Evaluating Teachers is Hard Work

[YankeeFan]

Apparently, it takes time to evaluate teachers. Who new knew?

And, there's no spell-check!

Over the 24 years Lily Din Woo has been the principal of Public School 130 in Lower Manhattan, her typical day changed very little: sick or misbehaving students, budgets, curriculum woes and meetings with parents, many of whom do not speak English.

This year, however, she and the assistant principal are spending parts of each day darting in and out of classrooms, clipboards and iPads in hand, as they go over checklists for good teaching. Is the lesson clear? Is the classroom organized?

All told, they will spend over two of the 40 weeks of the school year on such visits. The hours spent sitting with teachers to discuss each encounter and entering their marks into the school system’s temperamental teacher-grading database easily stretch to more than a month.

...

For observations, teachers can choose either six 15-minute sessions or three 15-minute visits and one for about an hour.

For a principal like Ms. Woo, that adds up to nearly 90 hours for her and her assistant just to do the observations. They also must fill out paperwork and log their reports into a new computer program. Several principals described the program as inconvenient instead of helpful, and said it did not have a spell-check function and sometimes logged them off before they could save their work. Education officials said the problems were being fixed.

As in most districts, the new evaluations replace a system that involved minimal observation, did not account for test scores and graded teachers simply as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, with few ever getting the latter.

nyti.ms/JjAYY9

 

[da man]

Who new? I don't no.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Well that's good.

We don't discuss teachers enough here.

 

[YankeeFan]

Who new? I don't no.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

They do God's work. And apparently, God's work only takes nine months out of the year and many four day weeks to complete.

 

[X-Hack]

As a teacher, I like having more frequent, more meaningful observations that give me worthwhile feedback. The twice-a-year preannounced dog and pony show was useless. That said, I have a great administrator who I trust. If I had a political asshole who's just looking for excuses to replace experienced teachers with cheaper younger ones, I'd feel differently. But I feel no sympathy for them bitching about how long meaningful evaluation takes. More fuel for my suspicion that bad administrators might be a bigger problem than bad teachers.

 

[JayFarrar]

They do God's work. And apparently, God's work only takes nine months out of the year and many four day weeks to complete.

We all agree here, pretty much, that being a traveling baseball beat writer is the hardest gig in sportsdom.

And, if you include spring training, that's a nine-month season.

But if it only goes nine months how can covering baseball be so hard?

 

[Mizzougrad96]

They do God's work. And apparently, God's work only takes nine months out of the year and many four day weeks to complete.

We all agree here, pretty much, that being a traveling baseball beat writer is the hardest gig in sportsdom.

And, if you include spring training, that's a nine-month season.

But if it only goes nine months how can covering baseball be so hard?

I know some writers who have covered all 162 games in a baseball season. It's not the norm, but it does happen. To do that, you're on the road for spring training and then you have your share of covering a game one night, flying out the next morning and high-tailing it to the stadium.

 

[poindexter]

YF's fascination w teacher evals rivals any non-sport obsession I've seen from a poster here.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I really don't have anything against teachers, but I'm so sick of them acting like they're overworked, underpaid and underappreciated.

My oldest's second-grade teacher used to be a lawyer, but became a teacher after her kids were born because she wanted to spend more time with them. She freely says the other teachers have no idea how good they have it.

My youngest's kindgergarten teacher is a very good teacher, but she goes out of her way to tell everyone how hard she works and comes across be like a puppy begging for praise.

 

[YankeeFan]

YF's fascination w teacher evals rivals any non-sport obsession I've seen from a poster here.

The Times must be obsessed too.

 

[Guy_Incognito]

My oldest's second-grade teacher used to be a lawyer, but became a teacher after her kids were born because she wanted to spend more time with them. She freely says the other teachers have no idea how good they have it.

Was a lawyer in a NY firm for 6 years, left about 8 years ago to teach. Took about a 65% paycut. While I got home later (about 6:00 vs. 8:30) and worked 12 months a year back then, I also started much later (8:00 vs. 9:30). I had a unusual position, but I almost never brought work home as a lawyer and only worked 3-4 weekends a year. When I was home, for the most part, I was done. Now, I'm never done. I work every night, I always have tests to write & to grade & programs to plan. I also work summers (sometimes part time, sometimes full time, sometimes temp legal work, sometimes teaching) to try to make up some of the money gap. The way I like to think of it is that had I stayed, I probably would have been laid off by now anyway.

 

[poindexter]

YF's fascination w teacher evals rivals any non-sport obsession I've seen from a poster here.

The Times must be obsessed too.

Hey, I don't mind the subject. Jeez, I remember I mentioned something about teachers and salaries and time off here when Fenian ******* was around, and he'd go berserk..

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Plenty knew it.

 

[amraeder]

As a teacher, I like having more frequent, more meaningful observations that give me worthwhile feedback. The twice-a-year preannounced dog and pony show was useless. That said, I have a great administrator who I trust. If I had a political asshole who's just looking for excuses to replace experienced teachers with cheaper younger ones, I'd feel differently. But I feel no sympathy for them bitching about how long meaningful evaluation takes. More fuel for my suspicion that bad administrators might be a bigger problem than bad teachers.

They can be absolutely huge. I've seen bad ones and seen the school fall apart around them. Even if you have good teachers, if the kids learn that the administration isn't going to hold them accountable for what they do in school, it makes it a lot harder on the teachers.
I've also seen good ones who can come in to a bad school and turn it around. Good administrators are a huge factor in school success. Of course part of that is that they make good decisions about their teachers - they hire good teachers and they provide good training/support for those they have.

 

[Starman]

Just another day of target practice on the righties' favorite scapegoats, the slack-ass public school teachers.

Gotta take some more skin out of their asses so we can lower taxes on The Job Creators some more.

 

[Bubbler]

They do God's work. And apparently, God's work only takes nine months out of the year and many four day weeks to complete.

We all agree here, pretty much, that being a traveling baseball beat writer is the hardest gig in sportsdom.

And, if you include spring training, that's a nine-month season.

But if it only goes nine months how can covering baseball be so hard?

I know some writers who have covered all 162 games in a baseball season. It's not the norm, but it does happen. To do that, you're on the road for spring training and then you have your share of covering a game one night, flying out the next morning and high-tailing it to the stadium.

I would think being a NBA beat writer is equally, if not more, arduous. It's half the games, but the travel is harder. At least in baseball, you're in a city for a few days. NBA goes from dot-to-dot without much regard to sense. Back-to-back's in Milwaukee and Cleveland ... stuff like that would wear you down quick.

 

[YankeeFan]

Just another day of target practice on the righties' favorite scapegoats, the slack-ass public school teachers.

Gotta take some more skin out of their asses so we can lower taxes on The Job Creators some more.

Yeah. Cry me a river for the Principal who thinks dedicating 10 percent of her 40 week work year towards evaluating the teachers who work for her is a burden.

And, apparently, she previously dedicated 0 percent to this task.

We don't think this is a problem?

 

[Mizzougrad96]

They do God's work. And apparently, God's work only takes nine months out of the year and many four day weeks to complete.

We all agree here, pretty much, that being a traveling baseball beat writer is the hardest gig in sportsdom.

And, if you include spring training, that's a nine-month season.

But if it only goes nine months how can covering baseball be so hard?

I know some writers who have covered all 162 games in a baseball season. It's not the norm, but it does happen. To do that, you're on the road for spring training and then you have your share of covering a game one night, flying out the next morning and high-tailing it to the stadium.

I would think being a NBA beat writer is equally, if not more, arduous. It's half the games, but the travel is harder. At least in baseball, you're in a city for a few days. NBA goes from dot-to-dot without much regard to sense. Back-to-back's in Milwaukee and Cleveland ... stuff like that would wear you down quick.

.

There are a lot more off days in the NBA. There are a few crazy back-to-backs each season, but usually that many. I know the lockout shortened season was an exception.

Baseball also has spring training. It's not a tough gig, but you are away from home. It would be the same for basketball teams who hold training camps out town. Not sure if the Lakers are the only one.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Just another day of target practice on the righties' favorite scapegoats, the slack-ass public school teachers.

Gotta take some more skin out of their asses so we can lower taxes on The Job Creators some more.

Yeah. Cry me a river for the Principal who thinks dedicating 10 percent of her 40 week work year towards evaluating the teachers who work for her is a burden.

And, apparently, she previously dedicated 0 percent to this task.

We don't think this is a problem?

And of course the principal doesn't think that, but why let it get in the way of the narrative?