Extra Credit: "Teachers Evaluating Teachers"

This article discusses the method of evaluating teachers in place in Cincinnati and a few other school districts. Traditionally, teachers are evaluated by an adminstrator observing the classroom. The issue with this is that the observer generally only spends about 20 minutes in the classroom, they often are unfamiliar with the material being taught, and are biased by teachers who are their friends. Because of this, teachers were not being provided with the feedback they needed to grow as educators.

An attempt to change this problem was started in Cincinnati. Here, they began a program where teachers would leave their classrooms for two years and asked to observe other teachers in their subject areas. These teachers were able to provide more useful feedback because they were recently in the classroom and were teachers of the same subject they were observing. In addition, a two year restriction was set in place because this kept the teachers who were observing fresh in remembering how to run a classroom. Observing teachers were given the authority to recommend teachers to be fired.

Some question the model of teachers evaluating teachers. They feel that it will create distrust among other teachers. In addition, many teachers being observed were not fully convinced that the observer was not an undercover administrator.

I feel that this method would be very valuable. This will help teachers to grow as educators or to determine if teaching is something they should not continue with. I do think that it may cause a break in some relationships among teachers, however, the good that is brought out by it is far stronger. Under the traditional system, many bad teachers were getting good evaluations because the adminstrator was not knowledgeable about the subject being taught. This is harmful to students. We owe it to our students to provide them with good teachers.