachers and weed out some of the "bad" ones. I also don't have the answers either. But putting together a standard evaluation for teachers is going to be nearly impossible. 

 

 

[BigRedBuster]

2 minutes ago, GSG said:

 

Yes and no. I'll say first, that I do agree that there should be some sort of evaluation standards to keep good teachers and weed out some of the "bad" ones. I also don't have the answers either. But putting together a standard evaluation for teachers is going to be nearly impossible. 

 

 

Why?  Just about every other profession does it.  Why are teachers so special in this situation?

[GSG]

Just now, BigRedBuster said:

Why?  Just about every other profession does it.  Why are teachers so special in this situation?

 

The number of variables are insane. How are you going to measure whether the product is "good" each year? 

[BigRedBuster]

1 minute ago, GSG said:

 

The number of variables are insane. How are you going to measure whether the product is "good" each year? 

You don't think that's a factor in other professions?  Doctors are evaluated.  You don't think there are tons of variables in what they do?  What if one year they have way sicker patients than previous years?  What if the nursing staff isn't as good as before? What if the hospital isn't fully staffed? and on and on and on.

 

This argument is a cop out by the teacher's union.

 

Now, the standards need to heavily come from the teaching industry.  What do THEY believe makes a good teacher?  I am friends with local teachers.  They're always talking about XYZ teacher sucks.  So....they know.  But, all we get from the profession is....."you can't evaluate teachers".

[RedDenver]

3 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

Why?  Just about every other profession does it.  Why are teachers so special in this situation?

Other professions do it, but that doesn't mean they're good at it. 

 

3 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

You don't think that's a factor in other professions?  Doctors are evaluated.  You don't think there are tons of variables in what they do?  What if one year they have way sicker patients than previous years?  What if the nursing staff isn't as good as before? What if the hospital isn't fully staffed? and on and on and on.

 

This argument is a cop out by the teacher's union.

 

Now, the standards need to heavily come from the teaching industry.  What do THEY believe makes a good teacher?  I am friends with local teachers.  They're always talking about XYZ teacher sucks.  So....they know.  But, all we get from the profession is....."you can't evaluate teachers".

There's a teacher shortage - how are evaluations going to help? It's not like getting rid of the "bad" teachers is going bring more people into the profession.

 

[DevoHusker]

6 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

 

There's a teacher shortage - how are evaluations going to help? It's not like getting rid of the "bad" teachers is going bring more people into the profession.

 

 

Aren't you in favor of strict mandating evaluations of police officers? To weed out the bad ones? (although I think you have said there are few/no good ones?)  Even though there is as big a shortage of cops? Why is teaching different?

[BigRedBuster]

3 hours ago, RedDenver said:

Other professions do it, but that doesn't mean they're good at it. 

 

There's a teacher shortage - how are evaluations going to help? It's not like getting rid of the "bad" teachers is going bring more people into the profession.

 

Don’t get rid of the bad ones right now. Reward the good ones though. Keep them motivated and feel appreciated. 

[nic]

I agree that appraisals are not easy and not everyone gets them right. For teachers, the admins may actually want to spend time in the classrooms and evaluate. If you have multiple parents complaining every year perhaps you have an issue. They and their kids are the customers. 

 

My high school had one man teaching Geometry. He was a nice man but a terrible teacher. Every parent, kid, admin and teacher in my small town (600 kid high-school) knew it. He taught my oldest brother (15 years older than I) down to me and beyond. At least 20 years of being a poor teacher....maybe 30. There was no way to avoid him since everyone took Geometry. I am pretty certain folks knew he stunk at his job within 5 years because my older brother knew when he went through school. I am pretty sure he retired there. I am not sure how this happens but it does. I am also sure every school has a story like this.

 

I mentioned my kid's 4th grade math teacher doing fractions incorrectly. I was going to show the admins her incorrect corrections of my son's tests, but it turns out I didn't have too. Someone else must have.  It was a charter, and they didn't renew her contact. There was another teacher that same year and same grade who stepped down mid year. She had a problem with humiliating kids and I suspect a number of parents were upset. My kid was so afraid to get the wrong answer in class that he ended up learning to listen, study and come prepared. It was strange situation because I thought she taught the content of the class very well and my kid actually ended up benefitting from her methods, but I suspect a lot of kids had PTSD from the class. 

 

Anyway, some examples that are easy to spot. I don't want to sound negative so I will finish by saying that my kids have had many great teachers and so did I. Teachers that they (and I) will remember. Ones that taught them how to learn and made them want to learn. We took the time to tell those teachers what a phenomenal job we thought they did for my kids. If fact my wife and I told a HS writing teacher this at the last parent-teacher conference. She made my kid who hated writing love to write. It doesn't get better than that.

[funhusker]

The evaluation process would need to be bullet proof.  Absolutely Perfect!

 

Teachers assaulting students can and should be fired.  So the police comparison can be thrown out from the get go.  
 

But with parents and admin more than willing to throw us under the bus, I’m sorry if I have my doubts on what it would look like.

 

 

[Lorewarn]

Yeah I don't see how you can reliably evaluate teachers in a conducive way. Too many variables, too many subjective perspectives to evaluate from.

[teachercd]

7 hours ago, funhusker said:

The evaluation process would need to be bullet proof.  Absolutely Perfect!

 

Teachers assaulting students can and should be fired.  So the police comparison can be thrown out from the get go.  
 

But with parents and admin more than willing to throw us under the bus, I’m sorry if I have my doubts on what it would look like.

 

 

You are nuts!

 

It is totally fair that a kindergarten teacher would get harshly evaluated and lose money/job because one of the parents complained that their son was not the "line leader" that week!  That teacher deserves to be OUT OF A JOB.

 

And seriously, a HS math teacher that has a student that scores an F on a test because instead of studying and trying...was out in a Best Buy parking lot hanging with friends...that teacher needs to be gone.

[teachercd]

Where is this insane idea that teachers are not getting evaluated coming from?  We are not firemen, we are evaluated all the time.

 

Informally, I am evaluated every single class period by 25 students.

My email is always open to receive questions/comments/concerns by staff, parents and students.

 

A new teacher to a building will generally have 3-5 formal evals in 9 months.  Which I can pretty much guarantee is way more than most jobs over that same time frame.  A formal teacher eval looks like this

 

1.  Submit a lesson plan

2.  Submit a time/class for evaluation

3.  Admin comes in for the length of the class

4.  Follow up meeting to discuss the evaluation

5.  Sign both copies of eval

 

My boss (bosses) can literally come into my room and sit there and watch me work, for as long as they want.  Again, I am guessing that happens to none of you non-teachers.  I bet none of you have had your boss come into your office and/or cube and sit next to you for 40 to 90 minutes, while writing things down about what you are doing.

 

 

[teachercd]

6 hours ago, Lorewarn said:

Yeah I don't see how you can reliably evaluate teachers in a conducive way. Too many variables, too many subjective perspectives to evaluate from.

Most "bad" teachers are gone after 3 years (I did my masters thesis on it, wanna read 35 pages of the most boring info ever???). Ha

 

I think, if anything, the "bad" teachers are usually more burnt out and riding out the last few years.  I have seen that happen.  

 

 

[DevoHusker]

7 hours ago, funhusker said:

The evaluation process would need to be bullet proof.  Absolutely Perfect!

 

Teachers assaulting students can and should be fired.  So the police comparison can be thrown out from the get go.  
 

But with parents and admin more than willing to throw us under the bus, I’m sorry if I have my doubts on what it would look like.

 

 

Teachers do assault students...we read about it all the time. Yes, those should be fired.

 

What mental abuse. What about verbal abuse. What about racist seating charts? What about classist or social economic favoritism? How about misogyny?

 

Those all happen as well, and aren't so easily seen from outside the building.