Evaluating teachers

Published October 1, 2013

by Bennie Spencer, former classroom teacher, October 1, 2013.

When I was a teacher, I was evaluated three times during the year. this evaluation was in writing and the principal and I got a copy. Twice by a fellow teacher and once by the principal or assistant principal. Also, during the year I would have surprise visits from an assistant principle. Students classroom work. A teacher is supposed to turn in, each week, a lesson plan for the upcoming week. The principal should return the reviewed  lesson plan with comments. Of course due to weather or school wide programs they may vary, but for the year, they guide the teacher and tell a principal each teacher's readiness for the subject matter and the week coming up. At some schools the principle did not require, did not collect, or did not return the lesson plans back to the teacher.

There are school principals that don't do their job, but you never hear about those. I had such principals.

So, how can we evaluate teachers:

Surprise class visits, classroom evaluations, lesson plans, students work, attendance, attentiveness to the classroom, what more do you need? What is the reason this is not considered, the staff would have to do some work, not just have some numbers.

We need to start taking principal evaluations. Look around, a lot of principals are PR people who give orders.

 

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October 1, 2013 at 8:55 am
Richard Bunce says:

The only thing that matters is how the students are doing...

October 1, 2013 at 11:47 am
TP Wohlford says:

Mr. Spencer -- thank you for your work.

You bring up an interesting thing here -- how do we evaluate teachers? It's kinda funny -- they spend their lives evaluating, giving out grades and making people take exams and such, yet they don't want to be evaluated themselves!

Oh, and as you and I know, they are the most resistant people on earth to taking a class, but I digress....

So we can all think of examples of horrible teachers. The "Jane Cool" is is friends to all students, but doesn't teach a thing and her students wonder why they fail the next level. The "Joe Absent" who has dialed it in since that tenure letter, and whose primary contribution these days seems to be at gripe sessions in the teacher's lounge. I had one in high school that we all knew was going senile, and it took a year to get her out. And so on, and so on.

Teachers always told me that grades and tests were a horrible way to measure academic achievement, that National Honor Society was a bad idea, and that they wished they could find something better. Well, they've said that since Socrates I bet, and haven't found a better method, have we?

So when we evaluate teachers, we kinda are on a karma kick I think -- we can't think of a better system, but we have what we have. I mean, in a perfect world, we'd track students to see how they did at the next level, and evaluate on that, right? IN a perfect world, we'd have a way to evaluate teachers on a "degree of difficulty" when they teach in hostile environments. But, until someone -- an educator perhaps? -- comes up with a better way, the best we can do is... you got it... tests and grades.