How does it come about that we allow students to progress to a higher grade when they haven't met the basic requirements of the grade they're in?
We are told that education is a "progression", which clearly misses the point that students can obviously progress in terms of knowledge from year 4 to year 8 but regress against the standards required at the end of each school year.
How is it that a student can finish year 12 and use "alot", "definate", "had of" instead of "had have" and "your" when they mean "you are" not to mention a use of apostrophes that seems to mirror Brownian Motion? And don't even bring up the subject of basic maths, statistics and science.
Now we have news that the NSW Teachers' Federation wants to take action against the wildly successful website RateMyTeachers because people give negative assessments to their teachers.
Before reading the article, it's worth looking at the comments criteria for RateMyTeachers:
Keep your comments appropriate. Do not state something as a fact if it is your opinion. For example, stating "Mrs. Jones doesn't have a college degree" will be deleted. Please rate your teachers based on your opinion of their TEACHING ability. Please try to provide us with an insight into what is happening in the classroom.The following comments will be deleted:
- contain vulgar or profane words
- are sexual in nature - including 'Sexy' or 'Hot'
- have to do with personal appearance (cute, short, fat, bad clothes, etc.)
- have to do with physical disabilities (stutters, limps, wears a hearing aid, etc.)
- are name-calling in nature (Jerk, Creep, etc.)
- reference mental/alcohol/drug use
- reference problems with the law
- reference race, religion, ethnic background, sexual orientation, age
- include names or initials of other students or the rater or any email addresses
- reference the teacher's personal life including family members (Just got married, Don't like her son, Wife is pretty, How did he afford that car? etc.)
- contain advertising (Buy your yearbooks today! Danny for Class President!)
- are not in English. (Exceptions may be made if the screener is fluent in a specific language and it is the language of the area.)
ALL COMMENTS THAT:I took a quick look through the tens of thousands of comments on the site and couldn't find anything other than complimentary, neutral or descriptively critical feedback. I certainly didn't see anything that could be described as defamatory though a few might have made it through the filter.
threaten a teacher, a student, the administrators or the school property
state the rater intends to harm himself/herself
WILL BE TURNED OVER TO THE PROPER AUTHORITIES WITH THE IP ADDRESS
Legal action may be launched to close teacher rating site.Well done to the Kiwi maths teacher for calling it like it is.
Teachers in Australia have called on their official body to take legal action against a US website which allows pupils to rate them.
The call follows the posting of comments on the RateMyTeachers website which members feel are defamatory.
The New South Wales Department of Education has already blocked access to the site from all computers based in its schools.
However, because the rating site is based in the US, the NSW Teachers Federation is looking at taking legal action in a US court against the company which owns RateMyTeachers.
Maree O'Halloran, president of NSW Teachers Federation, said that a number of teachers had complained about the site and that she would be raising the issue with Michael Coutts-Trotter, the director-general of education, next week.
The website awards marks out of five for teachers as well as giving users the option to leave comments.
This has already led to one NSW principle being branded "rude, condescending, pompous and arrogant" and racking up a score of just 1.7 out of five.
"It is clearly an absolute disgrace that people are able to make anonymous comments about teachers that are quite atrocious," said O'Halloran.
She confirmed that the plan was to get the site shut down, but that its American location made such a move difficult. "Our next step is to consider how we could use defamation action," she added.
However, not everyone is against the rating website. "It's just the usual whinging by bad teachers who don't want to 'face the music'," said David Getling, a maths teacher from Christchurch, New Zealand, on the RateMyTeacher forums.
"What I always say is 'if you don't want bad ratings then don't be a bad teacher'."
The RateMyTeachers site has a Hall of Fame section, which lists the top rated schools and teachers.
The top rated schools are (rating out of 5, 1000+ votes):
4.2441 - CHURCHILL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL, EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ
4.2238 - CEGEP DE BAIE- COMEAU, BAIE- COMEAU, QC
4.2110 - SELDEN MIDDLE SCHOOL, CENTEREACH, NY
And the teachers (75+ votes):
5.00 - Steve Houser, CHAPPAQUA, NY
4.98 - Diane Keller, DAYTON, OH
4.95 - Kelly Ames, NORRISTOWN, PA
Who wouldn't want their kids to go to any of these schools? If school vouchers were available then would parents choose to send their kids to one rated 2.5 or 4.0? Steve Houser has 106 votes and rates 5.0 (the rating system seems to knock off a percentage of top and bottom ratings). Who wouldn't want him teaching history to their children?
Education unions consistently lobby against any proposal to measure the performance of teachers. Let's try a quick, rhetorical thought experiment. If teachers' knowledge and performance is measured and this makes up the major portion of their salaries then would standards: A) decrease; B) stay the same; or C) improve?
As our nation continues to move away from its manufacturing history - due to the rise of China as the world's manufacturing engine - into a services-based economy, it is becoming even more important that those people entering the workforce are able to compete on the world stage in order to maintain our standard of living.
The fact that education unions in conjunction with bloated, incompetent government apparatchiks continue to deliver such poorly prepared kids into the workforce is the greatest scandal of our time. Of course, all the kids know about climate change, Australia's 'oppressive' history and deconstructionism. At least they have high self esteem to back up their lack of talent.
The fact that the NSW Teachers' Federation president whines about having their teachers' performance scrutinised demonstrates what a glass jaw they have on the issue. It's pathetic.
6 comments:
I think this is amazingly stupid. I have colleagues who don't like ratemyprofessor.com, but nobody is suggesting suing, or anything like that, and we're talking university faculty here, serious moonbats.
Prof,
Are the colleagues that don't like ratemyprof mainly from the liberal arts/studies faculties or is it evenly balanced across all faculties including economics and the sciences?
Wanting to sue people that tell you what they think seems a little bit of a totalitarian response to me.
Thanks for the great post!
Fisrt, my bias: I am a very good teacher with flawless reviews and a good rapport with the vast majority of my students. I am strict with my expectations, both academic and behavioral, and the results my students display show that high level of expectation. That a place like this exists for a student with a grudge (without exception, resulting from his or her own lack of proper conduct or planning), can go to a very public site like this and make rude comments about me for millions to see and judge me on is ethically wrong. The argument that students have no other "voice" is flawed, as students have many channels to properly and maturely settle conflicts with teachers and administrators and they must learn to use those channels, as that's how real-world conflict resolution works.
What you'll not read in too many other places, and what its owners won't admit today, is that this site used to be called "myteachersucks.com" but due to pressure they had to put a new disguise on it. A pig in lipstick, however, is still a pig.
They don't enforce the criteria they take such pride in displaying. Anyone who says they don't see all the negative comments ranging from snarky to downright libelous is lying. Here are some examples:
"Not a fan."
"Boring Incriminating Tortures Crappy Hateful"
" i saw what you were doing with ms london *cough couch* holdinghands! ewww"
"ok.... im **** and i quit. i do not like mrs **** and she hates me. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
"Yeah..Mrs. **** isnt the best teacher around. I hated her...lol"
"He is a red neck who doesnt know anything! He makes stupid rules abouut being late for class!"
All of that from about three minutes of random browsing. "Honest end essential" how, exactly? It's all a guise to give kids a place to badmouth and humiliate teachers in public if they so choose.
Now I'm all for teaching children the proper way to question and challenge authority, but not to completely disregard and disrespect such authority in order to preserve their own ignorance and lack of education. This site is part of that problem; it hides behind the US "free speech" 1st Amendment in order to promote ignorance and disrespect for teachers.
Fed Up,
Thanks for the input.
I looked through the comments of those schools with high marks, which would explain why I didn't see anything profoundly insulting. I presume that if I went to the other end of the scale then the comments would be a bit worse.
You said: I am a very good teacher with flawless reviews and a good rapport with the vast majority of my students. I am strict with my expectations, both academic and behavioral, and the results my students display show that high level of expectation.
and
The argument that students have no other "voice" is flawed, as students have many channels to properly and maturely settle conflicts with teachers and administrators and they must learn to use those channels, as that's how real-world conflict resolution works.
My take on teachers is to be really, really hard. There are lots of good people that work hard and know the system is stuffed but simply don't speak up for fear of being persecuted by the system. In spite of any quality of teaching that exists, the system still allows students to progress without achieving benchmark scores.
Secondly, in those schools that are below the average in performance it is almost impossible to use the correct channels you talk about to achieve any sort of outcome. In fact, what I have seen all too often is that the children are given a hard time by the teachers that are complained about. What happens in public schools in terms of bullying is an absolute scandal. Academic outcomes and stronger discipline are just two of the reasons why Australian parents are abandoning the school system at an increasing rate.
If RMT, with all its flaws, shines a spotlight on the political indoctrination, corruption and incompetence of our school system then it will have done more to increase standards than anything else.
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