Comments on: Capitol Daily Memo: Committee OKs yearly teacher evaluations

By: Matthew Piccolo

Matthew Piccolo — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:21:00 +0000

Thanks for your comment. I agree that evaluating teachers properly and fairly is a difficult task. I do know, however, that when I was a teacher my boss evaluated me 2-3 times a year and showed up randomly. That way, I couldn’t fake my way through it and it was often enough that she got a good idea of my true performance. I thought all of her evaluations were fair and accurate. I recognize that not all administrators will do as good a job as my boss did, but I think most are capable of doing so. Having pay tied to performance is, or should be, a fact of life. That’s how it is for the vast majority of the working world, and I don’t know that it should be any different for teachers. If principals had more control over their schools and less paperwork, etc. then they could focus more on teachers, which, along with students, should be their main focus.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:56:00 +0000

I don’t complete the evaluations, but I have seen my own. Yes, they have parameters, rubrics, etc. for evaluative purposes.

They are required, but getting an administrator to do them and do them well is another story.

By: Dmk36

Dmk36 — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:44:00 +0000

Yearly evaluations for teachers already exist. They consist almost entirely on 2 hours that a principal visits a classroom and observes teaching. While I recognize that this Bill does not address teacher pay, I am concerned that teacher pay would be influenced by phony evaluations. Any GREAT teacher can have an off time for 2 hours of the year, and any horrible teacher can fake it for the same amount of time. I don’t know of any principal who has the time (on top of everything else they already have to do) to give a legitimate evaluation of what kind of teaching is happening in any classroom. Until that solution can be fixed, it would be a VERY bad idea to tie teacher pay to evaluations. There is simply no way to adequately and fairly measure a good teacher or a bad teacher, although both clearly exist.

By: Diane Robertson

Diane Robertson — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:57:00 +0000

I usually agree with Sutherland, but I think one of the biggest problems in public education is all of the ridiculous red tape and and paper work and the money waste from that. This bill will only add to that and make the teachers look bad in the eyes of the students and parents. I think we should be able to trust our teachers to do a good job. I also think that test scores are NOT a good evaluation of the teacher, I think they are a better evaluation of the parents and the community as a whole.

There are so many disruptive kids with a variety of problems. Teachers have to spend more time keeping order then actually teaching. My kids got rewards for not being sent to the principal’s office in a single term. Apparently that was a legitimate award because it was unusual. To me that says the problem comes from poor parenting and the teachers and principals not being able to disciplines effectively at school. When I was in school 90% of us were terrified of the principal.

By: Matthew Piccolo

Matthew Piccolo — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:07:00 +0000

Are teacher evaluations required or do they just exist? This bill would require evaluations for every teacher in the state and institute certain parameters for those evaluations.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:25:00 +0000

Yearly evaluations for teachers already exist. Principals? No. Let’s get this stuff straight.