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Should students evaluate teachers?
YES As districts across the state work to construct educator effectiveness plans, teams of administrators and teachers are considering the components of their programs. State guidelines require the following components: professional practice, professional growth, and student growth data. Other pieces that can be added to the plans include student feedback, as well as parental feedback. Student feedback is an essential part of any educator effectiveness plan. When making decisions about constructing educator effectiveness plans, our primary consideration should be our students. An effective educator will always put students first. Just like any other industry, we need feedback from our clientele to ensure we are doing the best possible job. For instance, many restaurants, grocery stores, insurance companies and online sales companies request feedback, as they put their customers first. Our students are our customers, so to speak, so in order to make sure we are meeting their needs, their feedback is essential. Many educator effectiveness plans will require an administrator to complete one or two observations. Peer observations can also be a part of the feedback process. We need to keep in mind that these observations are simply snapshots of one period, or maybe even half a period, completed on a few random occasions. Our students are with us every day, so they know what we are doing, what works for them, and they are best qualified to let us know how we can better meet their needs. They are our best resource for feedback, and it would be negligent to omit their input as part of an educator effectiveness plan.
Lorie Voisine Northern Aroostook EA, President
No With new teacher evaluation laws and websites like ratemyteachers.com, students are increasingly sharing their input online and beyond for the world to see...which leads to the question, should students evaluate teachers?
To evaluate something means to assess and rate its worth in some way. To be able to do such a thing, the evaluator must have first-hand knowledge and experience in doing the thing being evaluated. In most aspects of life, we expect evaluation and assessment for things to come from experts in the field. For example, if I am going to buy a house, I want an inspection to be done by a professional who understands what to look for in the structure of that building. They know what signs indicate leaks, foundational issues or other structural damage that would indicate the ultimate value of the house. It might be well appointed and aesthetically pleasing, but that doesn’t guarantee its structure is sound. The same should be true for education. The only persons who should evaluate teachers should be experts in teaching. Truly, the experience a student has with the teacher is very limited in depth and breadth compared to the actual art and science of teaching. And while students directly experience only a few pieces of the entire puzzle that is their education, and therefore, should not evaluate teachers, that does not mean that their input cannot be valuable in the form of feedback. While evaluation is a judgement that should be done by experts in the field, feedback is a communication tool that should be used often in the classroom, ideally as a dialogue between teachers and students surrounding expectations, perceptions, quality of work and the like. Students will not always like what we do in the classroom, (*cough* *cough* teaches public speaking), but for a teacher to be able to give students a voice, an opportunity to be heard, also means the teacher has an opportunity to listen to that feedback and determine in their professional opinion its significance and make changes (or not). Yet perhaps more importantly, feedback, unlike evaluation, lends opportunity to engage in important discussions with students about their education, the culpability of both student and teacher in that learning process, and in the end, improve the quality of education for all students.
Stacie Cocola Quamphegan EA
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Maine Educator • February 2016
