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I enjoy the teacher they chose to quote in support of the change:
Quote:
Andrea Brinker, a second-year teacher at Bellevue Middle School in Nashville, said the new plan should have been enacted years ago.
"Teachers expect their students to perform at the level of proficiency," she said, "and, it may sound harsh, but teachers who cannot live up to that same accord should not be teaching."
The difference, as young Ms. Brinker will figure out if she is ever placed in a struggling school, is that teachers aren't able to control all the variables that impact a student's ability to learn and/or preform. It is like evaluating bakers on their chocolate chip cookies and giving some bakers unsweetened chocolate chips instead of the semi-sweet kind that everyone else gets. They may look like they should preform the same, but they sure don't.
ETA: Her school is a charter school that has below a 50% participation rate in free and reduced lunches. Give me a break.
We (TN teachers) have just been told that a student survey will now count for 5% of our personal evaluation scores. Th tripod surveycontains 7 C's (Care, Challenge, Captivate, Confer, Consolidate, Control & Clarify). The pilot survey was given last year to just one of my classes (which happened to be my general Chemistry class). One teacher that changes students every 9 weeks was given the survey 2 weeks into a new group of students. I'd have issues if this happened to me, and while it was just the pilot, it was a little disconcerting.
CARE: nurture, protect, watch over, provide for
· My teacher in this class makes me feel that s/he really cares about me.
· My teacher really tries to understand how students feel about things.
· My teacher seems to know if something is bothering me. CHALLENGE: demand, require, impose high standards
· In this class, my teacher accepts nothing less than our full effort.
· My teacher asks questions to be sure we are following along when s/he is teaching.
· My teacher wants me to explain my answers — why I think what I think.
· My teacher wants us to use our thinking skills, not just memorize things.
· My teacher doesn’t let people give up when the work gets hard.
· My teacher asks students to explain more about the answers they give. CONTROL: supervise, guide, direct, regulate
· Student behavior in this class makes the teacher angry.
· My classmates behave the way my teacher wants them to.
· Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time.
· Students in this class treat the teacher with respect.
· Student behavior in this class is a problem.
· I hate the way that students behave in this class.
· Student behavior in this class is under control. CLARIFY: simplify, interpret, spell out
· When s/he is teaching us, my teacher thinks we understand even when we don't.
· If you don’t understand something, my teacher explains it another way.
· My teacher knows when the class understands, and when we do not.
· My teacher has several good ways to explain each topic that we cover in this class.
· In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes.
· My teacher explains difficult things clearly.
· My teacher checks to make sure we understand what s/he is teaching us. CAPTIVATE: engage, fascinate, intrigue, stimulate
· I like the ways we learn in this class.
· This class does not keep my attention--I get bored.
· My teacher makes lessons interesting.
· My teacher makes learning enjoyable. CONFER: consult, counsel, discuss, coach
· Students get to decide how activities are done in this class.
· My teacher wants us to share our thoughts.
· Students speak up and share their ideas about class work.
· My teacher gives us time to explain our ideas. CONSOLIDATE: unify, strengthen, integrate
· In this class, we learn a lot almost every day.
· My teacher takes the time to summarize what we learn each day.
· The comments that I get on my work in this class help me understand how to improve.
· We get helpful comments to let us know what we did wrong on assignments.
The scales are from 1 to 5, totally untrue to mostly true
While I have no problem being surveyed by the students - or even having the survey count towards my evalution - I have some issues with a few of the questions. I'd also rather the survey be given to all of my students (all classes, both semesters). All of us teachers have seen classes with their own chemistry - a personality that has little to do with the teacher - and that class develops a relationship with the teacher that might be slightly different from another class. I think the more students they survey, the more accurate the resultw would be.
Last edited by Starman71; 08-21-2013 at 05:54 AM..
The hand writing was on the wall, with NCLB, and mandates for being, "highly qualified" for the subjects you teach.
But, I think we all know, that there are some teachers, in every school, who are completely unfit to teach children. My issue with this...many teachers who were surplus, were then shuffled to teach SPED, sort of the "Dino teacher dumping ground", after all, SPED kids can be opt out on testing.
I think they should do it with weathermen. In what other job can you be so wrong so much of the time and still keep your job?
Weathermen?
Please...
State legislators and US representatives and senators should be subjected to an arbitrary "effectiveness rating" to determine their eligibility to campaign for re-election.
All states must do this..tie teacher pay and performance to testing scores.
This is part of RTT which states agreed to when they got their NCLB waivers because not one state in our nation will be able to make 100% passing of standardized testing next year.
It was a lose/lose for states. The Fed won no matter which way states went.
And the Dept of Education has given states a one year reprieve to get this set up because of union and administration pushback. It must be in place in all states/schools by the 2016-17 school year.
So if you don't have it in your state now, it's just a matter of time.
If you are a career teacher then best find that cushy position in a high middle class suburban school in the next couple of years.
I heard they are starting to bring computer based learning programs into the classrooms and have an assistant stand by for concerns. The teacher is only needed to find trouble spots and reprogram the direction of the student or assist until they understand it. Khan Academy is one being used with a lot of success. The future holds some changes for sure. With these programs less teachers will be needed.
I was going to bring that up in my OP, but wanted to give the idea the benefit of the doubt. I've heard several people seriously suggest that we move to computer based learning, but I didn't take them seriously at the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan
I can see it too. K-5 and then online learning at mass babysitting centers for 6-12
There's a big move now by companies to turn higher education into computer based learning through MOOCs(massive open online courses). They're essentially the Khan Academy, but taught with a "superstar" professor. Companies aim to profit off of it, but paying for the initial recording, royalty fees and then just distributing the videos repeatedly. That's what they're trying to reduce learning down to and it wouldn't surprise me if starts becoming normal with k-12. Virtual Academies in k-12 have been a massive failure and oversold yet Arne Duncan believes that they're great and shaking the system up(along with charters and vouchers).
Quote:
Originally Posted by tgbwc
I don't know. With pass rates in the mid 90% range it's pretty easy to drop a few percentages. Not so easy to improve.
It's sad to think that when even suburban schools are affected, policy makers don't bat an eye. VA won't start tying scores to it's evaluation system for the next couple of years, but I'm curious as to how well off communities will respond to them disrupting the public education system. NOVA already tried it once during the 70s.
My system in MD started this year to tie evaluations to scores. The main rub is there has been no roll out period to gauge what is being measured or validity. The school based administrators doing the evaluations and those above them openly admit they don't know what they're suppsed to do.
So, I'm being evaluated this year by people who don't understand the system on groups of students whose abilities range from "Why are you taking the general course instead of AP?" to "I think I spelled my name right this time".
It's sad to think that when even suburban schools are affected, policy makers don't bat an eye. VA won't start tying scores to it's evaluation system for the next couple of years, but I'm curious as to how well off communities will respond to them disrupting the public education system. NOVA already tried it once during the 70s.
They really have no choice. Dept of Education said it has to be in place by the 2016-17 school year.
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