<p>I am a proponent of school choice and a voucher system, especially something where children can escape failing schools. I would like to see NJ offer a system that basically provides our 30 Abbott districts with unlimited number of vouchers to attend any public or private school (tuition cap) within some radius of that town.</p>
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<p>I think so. A survey with questions like: Did the teacher clearly set forth realistic educational objectives for the course? Were those objectives met? Was the instruction presented in a way that was understandable? Did you learn anything from this class? Was the teacher easily approachable and available for discussion and help? What are specific criticisms you have of this teacher and class? Was there anything that prevented you from learning the material? Would you take a class from this teacher again? If not, why not? etc etc These are off-the-top-of-my-head questions, but that is the gist.</p>
<p>Tom,
I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t know the details of how a voucher system would work. What happens if most of the kids choose the same school to attend? How do they handle enrollment at the popular schools?</p>
<p>I would think that especially other public schools would have to provide a maximum enrollment number. Since all public schools get State aid the State could mandate -you want aid you need to enroll all applicants to your maximum enrollment figure. It would have to be on a first apply 1st in status. The school would also have to be able to dismiss disruptive students that live outside the district at a minimum. I am sure the logisitics could be worked out. Thew State may also provide some funding premium for taking these students.</p>
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Those of you who are teachers, do you think your union would favor or oppose the administration of such surveys to students and their parents, and the use of the results in teacher evaluation?</p>
<p>Hunt- I think a question will be -how much of the overall evaluation will these surveys count for.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think the union would oppose it. I’m not saying that I oppose input in some form from parents and/or students but I do think that the union would. Here are some of the reasons why.</p>
<p>First: If the parents are answering, a lot of the answers (I am talking about the type of questions that Bay proposes) would be based on hearsay. The parents would not have, for the most part, a first hand account of the classroom. I’m not saying that feedback from a child to a parent isn’t valuable but it could be subjective to say the least.</p>
<p>Second: This kind of survey could be an opportunity for a parent with an ax to grind to…well, grind it. Maybe their child got a bad grade. Maybe the teacher was their baseball coach at some point and never let him off the bench…whatever.</p>
<p>Third: And this was one of my points in my original post, most parents don’t have a background in the field of education and may not get the processes, methods, curriculum, etc that are common practice in the schools today. I’m not saying that in a condescending way but I do believe that it factors into the issue of parental involvement in the schools.</p>
<p>I think surveys would at least be as useful re: feedback as what “they” ( the reform agenda), would like to use to evaluate teachers- which is test scores.
Surveys could give a lot more info and for parents who may not write a letter to the principal regarding a teacher, they may jot down some thoughts for a survey.</p>
<p>It also would give the principal info about what teachers need a little more support and which ones are experienced enough to serve as mentors.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example of what I mean. I was once part of a research program that was being conducted about art programs in the public schools. As part of the research, children and parents were asked to fill out a questionnaire about their experiences with our art program. </p>
<p>One of the questions that the survey asked the children was whether they had enough art supplies to use during art lessons. A large portion of them said “No”, they did not have enough. Okay, I had to laugh. My school is in a fairly affluent community. Not only do we have plenty of art supplies but we have a high level of quality in our art supplies. Are the children asked to share the paints, etc during class? Yes! Are they allowed to take 14 pieces of paper when one or two would suffice? No! </p>
<p>If I were the person drawing conclusions from this survey I might conclude that the school does not provide the students with enough art supplies.</p>
<p>A question that was asked of the parents was whether they feel that it is important for the art teacher to be specially trained for the job. A large (shockingly large) portion of the parents said “No”. Really?! So a portion of the parental population in my school doesn’t know that our state requires all teachers to be certified and trained in their area of discipline. Now how would those parents begin to evaluate my program if they were given the opportunity. Would they know that I follow the state frameworks for visual arts? Would they know that i have a rubric for assessment? Or maybe they would base their opinion on the outcome. Did the kids make pretty pictures in my class. I don’t know but i do see problems.</p>
<p>*One of the questions that the survey asked the children was whether they had enough art supplies to use during art lessons. A large portion of them said “No”, they did not have enough. Okay, I had to laugh. My school is in a fairly affluent community. Not only do we have plenty of art supplies but we have a high level of quality in our art supplies. Are the children asked to share the paints, etc during class? Yes! Are they allowed to take 14 pieces of paper when one or two would suffice? No! *</p>
<p>That was a poorly designed question.</p>
<p>Would they know that I follow the state frameworks for visual arts? Would they know that i have a rubric for assessment? Or maybe they would base their opinion on the outcome. Did the kids make pretty pictures in my class. I don’t know but i do see problems.</p>
<p>When the kids recieve the qrtly assessments for the class- our school gives the rubric for each subject so the parents and students can better understand what is being assessed.
Otherwise a grade doesn’t mean alot.</p>
<p>As a manager of public employees I take very seriously calls I get from taxpayers about the conduct of those employees. So while the taxpayers do not participate in rating my employees their feedback brings certain things to my attention. I would think that if a principal received significant negative feedback about a particular teacher that information would be considered.</p>
<p>Yes, my rubric is readily available, as well so that was probably not a good example to give on my part. I wonder, though, if you asked every parent in a school to answer the question “what is a rubric?” you would get few correct answers.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take special training to determine, for example, whether a teacher returns graded work promptly, whether a teacher is responsive to questions from parents, etc. Most parents are not going to call the principal to complain about something like work not being graded in a timely fashion–how is the administration going to find out that this is an issue with a particular teacher, just as an example?</p>
<p>The issue of not returning work in a timely fashion (and sometimes never) is actually really serious. Aside from the general slothfulness that it indicates in terms of the teacher’s whole attitude toward their job, there is the very real and damaging adult behavior model they are putting out there in front of kids, on a daily basis no less – kids who are urged by their parents to respect and treat respectfully their teachers.</p>
<p>We found our kids very frequently in the classrooms of teacher who just didn’t do the basics. Collect the work, grade the work, record it, return it. We found it absolutely impossible to complain about this without seriously compromising our kids at their schools. How do you politely say the teacher just isn’t doing his/her job?</p>
<p>The thing is – how do you tell your kid that they should take pride in their work and give it their best effort when their teacher treats their work like . . . garbage.</p>
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I agree. That is why I think that there could be a place for this kind of input from parents and children but the questions need to be designed in such a way that the feedback is untainted by personal issues an lack of information/ education on the part of the parent. Parents can speak to whether a teacher returns emails, etc. but some questions have such a subjective spin that it is problematic. </p>
<p>Another example: I taught for years at a community art center. It was a non profit, obviously not unionized and the employees were considered consultants. The organization had teacher evaluations that we gave out to the students at the end of a course and they returned them to the art center’s administrators. I taught adult drawing. I had one course in which there was one woman who constantly interrupted instruction. Whined about how hard it was to draw, lamented that she wasn’t doing well and yet, was absent from class several just about every other week. As a way to try to intercept her disruptions, I offered to meet with her for an hour before class one week to try to get her caught up and to give her the attention that she seemed to crave without compromising the experience of the other students. So we met, on my time (not getting paid for this).</p>
<p>At the end of the course, I got copies of the student evaluations. Hers complained that I didn’t give enough individual attention. Now, I had been working there for years and had never received anything but the highest ratings (with the exception of one comment about my organizational issues that was true :)) None of my other hundreds of students had ever had anything negative to say and in particular commented on my ability to teach each student at their own level, give them the attention, feedback and encouragement they needed. This woman didn’t agree. I was embarrassed and angry that this evaluation had gone to my boss.</p>
<p>Now, I realize that any administrator worth their salt will see this as an anomaly among the others and will, most likely, dismiss it but still…</p>
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<p>Okay. This is part of the problem and I have been guilty of it, too. How can you complain here about teachers if you have never brought these problems to the attention of the administrator? Did you at least confront, remind, question these teachers? Because you are right. They are not doing their job and it needs to be brought to someone’s attention. As far as repercussions for your kids…honestly, that is a bunch of hooey. No teacher is going to go out of their way to “punish” your child because you brought forward a legitimate complaint. They know they are deficient. Shame on them if they take it out on a kid. My experience has shown me that it is usually the opposite. A teacher in the crosshairs will go out of their way to avoid trouble with you and besides, your complaint may prevent further problems for other kids. Take one for the team, I say :)</p>
<p>Another important reason why it is so important to hand back the work on a timely basis is that the students need to learn from their mistakes.
Much work is cumulative in Math and Science; in other areas, the quality of the work is expected to improve and get more sophisticated. Also the students needs to get used to a given teacher’s expectations.
So many times, my kids have complained that they still have not gotten the last test or paper back, so how can they learn and do better on the next one.</p>
<p>Assessments do create more work for the teacher. But I remember hearing that studies have proven that more assessments lead to more learning.</p>
<p>There are nice and not so nice ways to communicate. I have never spoken to a teacher or administrator about anything without starting with a true compliment or positive remark about something they did or were involved in. I also saved my comments, questions and observations for teacher conferences. If I had something to say or ask outside of a conference, it would have to be very important. Teachers are very busy.</p>
<p>However, too often I felt disrespected and the object of suspicion. Not taken seriously.
It is hard t know how to try harder…
Yup— we parents are untrained as teachers. I get it. But???
We have experience with our kids, and we have been students ourselves. Not trained, but not completely out of it!!!</p>
<p>Performersmom,
I hear you and I am not pointing out that parents are lacking in educational background as a way to seem superior. I don’t consider myself superior. And I am a parent, too. I’m just trying to help the parents understand why a survey that evaluates teachers by parents might be anxiety provoking for the teachers for many reasons. Again, that doesn’t mean that I feel it couldn’t be done.</p>
<p>I agree 100% that work needs to be assessed and returned in a timely manner. If it isn’t, that teacher is not doing their job! It seems as if you have tried to be heard on this issue and have felt brushed aside. i would suggest that if a teacher is not “hearing” your complaint, you have every right, and the responsibility, to bring this issue up with the administrator. If that doesn’t work, go up the chain of command until someone takes notice.</p>
<p>The responses in a parent survey would show a pattern if there were serious problems in a classroom. The wacky criticism here and there should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, different parents value different qualities in teachers because different methods work well with different kids, so there’d be some range of responses, I’m sure. But if something were truly off-kilter, I think it would show up in an anonymous survey. </p>
<p>The older, smart, responsible teachers here on CC might not realize how bad it really is now, because they themselves are working very hard. My sister-in-law and niece are teachers, and I know they are very diligent. But my SIL herself has complained about how lazy and inept the younger crop of teachers are. They don’t know their subject matter, they talk too much about their personal lives in class, they don’t grade papers, and the ones they do decide to grade they don’t return until just after the marking period grades are due, they show too many movies and youtube clips (I am not referring to educational videos here, but frankly they overuse them too), they plan non-educational feild trips to bowling alleys and amusment parks and completely overlook museums, lectures, and the wide array of cultural events in the area, they inflate grades so no one ever fails, and they make comments to children that any idiot parent without a background in educational psychology knows would be demotivating and/or psychologically damaging to a child. (personal rant: on Friday, a teacher singled out the special ed. kids and told them that they didn’t have to finish the math placement test if it was too hard. Thankfully, my D ignored her and finished it–because she can-- but clearly got the message that the teacher didn’t think she could do the math.)</p>
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From your lips to God’s ears. This is like saying no boss will punish an employee for bringing forward a legitimate complaint.</p>