How 20 Minutes With A Principal Determines 12 Months Of Teacher Pay

[proud2BlibKansan]

When Florida teachers were evaluated last year, the stakes for most of them were pretty low.

No more. Soon, teacher evaluations will be tied to teacher pay.

Starting this year, half of a teacher’s evaluation is based on a classroom observation by the school principal. (The other half is based on a formula that predicts how students should score on the FCAT.)

But some principals observe teachers for just minutes out of the school year.

more ...http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2012/07/18/how-20-minutes-with-a-principal-determines-12-months-of-teacher-pay/

[badtoworse]

1. Salary adjustments should be tied to performance

We can argue over how it's measured and it needs to be done fairly.

If you're doing a crappy job, you shouldn't get a raise. That should apply no matter what you're doing for a living. It goes without saying that exceptional performance should be recognized as well. I have worked in that kind of environment for my entire career and am very comfortable in it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. How is it decided that you're doing a crappy job?

Do you really think a 20 minute meeting once a year should play this size of a role in determining pay?

There are many years I didn't have a 10 minute meeting, let alone 20 minutes.

[Skidmore]

11. While I sympathize with teachers over the upheaval in

the education sector, I must admit I have a hard time swallowing that teachers should never be evaluated ever. There are very excellent teachers out there and some who are equally bad at their chosen profession. Having worked in fairly intense jobs with a great deal of responsibility to and for others for years and having experienced annual performance appraisal evaluations on which my job retention and compensation were determined and communicated to me in a meeting with my immediate supervisor at the time, I don't understand why this is considered such an appallingly horrible thing. Teachers are in the business of evaluating others all the time. You would think that there should be some standard that could be applied. I didn't always like the standards being used for my job evaluation, but the system was open to suggestions as to how those standards could best be matched to the job. Has that component ever been considered as a possible addition?

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Who said they should never be evaluated?

The point of the article is that they are NOT evaluated.

[badtoworse]

13. In my case, I've gotten annual reviews and ususally one or two mid-year reviews.

Generally, you and your boss agree on goals for the year and some objective measurement. There is certainly a subjective element to it, but the great majority of reviews I've gotten have been fair, even the few times when the result was less than stellar.

It's a lot easier with the jobs I've had because I've always been in small companies or on small teams in larger companies where everyone knew how good a job everyone else was doing. I've always had interaction with my boss on a regular basis (frequently daily) so there were always ample opportunities for feedback, good or bad.

I don't think that 20 minutes, by itself, is sufficient to evaluate a teacher's (or anyone else's) performance. There are too many variables that come into play - kids are having an unruly day, maybe the subject matter was unusually difficult or maybe the teacher was just not feeling well. There ought to be a way to observe more of what's going on in the classroom so that a more accurate evaluation can be made. Additionally, there should objective standards used to measure how effective a teacher was over the course of a school year.

I'm not a teacher, so I don't have the qualifications to lay out the specifics of an evaluation methodology. I do support the concept - strongly. Salary adjustments should reflect performance.

[lame54]

2. I thought this was a sex thread

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. That could be a more fair way to do this.

[gollygee]

3. The principal's evaluation is probably more valuable than the test scores

Test scores are caused by a number of variables, including many outside the teacher's control, but most principals have a pretty good idea of how teachers in their buildings are doing before they spend any time in their class. The bigger problem as far as that goes is that there are very bad principals out there. Of course there are very bad bosses for any job.

[Fumesucker]

7. Interpersonal politics drives so much in life..

Interpersonal politics is going to drive far too many principals' evaluations, like someone personally they get a good score, dislike them and they won't..

Not saying all principals are going to do that but it's going to be a problem with some.

[obamanut2012]

8. Many principals have never taught

It's like a CEO of Target determining employee evals by walking around a store for an hour.

[gollygee]

12. They aren't as removed from teachers as a CEO is from a Target worker

More like a store manager vs. a worker. They're in the same building.

The principals I know have all taught but I'm sure that isn't universal. edited to add that it is probably a problem at Target as well - not all store managers have had the jobs the workers on the floor have had.

So the problem is not just true for teachers.

[Starry Messenger]

6. SMH.

People are going to be flocking away from teaching in droves.

[obamanut2012]

9. My first thought

Who wants to be treated like this?

[Starry Messenger]

10. No one.

Even wage workers know this would be a shit detail. 20 minutes in my classroom could show me to be a rock-star or a goat, depending on what is going on on any given day. If your boss is out for your head, anything you do could be painted in a shitty light.

[KSstellarcat]

15. There is just no fair way to base pay on performance...

Teachers are all evaluated, but it is so subjective. Honestly, my principal loved me. We were great friends. I probably could have coasted and still would have received an excellent review.

I get that people want to use test scores as an objective measure, but that is never equitable from class to class, year to year, different districts, etc. I didn't suddenly become a better teacher when I quit working in inner city KC and started working in suburbia. My test scores sure would have given that appearance, though. My students in KC would improve vastly in reading (like from pre-primer to 4th or 5th grade) in one year but would still fail the state assessments because of their limited English.

Poor teachers need to be fired, and they can be. It just takes work and tons of documentation to do so.