Obligatory, wage-affecting performance reviews for teachers - a great idea!

golden lane · 01-05-2012 04:14PM

Roadtrippin wrote: »

Bring performance-related pay into the classroom say MPs as they target bad teachers
- Report says inferior teaching is having effect on children's long-term prospects

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137684/Bad-teachers-paid-best-say-MPs.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Finally a good idea to reform the public sector in some ways!

Thank you, UK!!!

Let's hope they go through with this - I totally agree with making public servants adhere to performance reviews and make their wage dependent on it!!!

this is the biggest load of crap i have ever heard in my life........we are paying too much to give our kids a basic education......but this is not the answer..

byhookorbycrook · 01-05-2012 04:15PM

Roadtrippin wrote: »

That is a good point - well then the objectives need to be set by you and confirmed by a second teacher that knows the student, IMHO.

But suppose we decide on a "you scratch my back" approach?Suppose that I know a child to be in need of support at x and the other teacher says it's really y s/he needs?Suppose that the standards in our school are higher/lower than another school?Suppose the principal is willing to to sign off on all of this-look at my school, all the teachers are reaching our goals?

Roadtrippin · 01-05-2012 04:15PM

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Payment by results has already been tried and has been proven to be a huge failure. I could coach all of my groups in the Drumcondra tests all year and perhaps there'd be a marked improvement in the test scores, but this does not mean a big improvement in numeracy or literacy, it means they can do the qs in only one form of testing.

Interesting. How has it been proven to be a failure? Just asking because I'm curious.

I don't agree with making the performance necessarily dependent on student pass rates and tests etc. That's been done in the US and doesnt work that well.

I do agree with having regular classroom observations by colleagues and friendly feedback, especially for novice teachers.

partyatmygaff · 01-05-2012 04:21PM

looksee wrote: »

I think teacher assessment is a good idea but I think involving the students in assessing teachers would be very bad for discipline in the long run. I can just imagine lippy louise trying to use 'I'll give you a bad report!' as a smart remark in class. It does not matter that she has been weighted out of the equation, just giving her the ammunition is a bad idea.

Easy solution. Completely and permanently revoke review rights for problem students if they so much as mention the review to their teachers. No exceptions. No leniency.

If they no longer receive a review slip from the Department every three months and they know that you know they can no longer actually review you there's little to no chance of them using it as verbal ammo.

savvyav · 01-05-2012 04:24PM

vamos! wrote: »

How would you judge my 5th year German class? I have a multi-level class of 29, with abilities ranging from resource English to wanting to study German at Uni. The main issue in my class is Thuggy McThuggerson. He doesn't want to be there but the school will not allow him drop German. He hates German and has yet to purchase the textbook or a copy. I supply him with a pen and on the days he decides not to use it as a weapon he draws charming swastikas on the desks. His mother Mrs I Know My Rights And All Yous Teachers Are All The Same Inanyways supports her son. German is for Nazis and saps. I have no choice but to work with either Higher Level or Ordinary Level some days, as they are essentially two courses. Some of my well behaved students work away by themselves guided by notes I spend hours creating, as they are essentially replacing the teacher while I work with the other group. Should I be paid on the basis of the notes I produce? Or the classroom situation? I am working with OL, the HL students are trying to work but Thuggy is frogmarching across the room. Should I have planned for that? Built it into my lesson plan?

The school down the road has two German teachers and two classes. HL and OL are not taught in the same room. The teacher there has more class contact time and students are allowed to drop German in LC if they wish. The lower ability students take this option. This teacher does not need to type up as many notes as me, as she can work with the class as a whole. Should she be paid less than me because her folder is smaller?

Chancer is also in my class. He doesn't love German but used to work. Lately he has started to cause havoc and has stopped doing anything productive in my class. He is very good in Geography, English and Maths. He does excellent work for those teachers... should they be paid more than me?? (Thuggy is not in those classes and Chancer works best when separated from him. They have to do German toghether as their is only one class)

I forgot to mention that I haven't seen Asbo Jr since Easter... He comes and goes but will probably sit the exam for the craic. Is it my fault if he fails. He doesn't really do mornings, or Mondays or Fridays but does show hios face the occasional Thursday afternoon.

How on earth do you monitor productivity? Is it notes, results, ability to deal with the Thuggy's of the world?

**I no longer teach this class, but they exist

This is exactly it, how can you say every class is the same and judge teachers by that. I teach Class A and Class B. Class A are punctual with excellent attendance, own the textbooks, do homework and are interested in my subject. Class B rarely attend, most of them don't own the books and laugh in my face if I assign homework (they are like this for every teacher). If I were to be judged by Class A, I would get the top grade. If I were to be judged by Class B, I would probably lose my job!
I would like to see some sort of performance reviews of teachers but I genuinely don't see how they can do it fairly.

ntlbell · 01-05-2012 04:29PM

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Not really, I could set objectives that I know the child has already reached if I think it is going to impact on my salary.I could make sure that I get the learning support children I know to be more academic. I could refuse to take children without home support and so on.

Huh?

You test the child, you have the results.

The following years objectives can't be the same every year? so it has to improve?

Plus the child at any point for example could be independently assessed.

There's the bench mark and we go forward.

It seems strange that the people coming up with the ideas that might help in benchmarking are non teachers and it's the teachers finding the way it won't work.

Something doesn't add up.

byhookorbycrook · 01-05-2012 04:30PM

I am sure down the years that a number of children I put through my hands were less than fond of me at the time, because I would be uncompromising in my attitude towards certain behaviours.

I'm equally sure that I could plámás children bribe them or whatever into giving me a "good" review.

Can you really rely on asking a 5 year old if their teacher is satisfactory?

The WSE has questionnaires for pupils and parents alike,but they are usually done with senior children.

It is affirming to see how that past pupils have grown into adults and are now sending their children to our school,but how do you measure that?Last week,we had seven,yes seven, past pupils around our staffroom table, between permanent staff, subs and student teachers, again, I would see this as a positive.

byhookorbycrook · 01-05-2012 04:38PM

ntlbell wrote: »

Huh?

You test the child, you have the results.

The following years objectives can't be the same every year? so it has to improve?

Plus the child at any point for example could be independently assessed.

There's the bench mark and we go forward.

It seems strange that the people coming up with the ideas that might help in benchmarking are non teachers and it's the teachers finding the way it won't work.

Something doesn't add up.

I have the results, but the child may not have the matter in their long term memory. Children with dyslexia will read a word today and not recognise it tomorrow.
I can have other objectives for each year- the child will know the high frequency work for senior infants, the child will know the 44 sounds and so on.

Not strange at all that teachers know what won't work and that non-teachers think they know what will-even though the teachers know it won't!!Many non-teachers think they know all about education because they were at school themselves. My going to the dentist doesn't qualify me to tell him/her how to do a filling.

partyatmygaff · 01-05-2012 04:46PM

savvyav wrote: »

This is exactly it, how can you say every class is the same and judge teachers by that. I teach Class A and Class B. Class A are punctual with excellent attendance, own the textbooks, do homework and are interested in my subject. Class B rarely attend, most of them don't own the books and laugh in my face if I assign homework (they are like this for every teacher). If I were to be judged by Class A, I would get the top grade. If I were to be judged by Class B, I would probably lose my job!
I would like to see some sort of performance reviews of teachers but I genuinely don't see how they can do it fairly.

That situation would be an ideal test for my system.

Imagine that Class A give you a mean score of 93% and that Class B rate you at 25%. Your mean rating as delivered to the department would be 59% which is just below the pass mark.

That will flag you for inspection in the following term. The inspector visits both of your classes and appraises your competency in each. If the examiner deems you competent and sees that Class A's success is down to your teaching and that Class B's failure is down to their attitude then you'll pass the exam/inspection and remain unaffected.

I don't see what's the fuss to be honest. Teachers are professionals. To maintain the good name and integrity of the profession there should be a conscious attempt to weed out incompetent teachers. The good remain unaffected, the bad get progressively harsher financial punishments and the chronically bad face termination and requirement to resit the PGDE/H.Dip.

As I see it, it's a very fair system. The students' reviews don't count as your performance appraisal, it just leads to inspection by your peers in the Department of Education. There's also plenty of opportunity for teacher's to improve. The first decrease is 5%. If you improve in the following term your pay goes back to normal. If you don't improve after one year, your pay drops again to 15%. Again, if you improve after one term your pay rolls back to the preceding level (5% reduction). If you don't improve after one year, your pay is docked by 25%. At that stage, if you improve you're brought back to 15% (And then 5% and 0% if you continue to maintain your score). If you don't improve within a year of being placed in the 25% band you're terminated from your post and suspended from the Teaching Council pending a resit of the PGDE/H.Dip.

I don't see what could possibly be wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with self-regulation in a profession.

ntlbell · 01-05-2012 05:03PM

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I have the results, but the child may not have the matter in their long term memory. Children with dyslexia will read a word today and not recognise it tomorrow.
I can have other objectives for each year- the child will know the high frequency work for senior infants, the child will know the 44 sounds and so on.

Not strange at all that teachers know what won't work and that non-teachers think they know what will-even though the teachers know it won't!!Many non-teachers think they know all about education because they were at school themselves. My going to the dentist doesn't qualify me to tell him/her how to do a filling.

right, but you must have some thoughts of your own how it MIGHT....JUST....might be possible...no?

instead of all the answers to what won't work?

itzme · 01-05-2012 05:25PM

Roadtrippin wrote: »

Bring performance-related pay into the classroom say MPs as they target bad teachers
- Report says inferior teaching is having effect on children's long-term prospects

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137684/Bad-teachers-paid-best-say-MPs.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Finally a good idea to reform the public sector in some ways!

Thank you, UK!!!

Let's hope they go through with this - I totally agree with making public servants adhere to performance reviews and make their wage dependent on it!!!

This is a terrible terrible idea, this whole approach (which is getting more and more attention) requires more and more testing of students to "judge" the "quality" of teachers. While at the same time the general opinion is that the standard of students coming out of education is getting worse and worse, it is not a coincidence that this is happening as we are moving towards a greater reliance and more frequent standardised testing.

I would suggest anyone who seriously thinks this is a good idea should do two things. First sit down and ask yourself type of student our society needs out of education and see if this sort of testing gets it.
Secondly, look at some renowned experts and see what they think to help you see how counter-productive this idea is
http://www.danpink.com/archives/2012/02/eight-points-about-merit-pay-for-teachers?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

ntlbell · 01-05-2012 05:33PM

itzme wrote: »

This is a terrible terrible idea, this whole approach (which is getting more and more attention) requires more and more testing of students to "judge" the "quality" of teachers. While at the same time the general opinion is that the standard of students coming out of education is getting worse and worse, it is not a coincidence that this is happening as we are moving towards a greater reliance and more frequent standardised testing.

I would suggest anyone who seriously thinks this is a good idea should do two things. First sit down and ask yourself type of student our society needs out of education and see if this sort of testing gets it.
Secondly, look at some renowned experts and see what they think to help you see how counter-productive this idea is
http://www.danpink.com/archives/2012/02/eight-points-about-merit-pay-for-teachers?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

you get the same problem here.

how do you get rid of the underperforming teacher?

byhookorbycrook · 01-05-2012 05:48PM

ntlbell wrote: »

you get the same problem here.

how do you get rid of the underperforming teacher?

DES inspectors have the power to remove a teacher.

marknjb · 01-05-2012 06:08PM

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

DES inspectors have the power to remove a teacher.

how often has this happened
i just cant understand how teachers themselves put up with other teachers who they know in thier heart and soul are below par and yet taking home the same pay as the good ones

doc_17 · 01-05-2012 06:09PM

Stupid idea. What about pay cuts for those underperforming ministers when they don't cut the mustard. Let's move on.

partyatmygaff · 01-05-2012 06:13PM

doc_17 wrote: »

Stupid idea. What about pay cuts for those underperforming ministers when they don't cut the mustard. Let's move on.

How is that going to help weed out incompetent teachers?

This isn't a money-saving exercise. The main idea is to improve teaching standards and improve the image of teaching in Ireland.

Flashgordon197 · 01-05-2012 06:24PM

Roadtrippin wrote: »

Bring performance-related pay into the classroom say MPs as they target bad teachers
- Report says inferior teaching is having effect on children's long-term prospects

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137684/Bad-teachers-paid-best-say-MPs.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Finally a good idea to reform the public sector in some ways!

Thank you, UK!!!

Let's hope they go through with this - I totally agree with making public servants adhere to performance reviews and make their wage dependent on it!!!

No offence but you mate obviously know very very little if anything about the UK system. The average teacher leaves after five years and their expulsion rate is way higher than ours. Please see the thread on discipline . I presume this is a joke-tell me you are joking?
But lets start with the fathers of miscreants-can they be rated?

ian87 · 01-05-2012 06:33PM

Hang on a second and think about this logically. I am a primary school teacher teaching in a stereotypical inner city school. I have one child aged 8 who can barely write his own name. He gets absolutely no input from home regards homework or encouragement to do well. His peers aren't quite that weak but I am still on a daily basis reminding the children to put spaces between words etc. Many of those said children come from homes where education is not top of the agenda and homework can be a suggestion not a requirement. Now on the flip side I taught in a stereotypical middle class school last year, teaching 9 year olds. We can take cursive writing as an example and as a contrast. Not one child was unable to write using cursive script. Same teacher, almost the same aged children yet huge differences in ability and background.

Now am I any less of a teacher now than I was last year?

I'm not saying that performance related pay is a bad idea. If one is putting in the work like 99% of my colleagues are performance related pay should be nothing to fear.

BUT

How does one measure performance subjectively and fairly?

Would this system be open to abuse?Many teachers can be only one misinterpreted remark away from an over zealous parent or student with a grudge?
Could this have an effect on the assessment of said performance?

I'm not getting on my high horse but many performance related salaries are based on sales etc areas where performance can be more black and White, where as teaching is open to interpretation and prior knowledge of the students, their abilities, backgrounds and hundreds of other variables..

Ms.M · 01-05-2012 06:37PM

Teaching is not riddled with incompetency. The vast majority of people who become teachers take seriously the impact they will have on a child's future and would not like to be spoken about in a negative light by students, parents and colleagues. I really don't think teachers need more motivation.
The biggest threat to quality learning in the current climate are the massive, mixed-level classes. Any additional money would be best spent there.

In my experience, everybody knows who the underperforming teachers are. Most of the school body anyway. The students identify them and they identify themselves as well by the anti-doing-a-lot comments they make.
It would be a waste to spend money identifying who these teachers are. The suggestions so far take for granted the cooperation of principals, other teachers and boards of management. Why not just ask them directly who the incompetent teachers are?
A lot could improve just by simple monitoring: i.e teachers being asked to produce their personal schemes at the start of each month, teachers showing dates of results of formative assessments (not to judge results but to ensure teachers are providing formative assessment regularly), and teachers being allocated certain areas of the course to produce resources on and share with the rest of their department.
Don't do the work... get called to the principal's office :eek:... refuse to do the work... out you go! :cool:

byhookorbycrook · 01-05-2012 07:12PM

Ms.M wrote: »

A lot could improve just by simple monitoring: i.e teachers being asked to produce their personal schemes at the start of each month, teachers showing dates of results of formative assessments (not to judge results but to ensure teachers are providing formative assessment regularly), and teachers being allocated certain areas of the course to produce resources on and share with the rest of their department.
Don't do the work... get called to the principal's office :eek:... refuse to do the work... out you go! :cool:

Most primary principals do this. Schemes of work are kept and at the end of each month a scheme showing what exactly has been covered is given to the principal.If a teacher refuses to comply they can be brought before the Board of Management and ultimately the DES.

Feeona · 01-05-2012 07:28PM

partyatmygaff wrote: »

The inspector visits both of your classes and appraises your competency in each. If the examiner deems you competent and sees that Class A's success is down to your teaching and that Class B's failure is down to their attitude then you'll pass the exam/inspection and remain unaffected.

To you (and to many) it would make sense to put responsibility on the shoulders of those causing hassle eg the students in Class B. It doesn't work that way in education though. Students come to schools to be taught, sometime they don't want to learn, sometimes they cause trouble, sometimes they hit teachers, sometimes they're bored. This does not mean that an inspector can write in his report 'Class B are failures', never mind say it! The job of the education system is to teach children come hell or high water, and if you go down the road of saying a class is a failure, then you're basically stamping the students in that class with a 'FAILURE' for the rest of their lives. Aside from the awful label for the students involved, I'd say calling a class a failure would open up a huge can of worms (legally speaking).

ian87 · 01-05-2012 07:35PM

In fairness I can't even see the DES going for this one. Stupid argument imho

partyatmygaff · 01-05-2012 07:40PM

Feeona wrote: »

To you (and to many) it would make sense to put responsibility on the shoulders of those causing hassle eg the students in Class B. It doesn't work that way in education though. Students come to schools to be taught, sometime they don't want to learn, sometimes they cause trouble, sometimes they hit teachers, sometimes they're bored. This does not mean that an inspector can write in his report 'Class B are failures', never mind say it! The job of the education system is to teach children come hell or high water, and if you go down the road of saying a class is a failure, then you're basically stamping the students in that class with a 'FAILURE' for the rest of their lives. Aside from the awful label for the students involved, I'd say calling a class a failure would open up a huge can of worms (legally speaking).

Obviously the inspector isn't going to write "Class B are failures. There's no hope of success for any one of them.".

What I actually said was that the inspector would say their relatively poor performance and poor teacher reviews resulted from their own attitudes and not the teacher's incompetency.

itzme · 01-05-2012 07:44PM

ntlbell wrote: »

you get the same problem here.

how do you get rid of the underperforming teacher?

I was responding to the original point of performance related pay being applied to teachers. Considering the points in the article I linked to and all the views expressed so far, are you in favour of performance related pay and could you detail how it would have any positive effect on education.

I would be happy to detail my thoughts on how to start fixing what I see as the main problems in the education system after this.

Feeona · 01-05-2012 07:54PM

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Obviously the inspector isn't going to write "Class B are failures. There's no hope of success for any one of them.".

What I actually said was that the inspector would say their relatively poor performance and poor teacher reviews resulted from their own attitudes and not the teacher's incompetency.

An inspector wouldn't be able to write that down either. It's the same thing ie the DES would be blaming the students for not getting their education with the added implication that the teacher doesn't have to bother improving his/her teaching techniques with them because they have bad attitudes. It's hardly fair and actually lends itself to teachers not caring about those students who have bad attitudes because 'ah well the inspector will let me off'. Which is the opposite of what a review should be doing.

Add to that, the Freedom of Information Act would allow for anyone to see those records. Could you imagine being out of work, out of luck, out of cash etc and coming across one of these reports about yourself and your class? This was the can of worms I was referring to earlier. What's to stop you from blaming the DES for what's happened in your life so far?

looksee · 01-05-2012 07:59PM

I was responding to the original point of performance related pay being applied to teachers. Considering the points in the article I linked to and all the views expressed so far, are you in favour of performance related pay and could you detail how it would have any positive effect on education.

Can you define 'performance related'? Are we talking about the number of exam passes, I think that has been shown to be an undesirable basis for performance.

Are we talking about an assessment by a principal? Better, but still it would take a few years to establish whether a teacher's results were regularly against (ie worse than) the trend of other teachers results with the same class.

This raises the question of whether you can compare a maths teacher with a pe teacher, an Irish teacher with an art teacher.

Let's establish what 'performance' could be applied fairly and across all subjects and sectors.

partyatmygaff · 01-05-2012 07:59PM

Feeona wrote: »

An inspector wouldn't be able to write that down either. It's the same thing ie the DES would be blaming the students for not getting their education with the added implication that the teacher doesn't have to bother improving his/her teaching techniques with them because they have bad attitudes. It's hardly fair and actually lends itself to teachers not caring about those students who have bad attitudes because 'ah well the inspector will let me off'. Which is the opposite of what a review should be doing.

Add to that, the Freedom of Information Act would allow for anyone to see those records. Could you imagine being out of work, out of luck, out of cash etc and coming across one of these reports about yourself and your class? This was the can of worms I was referring to earlier. What's to stop you from blaming the DES for what's happened in your life so far?

Ok then. "The teacher is competently dealing with a difficult class." with no expansion.

It's hardly that insurmountable of an issue.

PennyWise11 · 01-05-2012 08:08PM

Roadtrippin wrote: »

Not by students' perfomances but by lack of engagement on the teacher's side. I teach part-time in schools and universities and I can tell you from observing other classes that there is some really bad lazy teachers out there and they surely could do with a bit of a real-life test of their skills and work ethics.
There is some very good teachers as well. But at the same time they get the same wage as some Mary-scratching, child-hating lazy b*****ds...

I do fully support a move of making teachers go through perfomance reviews - not necessarily dependent on student pass rates but dependent on experts/principals/other teachers observing random classes and giving evaluation reports to the HEA...

In any other private job you have to do performance reviews, why not in schools and universities??? If you're a good teacher you have nothing to worry about and maybe the bad teachers will be scared into broadening their horizons and working harder!!!

Having " principals/other teachers observing random classes and giving evaluation reports" as you suggest would absolutely DECIMATE staff relations in any school, in my opinion.

I work in a school where the principal and the staff (of all ages)
co-operate, collaborate, encourage and assist one another. I feel that to implement your suggestion would engender mistrust, resentment and suspicion all-round, and destroy the atmosphere in the school. This, in turn, would naturally cause discontent which would automatically filter through to the students, in one way or another.

Sometimes an idea that sounds great in theory (such as this) can have very far-reaching, disasterous consequences in practice.

Yes, I do agree that there are teachers out there not doing the biz.Let's face it...we could all name one or two we'd like to see "caught out".

However, to implement a system of surveillance by colleagues, as you suggest, may not necessarily "weed out" these individuals. Au contraire, it would create an atmosphere of suspicion among the conscientious, motivated teachers that may undermine their confidence and dedication.

Remember, it's possible that the principals and "other teachers" that you suggest should be monitoring other teachers..........they themselves - or their friends on the staff -could be the lazy b*****ds you want to get rid of.

Feeona · 01-05-2012 08:17PM

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Ok then. "The teacher is competently dealing with a difficult class." with no expansion.

It's hardly that insurmountable of an issue.

I see it as a huge issue because essentially what you have is a class written off with the explanation that they're 'difficult'. Dressed up nicely or not, it's still a label, a label appointed by a department that is responsible for the education of every child in this country (unless home tutored or sent to private school).

Working as a primary school teacher, I've beared witness to a child kicking and punching a teacher, and saying to another teacher that he was going to 'break up her baby'. These are just two things in a long list of misdemeanours. Yet it's practically impossible to expel him. The reasoning behind the difficulty in expelling troublesome children is that every child is entitled to an education, and the rules have to be followed to the letter of the law to ensure that every avenue, every possibility for bringing troublesome children back on line, have been exhausted. It would be the same for a difficult class. Writing down in a report 'The teacher is competently dealing with a difficult class' (with the particular weight it would assign to a teacher's performance in this imaginary circumstance) is basically saying 'No need to try harder'. It actually goes against the grain of what teaching is all about.

partyatmygaff · 01-05-2012 08:28PM

Feeona wrote: »

I see it as a huge issue because essentially what you have is a class written off with the explanation that they're 'difficult'. Dressed up nicely or not, it's still a label, a label appointed by a department that is responsible for the education of every child in this country (unless home tutored or sent to private school).

Working as a primary school teacher, I've beared witness to a child kicking and punching a teacher, and saying to another teacher that he was going to 'break up her baby'. These are just two things in a long list of misdemeanours. Yet it's practically impossible to expel him. The reasoning behind the difficulty in expelling troublesome children is that every child is entitled to an education, and the rules have to be followed to the letter of the law to ensure that every avenue, every possibility for bringing troublesome children back on line, have been exhausted. It would be the same for a difficult class. Writing down in a report 'The teacher is competently dealing with a difficult class' (with the particular weight it would assign to a teacher's performance in this imaginary circumstance) is basically saying 'No need to try harder'. It actually goes against the grain of what teaching is all about.

Fine then. No reports whatsoever. Just make it a practical exam where the inspectors mark the teacher out of 100 on their performance and adds a few suggestions at the bottom of the page outlining where improvements need to be made if the teacher fails.

Don't tell me there's something wrong with that too?

Obligatory, wage-affecting performance reviews for teachers - a great idea!

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