Georgia on teacher evaluations: Legal risks in using student reviews
I reported last week that the US DOE is concerned about changes to Georgia’s Race to the Top plans, changes that could cost the state $33 million of the $400 million education reform grant.
One of the federal agency’s concerns was that Georgia wanted to put less focus on student surveys, piloted this year in some Georgia districts. I wrote about the evaluations a while back.
You can read the US DOE letter here.
According to the AJC, Georgia Schools Superintendent John Barge has responded to the feds, saying he will not implement a teacher evaluation system that might not work and could lead to lawsuits.
The AJC reported:
Barge, in a letter to Ann Whalen, who oversees the federal Race to the Top program, said attorneys for Georgia schools determined that including student input in teacher evaluations is legally risky.
“I will not waste taxpayer dollars to defend a system that we have been warned will not work, ” Barge wrote.
Georgia’s pledge to implement a new teacher evaluation system was part of the reason it won a $400 million federal Race to the Top education grant. Tinkering with its plans for that system got a $33 million chunk of that grant money placed on “high risk” status by the U.S. Department of Education.
In its winning application for Race to the Top funds, Georgia officials said they would implement a teacher evaluation system that includes student surveys of teachers.
“The grant application was written by a different administration and was Georgia’s best estimate of how we needed to proceed in order to achieve the goals outlined in the grant application, ” Barge wrote.
Georgia officials now believe the surveys, particularly from students in kindergarten through the second grade, should not be used as an official part of the evaluation system and should, instead, be informational. They have said the surveys from young students are likely to be uniformly positive, and they have questioned how appropriate it is for students to have a role in evaluating their teachers.
Teresa MacCartney, deputy superintendent for Race to the Top implementation in Georgia, said the state is concerned about potential legal action from teachers if they are denied a raise or face sanction because of student surveys, which, in the state’s initial plan, would account for 10 percent of a teacher’s formal evaluation. “Our legal counsel has advised that, without changes, we will subject the state to a potentially highly litigious situation, ” Barge wrote.
The federal government granted Georgia’s request to drop the student surveys from students in kindergarten through the second grade, but it wants the state to demonstrate more clearly how it would use surveys from older students.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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76 comments Add your comment
teachergirl
July 9th, 2012
10:15 am
I am wary about student surveys. I was part of a beta group for surveys in my middle school homeroom, and a student who often got in trouble in my class and others flat out told me that he was going to give me a bad eval and tried to get others to do so. I know that is one bad experience, but sadly, some students will base evaluations on emotions not facts.
Nikole
July 9th, 2012
10:17 am
Surveys should be informational, but not 10% of an evaluation. Even in upper grades. I can see kids giving bad evaluations because their teacher gave them detention, or silent lunch.
Tony
July 9th, 2012
10:18 am
This is a classic example of how the feds bully states into compliance with their insane ideas. Give me a break! Student surveys have no part in teachers’ evaluations. Period!
Ashley
July 9th, 2012
10:28 am
Troublemaking students evaluating teacher…….hmmmmm let me think……..stupid idea. What is wrong with you people!
justbrowsing
July 9th, 2012
10:29 am
I say forfeit the 33 million- and do what is right in Georgia. There are so many dedicated teachers in Georgia. IMO Arne Duncan’s ideas are based on his experiences with Teacher’s Unions up north.
Attentive Parent
July 9th, 2012
10:29 am
John-The student survey is designed to be applicable to the Positive School Climate and the new definition of student achievement in that NCLB waiver.
For the feds who have the template for how Common Core is really supposed to work Race to the Top and the NCLB waivers and the school improvement, quality assurance, and accreditation policies and practices in the classroom are all tools for hiding the controversial change the child component of Common Core.
The teacher eval is merely to prevent the teacher from closing the door and teaching content. Wrecking full implementation of the real Common Core once again.
And I say that having spent the weekend tracking what Georgia is doing to USG to try to be an early implementer of the Bologna Process and Lumina’s Degree Qualifications Profile. It announced its plans in November 2011 and it relates to changing the nature of college so that a Common Core high school degree will mean college ready. So many moving parts.
At least we have a State School Super trying to do right by Georgia’s teachers and schoolchildren.
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/rigor-relevance-and-relationships-the-new-3rs-to-get-to-a-caring-economics/ is a post I just finished as part 2 of what got a lot of play all over the world this weekend.
There is such a hunger for solid information on what is really happening in education, K-12 and higher ed, globally.
Back to documenting the use of accreditation as the driver of transformative change and the enforcer for what is expressly a political vision. Education is only a tool.
MathTeacher
July 9th, 2012
10:36 am
I worked as a long-term substitute in a Race to the Top school last Spring. My students had to fill out surveys evaluating my effectiveness as a teacher–which would have been part of my evaluation if I were a contracted teacher.
Most of the kids completed the survey in less than three minutes, quickly bubbling in the highest or second highest rating in every category–they just wanted to get done with it.
One highly competitive girl who had recently received a 97 on her progress report, gave me the lowest scores possible on fairness in assessment and grading–she was still mad about that 97!
One group of girls who had gotten in a lot of trouble for talking nonstop all semester (and who had gotten in trouble with their parents after I called) gave me the lowest possible scores on “treats all students fairly and treats all students with respect,” though they gave me excellent scores in everything else.
Finally, another small group of kids who had spent most of the semester in ISS for every possible infraction, gave me the lowest possible scores in every single category.
You should have seen the look of triumph on the faces of the kids who gave me bad reviews–they were having their moment of revenge! It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so scary! All I could do was thank them for their input–and be glad that as a long term sub, it didn’t matter for me anyway.
MathTeacher
July 9th, 2012
10:43 am
One more thing about the surveys–I felt that it was important that the students’ input reflected their group’s opinion of me. So if Sally hated me because she got in trouble, her best friends hated me too. Woe to the teacher who has to punish a popular kid–in one class where I taught a popular, athletic boy who got in trouble a lot, all the girls with crushes on him rated me as “unfair.”
These are kids we are talking about–I would have done the same at their age, I have no doubt!
vince
July 9th, 2012
10:48 am
In turn, how do you all feel about teachers who get written up, put on professional development plans, etc…completing a survey to evaluate administrators.
Just sayin’……
Fred in DeKalb
July 9th, 2012
10:49 am
Students are not skilled at conducting evaluations, especially at the lower grade levels. What value would one expect from evaluations based primarily on emotion? I’ve seen problems with evaluations given by adults from teacher workshops.
I agree with the comments that they should be conducted and used for informational purposes.
Howard Finkelstein
July 9th, 2012
10:59 am
Student surveys? This the best they can do? Pitiful! Pitiful, sad and in about 3 years this will be deemed to have been an awful idea.
justbrowsing
July 9th, 2012
11:00 am
They say that it will be ony a cross section- so even if all of the students take it- only so many will be counted.
another view
July 9th, 2012
11:05 am
Recall a student asking about how teachers can be fired and how he and a previous class got a teacher fired. Comment made because he did not like the grade he had in class- even though he earned it.
Road Scholar
July 9th, 2012
11:05 am
It was stated that the money was received based on allowing the reviews to be considered. No you don’t want to use the reviews. Turn down the money…not because Barge had a change of heart and “under a different admin”, but because you are no longer honoring what you said you would do on the application! Ethics?
In a different editorial, a web site was furnished for professor evaluations at colleges in this state. Read the reviews…those college kids can’t spell, or make a complete sentence. They all focused on how easy/hard the instructor was; not what they had learned! What makes you think a second grader can make meaningful comments?
Old School 36
July 9th, 2012
11:06 am
@Math Teacher: I agree with your experience. As a middle school teacher I experienced some of that type of “group” mentality because I would discipline a member of their group which sometimes meant ISS. Those friends would see me as being unfair, etc. However, the majority of the students were glad to see that disruptive student removed. We have yet to participate in these surveys. I appreciate that Dr. Barge seems to stand up for for teachers.
Prof
July 9th, 2012
11:13 am
@ Math Teacher. Not at all your fault since you haven’t set up the method of administering the survey, but……… Teachers being evaluated should have NO contact with the students as they evaluate. The teacher certainly shouldn’t be able to tell who has written which evaluation. This totally negates the worth of the evaluation. The evaluations should be completed anonymously, by computer if possible.
To me, the real legal problem of basing pay raises and job sanctions on student evaluations is that our legal system is based on the idea that the accused has the right to face and answer his or her accuser. This is not possible with student evaluations, whether for grades 3-12 or for college. Then there is the subsidiary question of whether the evaluator is qualified to evaluate given such high stakes, especially in grades 3-12.
As for vince’s question about faculty evaluating administrators, that certainly seems justified…. faculty do it at the college level all the time, anonymously of course.
TimeOut
July 9th, 2012
11:16 am
Most teachers remember at least one student who returned several years later to say “thanks” to the teacher who was willing to require academic effort and good conduct from him or her. This same student may have ‘rated’ negatively his or her teacher while still a student. It’s nothing short of incredible to see the stupid piled on top of stupid that has become our nation’s approach to education. Even if not an experienced, successful teacher, couldn’t any person with half a brain discern the idiocy of including such surveys for anything other than informational purposes in evaluations? I remember doing such evaluations in college. At the time, we were made aware that these evaluations were for our professor only, not to be seen by anyone else. I found that useful. I felt it safe to give real feedback, negative or positive. We already have students who expect us to do nearly all or all of their work for them and then to find a way to pass them since NCLB has resulted in everyone but the student having to answer for his or her lack of interest or effort. It would be lovely to think that all students come to school to learn and that they truly wish to conduct themselves in a civil manner; instead, many have only social and/or nutritional goals—I”m here for the free lunch and for the opps to hang with my friends. It is lunacy to incorporate this fallacy into the teacher evaluation system. Even teachers’ evaluations of administrators should be informational…………..sometimes someone has to be the bad guy, making or enforcing the unpopular choices of the those we’ve elected to our board.
MathTeacher
July 9th, 2012
11:20 am
@Prof–I agree, and was surprised that I was to administer surveys to my own students. I would say that most of the students didn’t care about the surveys at all–it was another chore. As a Race to the Top school, we were testing them and surveying them weekly, sometimes daily, and they were fed up with the whole process. But the kids who had a bone to pick were HAPPY that I was in the room, they wanted me to see their surveys. They made a point to hand them to me with a look of triump!
–Power to the People! ha!
catlady
July 9th, 2012
11:22 am
So, GA DOE and governor see the pitfalls NOW of prostituting oneself (the kids) to the federal dollar john. What happened to being responsible? What happened to planning ahead? Another big FAIL for GADOE and Deal.
MB
July 9th, 2012
11:24 am
@ Vince The teachers on PDPs should be recognizable in their comments, wouldn’t you think? And, as I have noted before, those should be outliers. How fair do you think it is that teachers’ evaluations be conducted by administrators who may have very little classroom experience (or, in some cases, NO regular classroom experience)? If those administrators don’t have some type of building-level evaluation, how will you identify problems in leadership (hopefully early in their administrative tenure). The new evaluation system is putting MUCH emphasis on administrative feedback on teachers; how else will you know if the evaluators are qualified if teachers can’t evaluate them as well?
another view
July 9th, 2012
11:28 am
@MB and Vince- there are sometimes questions as to the merit of the PDP in and of itself. I have seen it. It truly has been an instrument of abuse. Often because one disagrees with an administrator.
catlady
July 9th, 2012
11:29 am
I might add my system was one that prostituted itself (sold its soul, really) to get millions of Reading First dollars. The only trouble was, Reading First was based on false assumptions and its “research based best practices” turned out to be made of hot air. (I asked, in exasperation, at one point to see the research on those practices as they relate to ELL kids. Long silence. Then told there WAS NO research on those kids and what worked for them!) We have 8 or more years’ worth of kids whose reading comprehension is poor, but By God! they can “call” any word you put in front of them!
vince
July 9th, 2012
11:30 am
@ math teacher….ooohhhh…yeah, Prof is right. The surveys should have been administered by a 3rd party, preferably a counselor or AP, at computers away from the classroom. Our AP administered all of ours.
redweather
July 9th, 2012
11:30 am
I have had students complain about my not letting them earn a grade for completing a teacher evaluation; other have suggested that I could improve my evaluations if I did so. Need I say more?
While student feedback can have value, at least in the upper grades and college, basing any part of a teacher’s “formal evaluation,” especially if that evaluation is tied to pay, is highly questionable and may be counterproductive. If a teacher knows his or her salary will be affected by student evaluations, there is an obvious insentive to please students rather than hold them accountable.
hardworkingteacher
July 9th, 2012
11:32 am
OMG! Stupidity to the nth degree! With all the budget cutbacks, layoffs furloughs, do more with less programs, let’s just close the doors to the school and let the the chips fall where they may. Teachers are held to higher standards than elected officials who earn triple pay,
redweather
July 9th, 2012
11:32 am
others; incentive
Mountain Man
July 9th, 2012
11:35 am
I am sure the students would rate a teacher very highly who help them cheat on tests. APS should make out relly well.
Fred in DeKalb
July 9th, 2012
11:36 am
I wish an evaluation could be done of the DeKalb School Watch website. I’d give it an F because they censor comments that are contrary to their viewpoints. It did allow differing opinions at one time however it seems those hosting that site did not like the fact the some understood the laws associated with education. It makes a big difference what one can and cannot do, especially when earmarked dollars are involved.
MB
July 9th, 2012
11:38 am
@ another view. My point is that if there are only a few disgruntled teachers in the building, negative feedback should be outlier and an administrator’s overall evaluation should be positive. My guess is that if an administrator is using PDPs as a personal punitive measure, a majority of teachers will be dissatisfied and further investigation would be warranted. We have had MAJOR admin changes in my system and there are some poorly-qualified admins who, IMHO, should not be evaluating what they can’t do (or have not done) themselves. Some of them, due to their lack of experience, are trying to manage by fear and intimidation. Teachers in those buildings should have a voice to let others know (anonymously – see fear and intimidation?) what is happening. Teacher transfers are not always an option, and may be jumping from one fire to another. I think the survey of teachers should be more than informative in the leadership evaluations!
vince
July 9th, 2012
11:40 am
My question was to merely shed light from another angle onto this situation. We rail against the idea of disruptive and unhappy students evaluating their teachers performance yet I suspect many would not see a problem with poor teachers evaluating their administrators.
….unless, of course, you would believe that there is no such thing as a poor teacher.
Mountain Man
July 9th, 2012
11:42 am
I think a better idea is to let teachers evaluate the administration. If a Superintendent gets too many black marks, off with his head!
Mountain Man
July 9th, 2012
11:43 am
Also let teachers fill out an evaluaion of the parents. Too low and the Parent has to go to jail.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
July 9th, 2012
11:43 am
“I will not waste taxpayers’ money to defend a system which we have been warned will not work.”
KUDOS, Dr. Barge.
Our SSOS is going to pick his battles. John’s not going to fight for a flawed system developed and promoted by a prior administration. Can anyone blame him?
But please do not infer from his statement that John won’t fight. He’ll fight in administrative hearings and in the courts for honesty, respect, accountability and discipline in our public schools.
living in an outdated ed system
July 9th, 2012
11:44 am
What will be even more pathetic is if the DoE decides to give the $33 million to Georgia and take their explanations. Even if valid, you can’t win an award based on a certain set of promises and then decide that some of what you applied for was “not accurate.” Maybe it’s unfortunate, but Georgia does not deserve the $33 million at this point.
Clearly, Georgia did a horrendous job not validating some of their “assumptions” from all angles BEFORE applying. Of course if it triggers lawsuits, you can’t go with it, and so you lose the $33 million. End of story.
Mountain Man
July 9th, 2012
11:47 am
We flounder around trying everything new under the sun looking for the “magic bullet” to easily improve education, but never give the old tried and true methods a chance (i.e. parental and student responsibility). Bring back the “F”s and Zeros!!!
another view
July 9th, 2012
11:49 am
Students could care less about your instructional and planning practices- as long as it is fun. Some students can, and will be, purely emotional, mob mentality oriented, opportunistic beings when evaluating teachers.
catlady
July 9th, 2012
12:03 pm
another view: Actually, I think students COULD NOT care less about your practices.
living in: I think Georgia, with its effort on RTT NOT being led by experienced teachers, just said anything they thought would get them in, whether it had been carefully considered or vetted, or not. NOW the chickens are coming home to roost, and we know what chickens do when they roost, right?
Prof
July 9th, 2012
12:04 pm
@ MB, July 9th, 11:24 am and 11:38 am.
I agreed with your latter post. But in answer to your 11:24 am fear that “teachers would be recognizable in their comments,” teachers have either college or advanced degrees and are usually clever enough to disguise their writing styles.
I know I was when asked to evaluate my chair, with whom I had some professional disagreements. Become colloquial if you’re usually formal! Avoid the pithy phrase you always use at department meetings! Use short direct sentences if you usually favor long ornate Germanic-style constructions full of semi-colons!
another view
July 9th, 2012
12:09 pm
thanks catlady- It should be “could not care less”
catlady
July 9th, 2012
12:14 pm
Another view: I once listened to a friend, the head of recreation at a nursing home, talking to a woman about going on a field trip. He: You say you don’t care to? Does that mean you WANT to go or you DON’T want to go!
LOL
Competitive
July 9th, 2012
1:02 pm
Why is it taking some people this long to figure out how stupid the idea of student evaluations is, anyway? Anyone who supported it should be fired for incompetence immediately.
Also, I appreciate Barge’s stance on this.
Michael Moore
July 9th, 2012
1:26 pm
Since the use of student evaluations has been piloted in Georgia, what does the research say? Were the surveys valid and reliable. In fact, the whole piloted teacher evaluation system…what’s the data tell us?
long time educator
July 9th, 2012
1:37 pm
There is a place for student surveys. When I taught middle school gifted language arts across 6th through 8th grades, I asked the 8th graders who were moving on to evaluate the three years of classes and used it to improve instruction. It was not too personal to me, but I asked them what their favorite unit was, their least favorite unit, how I could do a better job with upcoming 6th graders, Academic Bowl, Honor Society, etc. It was a written survey and I expected them to write a response, but they often ended up discussing among themselves as they completed it. They did it in front of me; joked about unpopular assignments and praised their favorite literature selections. I remember one 8th grader who wrote that he hated the old fashioned language of Dickens’ Christmas Carol when he started out, but after reading it together as a class and explaining the antiquated style, it became his favorite book that we did together. I wanted them to be honest and they were never mean spirited. It became one of my favorite activities and I really did use many of their suggestions. They knew it was not to criticize me, but to improve the program.
Elizabeth
July 9th, 2012
1:41 pm
I will sue the parents of every student who affects my evaluation if this comes to pass. And I will sue any BOE who publishes my evaulation for the public or parents to see.
Tony
July 9th, 2012
1:49 pm
You know, all this stuff being rammed down our throats from the feds, extremely wealthy, and business elite reminds me a lot of the old story , The Emporer’s New Clothes. Whether it be Common Core GPS, PARCC assessments, Race to the Top, Value Added Measures for teacher effectiveness, or any of these other components called Ed Reform. Does anyone else see that the emporer is naked?
long time educator
July 9th, 2012
1:51 pm
Another point: I was a school administrator for 8 years. Throughout the year, parents called to complain, ask questions or make comments about different teachers. My standard answer was, “Have you talked to Mrs.X about this?” and if not, please talk to her first. Then I would not leave it up to the parent and I would have the teacher call the parent to straighten out what I was sure was a misunderstanding. I usually never heard any more about it. BUT, a former administrator advised me to keep a folder on each teacher, and to throw every parent complaint or comment in that folder. Over time, you will see that some folders have nothing but happy parent comments and some begin to bulge with the same complaints. This is where it is fair to make it part of the Duties and Responsibilities evaluation and address weaknesses with a PDP. This is also why it is true that every administrator knows who his problem teachers are without all these artificial hoops that take up so much time.
Jerry Eads
July 9th, 2012
1:51 pm
Bravo, bravo, bravo Mr. Barge. Incorporating student ratings into teacher hire/fire decisions simply reduces the process to a popularity contest (not far different from the worthless process we now have in place). As with so many other “reforms” based purely on some incompetent’s not even half-baked bad ideas, there is NO research that suggests firing teachers by student ratings would make for better learning. There may be a glimmer of hope for Georgia’s future yet.
YES, there is a place for student ratings. I too have learned a great deal from their feedback, and I’ve tried hard (hopefully successfully) to use it to make myself better in the classroom. But to be fired because I refuse to make life easy for someone who wishes not to work doesn’t strike me as the way to save American education.
Laurie
July 9th, 2012
1:57 pm
I don’t think numerical evaluations, particularly those from very young students, should play any direct roll in determining teacher pay or anything like that, but I do think that good teachers seek frequent feedback from students and parents, and sometimes that might be best done in the form of a survey, including perhaps an anonymous survey.
AHSPerspective
July 9th, 2012
2:13 pm
This year our school implemented student evaluations for our feedback in anticipation of the changes that were coming down the pike. Administrators never saw the results, but we were to write a reflection. This took place at the end of each semester. Some students (not all) tried to use this as a power play or intimidation factor. When collecting projects or assignments they they didn’t have they would comment that they wanted to know when they were going to evaluate their teachers because they wanted to give certain teachers a bad evaluation. It didn’t make too much of a difference because I knew the evaluations didn’t mean anything at that point, but I did bring it up to the administration that I didn’t appreciate students trying to bully or intimidate me.
Hall Native
July 9th, 2012
2:31 pm
Ah but puppet master and Deal neighbor Will schofield, superintendent here in Hall county, said in the Gainesville paper that the GADOE will ‘get in line’ in order to get federal dollars.
Barge will fold to his former boss again as he always does.
http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/m/section/6/article/69841/
another view
July 9th, 2012
3:09 pm
@longtimeeducator: I understand that you were honest in your assessments, however, there are times when the administrator’s focus targets one individual and those complaints are retained, while other complaints are excused- depending on the teacher involved.
Attentive Parent
July 9th, 2012
3:30 pm
Hall Native–I was in a meeting with Schofield a couple of years ago. It was his comments that led me to recognize that the Georgia Performance Standards were intended to be Transitional Outcomes Based Education. Keeping them and adding the Career Pathways for all and the soft skills/Positive School Climate mandate now gets Georgia all the elements to be classified as Transformational under William Spady’s definition from the 90s.
Or Spence Rogers, his former partner. I mention Spence now because the charlatans from Charlotte who are living now at the expense of Fulton County taxpayers announced that they had brought Rogers’ version of Outcomes Based Education with them.
It’s called PEAK and is part of Avossa’s campaign to close the gap between Fulton and Dekalb or APS. Down the drain Fulton goes in the tragic method for closing the gap.
teacher&mom
July 9th, 2012
5:18 pm
For those who insist education should operate like a business…
Read the link below and look for the parallels to what is going on with the current changes to teacher evaluations.
Grading employees as top performers, average, poor, etc. may have not been in the best interest of Microsoft.
A few quotes from the link:
“Eichenwald’s conversations reveal that a management system known as “stack ranking”–a program that forces every unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, good performers, average, and poor—effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate.”
“Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed–every one–cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,”
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1359
teacher&mom
July 9th, 2012
5:23 pm
Interesting comment that follows the Vanity Fair article. Again…consider the parallels to current education reforms.
“As someone who spent 7 years in Microsoft until recently, I cannot state strongly enough how dead on correct this article is. I see some defensive postings below such as “What about XP?!” when the fact is that Windows ME and Windows Vista were two of the worst OS’ ever released. The stack rating system is one of the absolute worst management techniques I’ve ever encountered. As the article says, it pits team member against team member (e.g. one of us MUST die regardless of how we do as a team”). Innovation requires taking risks and stepping outside of the box. The stack ranking system pretty much ensures that neither take place – people do not take risks and instead focus each day on how to SURVIVE vs. how to make the Microsoft more Successful. If you try to push for new ideas and new processes, you are simply labeled a troublemaker and will soon be culled from the herd. The middle management layer is Microsoft’s Achilles heel – a bunch of frightened rabbits not wanting to do anything to risk their career path at Microsoft.
Ed Johnson
July 9th, 2012
7:29 pm
Kudos, Dr. John Barge.
cris
July 9th, 2012
7:45 pm
Don’t mind surveys….as a tool for improving my teaching, not to determine my “rank” or “value”. Hoping Barge is really willing to stand up for teachers and do the right thing…I’ve a feeling RttT is going to be very painful and counter-productive. (As an aside….administration barely finished the KEYS evals on a limited number of faculty this year as a pilot – don’t think it’s going to work when they have to do everyone.)
Taxpayer and Teacher
July 9th, 2012
8:33 pm
@chris, I agree. This is too cumbersome to really be effective. Besides, my high school students read on the third grade level, so if you give them an on level survey they won’t be able to really comprehend it. Unless reading level of the students are considered, this will be a waste of time. How can a seventeen year old student who reads fluently on the level of a third grader really understand what they are being asked? Actually, how can students in SPID, MOID and ESOL classes be expected to evaluate a teacher? Most of these kids do not comprehend what true instruction should look like. Please, try something more realistic. Don’t blame corporate America for this nonsense. There is something called a feasibility study that I have not seen anybody try and adopt or use. I have not seen anything done according to a true project management and business analysis plan or model since I switched over to education.
Proud Teacher
July 9th, 2012
8:33 pm
By all means, let’s let the inmates run the asylum!
MB
July 9th, 2012
9:20 pm
@ Prof Point taken on the anonymity of comments. Most surveys would likely be relative scales, anyway, I’d guess, and if you had 3 or 4 out of a staff of 100+ who gave more than one score of less than 5 to an administrator, you’d know there were likely personal issues.
I’d think central office would need (if not want) to know of administrative issues in school buildings, and patterns among staff of low rankings would seem a way to target potential problems, yes? (And, while we’re at it, having central office staff evaluated by the folks they are intended to support might deter the “pass the trash to county office…” phenomenon. Hope springs eternal!)
Prof
July 9th, 2012
9:59 pm
@ MB. I think that what’s key on an administrative survey is to have a section where write-in responses are allowed….not just a Lickert scale instrument.
“Personal issues”— or fairness issues or governance issues may account for scores of less than 5.
A poor rating on one evaluation survey may be an anomaly, but if it’s given two or three years later for the same administrator with similar results that’s something else again.
teacher&mom
July 9th, 2012
10:27 pm
What is the cost of the surveys? It would be interesting to see how much money has been invested in the survey development and how much the DOE expects to spend to collect and distribute the data.
Personnel cost at the local and state level. Snazzy iPads for administrators to collect the data during observations, etc.
One has to wonder how far 33 million will go to cover the costs for the entire state….not just the RttT districts.
MB
July 9th, 2012
10:49 pm
@ Prof Funny you should mention that. We had an admin survey last year in my system and they couldn’t even tell us who we were evaluating! When we asked if it was to evaluate our supervising administrator, our principal or our downtown coordinator, we were told to just pick one. That would have been fine IF there was a place to note on the survey WHICH position/person we were reviewing, but there wasn’t. Also, it was only a Lickert scale – no comments taken.
From what I’ve heard since, the message taken from the survey was that many Downtown thought people in the schools weren’t doing their jobs and we in the trenches felt that Downtown had no idea what was happening in schools. Reactions to some principal surveys ranged from principals expressing disappointment in results (and asking for more input) to principals calling meetings for their staffs to berate them (collectively) for their responses. How exactly is public humiliation leadership? (And yes, those principals remain in their buildings…imagine the morale there!)
NTLB
July 9th, 2012
11:27 pm
Teachers who give out easy A’s and require minimum work of their students will be the only winners of these surveys.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
July 10th, 2012
2:23 am
NTLB,
Teaching, like parenting, is not a popularity contest.
I despised my best-teacher-ever when she first taught me in the fifth grade.
I also depised my best-Granny-ever for a couple of years after I no longer required her peach-switch therapy.
Jena
July 10th, 2012
10:09 am
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO GET THE HECK OUT OF WHAT I TEACH IN MY CLASSROOM!
yes
July 10th, 2012
11:29 am
Most students will base their evals on how they feel about the teacher. Students don’t get mad because the teacher failed them. It’s how these teachers treats them. Some of these teachers lie like dogs on these kids. They give these kids grade based on how they feel about them. There are some dirty teachers out there and this will weed them out, or make them get there act together.
Those who will be reviewing the surveys should be able to get a pretty good idea of the teachers character and teaching skills from this.
Great idea!
yes
July 10th, 2012
11:36 am
To the teachers who are on here-if you know that you are always doing the right and fare thing toward students and adminstrators you have nothing to worry about. God always takes care of the righteous. To those low down dirty teachers-God distest sins against defensless children. GOODBYE-LMBO
Dr. Monica Henson
July 10th, 2012
11:56 am
longtime educator posted about administering student surveys in order to get honest feedback and improve the course for future students. I did the same both as a middle and high school teacher–it is amazing the thoughtful critique that many students will provide you, which can yield a wealth of improvements over time. Some of my most successful instructional techniques and strategies I used in my classroom came from surveying my kids and asking them for their feedback and ideas. I initially started doing it out of desperation to try to figure out why so many of them didn’t do homework or simply copied other’s work. I was working on my National Board Certification and analyzing my practice. The survey evolved into a series of classroom discussions (not too lengthy, as to preserve instructional time) that profoundly changed the way I viewed myself as a teacher and led to substantial improvements in my classroom practice.
I don’t necessarily agree that student evaluations need to be factored into K-12 teachers’ job security; however, if a teacher knows that many kids and not just the disgruntled few would “nail” him or her on an evaluation, it might not hurt to look in the mirror and starting asking, “How can I make my classroom a place where as many kids as possible want to be?” and “How can I make changes in my own behaviors, assignments, etc., that lead to improved student engagement and increased learning by my students?”
Dr. Clete Bulach
July 10th, 2012
4:47 pm
I always used student evaluations when I was a teacher. They were always right on target and very helpful in becoming a better teacher. I used a process called “force field analysis.” Basically, I wanted to know what forces I had going “for” me and “against” me being the best teacher possible. So, I always asked my students to do the following” On piece of paper the following was written: Complete these two sentences as often as you wish:
Dr. Bulach is a good teacher because . . .
Halfway down the page the second sentence was
Dr. Bulach would be a better teacher if . . .
Yes, there were some students who ripped me and I expected that and discounted those were obvious out to get me. The majority were valid honest evaluations of my teaching. This whole process of teacher evaluation is explained in our book in Chapter 2.
Brandon D.
July 10th, 2012
5:11 pm
To say that students should have input into their teacher’s pay or job status with a school district is one of the more insane ideas I have heard when it comes to educational reform. I understand the need to find the most qualified and best teachers, but to say that the students themselves are going to give 100% honest answers is wishful thinking. Also, the only information you are going to retain from a student survey is the students’ feelings about a teacher. If the student liked them or not. There is no way for a student to evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher, because they have never been one. Even high school seniors do not have the qualifications to decide how effective a teacher is.
Why does it seem that every idea to change education is about changing the teachers?
Education has gone from a system of putting blame on children and parents for bad grades and subpar performance to putting all the blame on the teacher. Your child didn’t feel like doing their homework and did not study and got a bad grade on a test, well that is okay, just go talk to the principal and blame the teacher and you are sure to get another chance at the test. Nevermind the fact that the student wasn’t prepared.
Should teachers have high standards to live up to? Absolutely.
Should a teacher’s performance have any input from their students? No.
Should administration review or pay more attention to a teacher who has students constantly complaining about how the teacher treats them or teaches them? Absolutely.
I am not saying students should not be heard, but to gauge a teacher’s effectiveness on how well they do their job on a group of student’s opinions (because that is all you will get) is wrong.
It is idealistic for people to think students will give you honest answers all of the time and that students are informed enough to grade a teacher.
NTLB
July 10th, 2012
7:52 pm
@Dr. Spinks, teaching SHOULD not be a popularity contest, but in most cases it IS. What do you think Teacher of the Year selection is about? The most demanding teachers are the ones that get astrocized the most by parents and students who want the highest grade possible with the most minimum work possible. I can vouch for this myself.
Prof
July 10th, 2012
10:07 pm
@ MB, July 9th, 10:49 pm.
Wow. Your system must think that its administrators are interchangeable. I would say that the only thing it shows is that “Downtown” knows nothing about surveys or even common sense.
MB
July 10th, 2012
10:58 pm
@ Prof – It often seems that way. When the economy improves, if some things don’t change dramatically, there may be a major exodus of school-level educators from our system. Being told “you should be grateful to have a job,” no matter how poorly you are treated, only works as long as other viable jobs really don’t exist. When those jobs are re-created…no loyalty has been instilled! (i don’t feel this with my current assignment and administration, but definitely have before – and know others still in that situation. NOT. GOOD.)
Dr. Monica Henson
July 10th, 2012
11:03 pm
NTLB: Teachers of the Year are voted on by their fellow teachers, which I have always found ironic because it excludes student voice, and most teachers rarely, if ever, get the chance to see their coworkers actually teaching.
southside teacher
July 11th, 2012
12:28 pm
Here is a letter signed by education researchers and professors at multiple Ga institutions, arguing against the Teacher Keys implementation scheduled for this fall. It has been published in the Washington Post and at EmpowerED Georgia. Apparently, no media in the state is interested so far: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/georgia-professors-blast-teacher-evaluation-system/2012/07/09/gJQAFhSbZW_blog.html#pagebreak
I like surveys, but....
July 13th, 2012
10:28 am
I use surveys to help determine program effectiveness and future goal-setting. I teach a non-core subject and don’t have a standardized curriculum, so I am free to be much more flexible with my instruction. I share the results of the surveys pertaining to programming with parents and students; I add the instructional results when I share with administrators. Every now and then I get hammered by a student for something, but on the whole I benefit from their feedback and knowing that I will eventually be evaluated by the students helps to keep me focused on my behavior, too: staying positive is the key to keeping students engaged and enrolled in the program.