Teacher Evaluation meets Survivor

By heather on May 12, 2009

I’m not a big Survivor fan.  I mean, I really hate what the people become when pitted against each other.  So I don’t watch it…at least not on TV.  So when I read Scott McLeod’s post suggesting that school communities vote off their least popular teacher, “dismissal by consensus”, it’s not that I don’t feel his pain, I mean the bottom 10% of any school is enough to destroy the accomplishments of 90%, but I worry that schools are headed to that witch hunt place.

We all know there are teachers out these who shouldn’t be in the classroom, but many of them gave years of great service prior to burning out.  Many of these teachers mean well, want to communicate content, but simply don’t have the skills.  Yes, some need out, and the process to exit them is inappropriate in its difficulty, but we can’t be after blood.

Our anger should be less about the broken teacher, and more about the broken system.  There are cruddy people in every profession, but cruddy teachers are allowed to remain longer, doing damage to the company (the schools) and their product (learning).

This article examines the anger and the levels of importance people desperately need to see the problem solved.  

Let us all be warned: we need to be a part of the solution or let the games begin.