Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Having principals from other schools do observations is not realistic ulness the school is very small. My school has abou 70 staff members that would need to be observed. As I mentioned, some people need to be observed multiple times during the year. The prinicpal from the other school would be out of their building way too much.
As someone else menetioned, you could hire people to observe, but that would cost money.
Please tell me you mean "fluent" here? I'm not sure anyone can become affluent on command.
Whoops. Hahah.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam82
Having principals from other schools do observations is not realistic ulness the school is very small. My school has abou 70 staff members that would need to be observed. As I mentioned, some people need to be observed multiple times during the year. The prinicpal from the other school would be out of their building way too much.
As someone else menetioned, you could hire people to observe, but that would cost money.
There's good and bad in hiring people to observe teachers. The good is that if teachers observe teachers, you have to pay a substitute anyway. This way the teacher can at least stay in his/her classroom. The bad is that the observer may be out of touch with what it's like to run an actual classroom (like some principals).
Using testing as a metric for teaching just doesn't work. The system is too flawed. Here is a good example:
We sent our 3rd grade daughter to public school for the very first time this year. After about 5 months, we decided it wasn't working and we brought her back home to homeschool once again. Just the other day, I got a call from the principal asking if we would bring her back in to do the state testing. (In our state, the homeschooling law requires us to use a standardized test and submit the results in 3rd grade. You can either do it on your own, which most homeschoolers do or you can test with your local public school.) When I replied that we would be testing on our own, he asked if we would reconsider - her test scores would be "good for the building".
Hmmm - I found it to be an odd way of thinking about testing. Clearly a principal does have a responsibility for his/her building to do well. But when it becomes the focus, as the comment implies, you just begin to wonder what the educational priorities are. And since we are educating our child at home, it is no indication of what is happening at school. My child would have just been in that building for the test - how silly is that?
Teachers should be held accountable for good practice, but teaching for an entire year to have the results be determined by a test do more harm than good.
I find it interesting that people consider being observed to be adversarial. We need to change that to a positive interaction. A supervisor should be able to help a teacher grow and learn how to provide a stimulating, exciting learning environment that supports a respectful classroom.
It completely depends on the approach to the observation, and that's in any field, not just education. Most people feel it's adversarial when the attitude of the observer puts it within the context of "Here's a list of mistakes," and never frames it as, "What can we do to make things easier and smoother?" A supervisor generally has a role in making the instructor feel as if they're there to help, or if they're just there to find fault/assign blame. It's all in the approach.
The problem I see generally with paying teachers according to kids passing certain tests, is the fact that now the teachers have to teach the children how to pass the tests, which takes away from other teaching. Plus I have heard that the testing itself is very time consuming? Does anyone know about the testing process? (I'm in Mass and I heard it lasts two weeks but I don't know if that is two weeks consecutively for every kid, or two weeks total for the whole school to complete the test) My son is only in Second grade so he doesn't start testing until next year.
It can depend on where you are. The school district where my mother works tests about every 4-6 weeks. One high school tests every week (4 days of instruction, 1 of tests) because they didn't meet a guideline (and the regional superintendant doesn't get along with the head of the entire district).
Quote:
Originally Posted by DonnaReed
Here's the flip side to knowledgeable, experienced, supportive supervisors who want to see their teachers do well and bring the best out of students:
"Bad" administrators who are getting away with murder while all the stones are being thrown at teachers.
Closer attention needs to be paid to administrators...
i.e., principals who are supervising teachers while possessing little to no teaching experience themselves, who come out of these new "Leadership Academies" and other programs (if they know the right folks) with little to no teaching experience, unprepared and inexperienced with the student populations they serve, opening new schools and not even understanding what the teachers they supervise go through on a daily basis...
so busy watching their own backs and trying to make their schools appear to be great, and playing games to that end, like making sure to give at least a couple of teachers unsatisfactories for anything that goes or might go wrong, so they'll have a scapegoat or two AND passing over experienced teachers with proven track records because they're not as easy to manipulate and BS as the "new inexperienced" teachers they hire.
Then when it's time for their (new principal) evaluation, they handpick a couple of teachers and students for the evaluators to talk to and brief them on what type of questions will be asked and what they should say.
It bothers me when folks talk about unions that keep "bad" teachers working. Pulease...I've been in the field a good minute and I've seen some burnt out teachers and teachers who really don't give a damn, but they're few...and sometimes they get along with the principal just fine (and THAT'S why some "bad" teachers get to keep teaching).
I've also seen colleagues, some of the most committed and most well-respected by students, discouraged from teaching at schools where students truly needed and wanted them...and if not for the union could be written up, discliplined, rated unsatisfactory for no reason other than the principal didn't like them or needs a scapegoat.
Somebody needs to talk and listen to teachers who have left schools with high turnover rates, the teachers who quit and go elsewhere or leave the field all together.
The majority of teachers are greatly committed, and busting their behinds, wearing hats ranging from teacher to social worker to counselor and beyond throughout the course of a day, spending their own money from relatively meager "professional" salaries on all kinds of students' best interest items, coming in early, staying late, working weekends, calling parents on their dime...I could go on.
From my experience and observations there aren't enough "bad" teachers for folks to attempt to trash teachers as they do and suggest that "bad" teachers are thee problem.
I think weak, inexperienced, non-supportive leadership and so much political BS are greater problems.
Also, I absolutely agree with Charles that teachers should have more peer interaction, informal observations and evaluations, working together, learning and sharing together.
This is happening in some Charter Schools that are doing very well.
Professional Development and SUPPORT amongst teachers.
I definitely agree with you. In the district where I grew up (and my mother and several other close relatives have taught) some of the biggest problems are linked to the administration. Many of the principals and administrators are failed teachers, and others are just businessmen. Favoritism and croneyism are extremely prevalent, but don't even think of saying anything. Any teachers who publicly complain (write editorials, etc) are often brushed aside, fired, or never really heard from again. At best, the administration is only interested in quick "fixes" that will look good in a board meeting, so the result is more and more testing. I should also mention that many of these tests come straight from the central office complete with typos and erroneous answer keys.
By all means, teachers should be evaluated somehow (how to do this, exactly, I have no clue), but administrators should not be immune. After all, if the teachers teach from a script written my the head office, which is geared to teach to a test written and graded by the head office, and the kids still aren't improving, doesn't it lead one to suspect the script/test as well as just the teacher?
Just too much of a hassle for me. While I always thought of being a teacher, once reality hit I ran the other way. It is by no means an "easy" job, and my guess is that newer teachers coming in (and even most of those who have stuck around) must be truly dedicated to constantly jump through so many hoops.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
