How can teachers demonstrate their value?

Teachers make a difference every day
I know this is old and a repeat.. but well worth a mention again.

More to the point, teachers can show their worth by raising the gpa of their class, getting truly involved with the education of the students too.. not just concentrating on the superficial or what the principal is “looking for”.

They can prove it by being active members of their community.

But honestly, teachers have nothing to prove. Their value is evident in a hypothetical scenario where they don’t exist.

Teachers are evaluated by the performance of their students. If you want to see a great teacher in action, watch the movies Stand and Deliver, and Educating Rita.

fighting urge to get on soapbox

Teachers shouldn’t be evaluated by the performance of their students any more than dentists should be evaluated by the number of cavities in their patients. A disproportionate percentage of a student’s success comes from the culture of their HOME. Yes, there are situations where the deciding factor of a child’s life is a teacher, but most of the time, it’s their choice of peers, home life, nutrition and so many other home-related factors.

That being said, what do you want to evaluate? Do you want to evaluate a teacher’s effectiveness with paperwork and compliance, their ability to foster interest in learning, their ability to expand on dry curriculums, their ability to identify needs and meet them, their ability to be structured or creative, or their ability to turn in grades on time? What exactly is considered effective?

Right now, our education system is completely data-based. Very little respect or credit is given to the ability to help develop a whole child. The threat of low test scores forces teachers to comply with an education system that is now entirely run on corporate interests, and bound to get worse.

Be careful of those super-teacher movies—I love them… Freedom Writers, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Dead Poets Society, Lean on Me, Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds—I love them all—but they’re “superteachers…” In other words, to be like them in today’s world with today’s system, a teacher literally would have to have no life outside of the classroom. I know a superteacher—she works 7 am to 9 pm almost everyday, even on the weekends, is single, and loves her job enough to do that, is still not appreciated and is harshly judged by non-educators. I’d love to see how many people really would sign up for that kind of life. Any takers?

So, before I can answer how to evaluate, I need to know what you want to evaluate.

I think starting with better requirements for them to get and stay in the field might help. Also, being unionized can sometimes diminish how society looks at a worker. Not always of course, but most college educated career people are not part of a union. Teachers are not the only exception though. Teachers need to be more realistic about their pay scales. Some states do underpay horribly, but I have a friend who works in MI, where they pay their teachers pretty well. We had been out of college a few years and she was making $45k at the time and complaining. I said to her,“if you annualize it you make around $60k, you only work 9, maybe 91/2 months a year. That’s not bad.” Her response was, “they do pay us all year, and I only get $45k. She didn’t fucking get it. I even tried to explain it once more. She is teaching your kids. I love her, she is a wonderful friend, but she has no clue about other careers, or basic math concepts.

Teachers need to be willing to get rid of tenure. I know a lot of times it is the union preventing it, and many teavhers would go along with it, especially if they can get better pay.

Now, about the kids, it is so tricky, because of course we want and care that the teacher can teach well, and that their students are learning. I think probably teachers need to be observed more often. When I was in school a teacher might be observed once or twice a year. I do think performance of the children should be part of their performance evaluation, just like I was evaluated on the sales in my department, even if low sales was mostly because the economy turned down and I had done everything right. I think there should be more efforts to let the student grade the teacher. Get feedback from sudents via questionaire or personal interviews.

I recently asked if people working in k-12 take any classes in understanding statistics and evaluating research studies. I had very few answers, but it looks like they don’t. I don’t have much confidence educators look at studies enough on what teavhing methods produce long term positive results. They guess, and they look at short term gains too often I think.

I do think the vast majority of teachers care greatly about their students and want them to learn. I also think most are good at their jobs overall.

If they are turning out interested students working at grade level or better.

Anyone who helps students learn in their own pace, respects them as much as they respect him/her, tries to grade objectively, desperately wants to motivate and doesn’t misuse his/her authority to oppress children. Anyone who really does their best to help students that have slidden into the wrong direction…..and any teacher that can deal with the fact that not every student has to like the subject he/she teaches. Just any teacher that isn’t to petty to see that he/she has already finished school and grown up and can not necessarily know how hard it is for students to perform brilliantly. :) Good teachers motivate through their own motivation and excitement !

Teachers are professionals and should be treated like professionals, just like lawyers, doctors and engineers. They should not be evaluated like assembly line workers. Finland is a great example of how to do this right.

That this question is being asked shows that the end of the world is drawing close.

@LostInParadise Finland has a population of around 5 million, and over 90% of the population is Finnish. It’s not apples to apples when comparing the United states to a small Nordic country in Europe. Finland has one of the most comprehensive social systems if I remember correctly. All the people feel secure, safe, and cared for, and I would assume are trusting of their neighbors and government. Their birth rate is very low, so I assume children get significant attention from their parents on average.

Although I age with some of Finlands perspective on education, like less homework, and I am not fond of out programs that worry about children starting school early, I think it is a waste of money, and many studies show it does not make much difference. I do believe in testing, because we need some sort of objective way to know how children are progressing for several reasons, including it is a way to evaluate the teacher, but more importantly we know if a child is slipping through the cracks. I also agree with a system that has some national standards, more than maybe we have now.