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Health & Fitness

School Performance Evaluations - A New Approach Needed

 

As many of you are aware, our school administration has embarked on implementing the new state mandate of performance evaluations for teachers over the next 2-3 years, which they say will have the added impact of culling out poor performing teachers. If any of you have ever seen this evaluation form with its accompanying rubrics, you would need to be a mathematician to figure out how this is going to work and even more, how this will actually provide any speedy relief in dismissing poor performing teachers without bringing down the wrath of the teacher’s union on the school district. You need look no further than the recent case in Michigan where the teacher’s union is supporting a teacher’s severance pay even after he was convicted of raping a student (http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2013/12/12/michigan-teachers-union-seeks-10000-severance-package-for-convicted-child-molester-n1761847)! These unions will support anyone in their union, good or bad and this is just one case of union support of bad teachers throughout the country.

 

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I suggest a novel approach to performance evaluations that not only involve teachers, but also, administrators and students! Teachers should have the right to evaluate their supervisors and administrators in order to properly evaluate the educational process of a school district. Why should administrators be excluded from this process? Who better to evaluate the performance of admin staff than those who interact with them in a close and professional way and carry out their policies? This will also provide critical information about the strengths and weaknesses of policies, leadership and effectiveness of supervisors and administrators. This information always seems to be the “missing link” in evaluating the problems and issues surrounding student outcomes and management. Such an evaluation would, of course need to be carefully structured so as not to encourage retribution of teachers by administration. A system could be developed such that each teacher randomly selects a numbered evaluation form to complete (preferably type-written to maintain anonymity), and then submit by placing it in a marked box (e.g., ballot box) in which only teachers are allowed and confirmed to deposit forms. The teacher would know the number of the form she/he used but no one else would. Results would be tabulated and evaluated by the school committee.

 

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In addition to the above, students should also be given an opportunity to evaluate their teachers on certain performance rubrics and again submitted the same way as those noted above. Our students are evaluated and tested at so many levels, class exams, state exams, as well as national exams. Why not involve them in this process which personally affects them? In this case, school administrators and /or the school committee would tabulate and evaluate the results.

 

Trial and error will be needed to determine the best methods to employ for performing these evaluations. We expect much from our teachers and we should expect no less from our school administrators!





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