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

Dave0301 wrote: »

I'm not being smart here but you just listed off various ways of doing it without adding any detail. I'm not disagreeing or agreeing with you but can you give some more detail on how this would actually work?

There has been plenty of examples on how it wouldn't. partyatmygaff gave a good overview of one way of how it might be implemented, although I don't really know if it could work.

I'd be interested to see what way you think could work best?

Obviously I haven't sat down with the board of education to discuss it. but I imagine like most large private companies there wouldn't be a one size fits all solution. but this shouldn't be a reason not to implement it.

for example, how you measure primary school teachers and secondary teachers will have to be different. how a 6th class teacher is reviewed against junior and high infant would have to be different.

but regardless of this it just means it's re quire's more design but not an excuse not to do it.

the examples if why it won't work don't hold water.

If you have 100k puplils how many are self harmers that don't go to school?


partyatmygaff's a very good solution and the reasons why it wont work again don't make sense.

It's a long time since I was in junior infants so I can't exactly remember what was taught. but for example lets say by the end of junior infants a child should be able to do X Y Z

we have a standard test at the end of the year or event random tests of students in a class.

so if we take 10 students and have 60% fail of that standard test. when the average is 80% or whatever the case maybe. this sets of a flag.

I'm just talking say junior infants here.

Then parent "survey" or scorecard. each parent posts of the scorecard for the teachers rating to the DOE.

If the average score for a teacher is 4

and you as a teacher get a 2.......

so we have a teacher with a 60% failure rate on the test and a 2 in her review card from the parents..

you don't need to be Eisenstein right?

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Because a junior infant's view changes depending on what has happened in the last half hour, they don't really get the overall picture when they are four years of age.Hence, the child who says x is her best friend may well have y as a best friend by next break.

Which is exactly why I mentioned an age-appropriate feedback method for the little ones.

Powerhouse wrote: »

Frankly I feel I am being reviewed on a daily basis by 200 students and their parents who can lift the phone any time they choose. Not too many jobs have that.

Every single publicly funded (Or contracted) professional has that and more.

Doctors/Pharmacists/Dentists/Physiotherapists/Nurses all see hundreds of people every year. If they aren't good at their job they don't just get fired, they might even face legal action. That's why they self-regulate.

Teachers call themselves professionals. If you want to maintain that image, you need to introduce a proper system of self-regulation to ensure that bad teachers don't taint people's perception of teachers as a whole.

savvyav wrote: »

I think linking pay to student performance is such a bad idea. At this stage,I would prefer to see Class B all pass my subject than have everyone in Class A get over a C1 as Class B would have to change their attitudes and put a lot of work in to get that pass. It mightn't look great on a league table but I would find it more impressive. Plus Class B are easily bribed- all I'd have to do is give them cake the day before they review me and they'd give me 100%. How do you stop that?
Also, are you going to have different performance targets for private schools and public schools? Presumably people who send their kids to private schools can afford to send their kids to the Gaelthacht at least once during secondary school- surely those kids should do better in Irish then? I am aware I am making a sweeping generalisation here but that is basically what performance reviews would be going. Even though every student is an individual, every school is different and every teacher is different, let's expect teachers to get the same results every year, which is not achievable.

Why is it any different from any other form of evaluation or performance review, why is teaching so special/

If you have a global company with 15k sales people working different markets with different products in different languaes in different economies in different countries etc. yet we can mange to easily figure out if they deserved a merit increase or not?

Wow, just wow.

The mantra was teachers taught because they loved the job, now we're predicting teachers bribing young kids with cake.

are you kidding me?

doc_17 wrote: »

In the private sector would people tolerate working under conditions such as sexual harassment on a daily basis?

no, nor should anyone in the public sector.

complete irrelevant to the topic tho.

how do we deal with sexual harassment in public work place != how to rate a teachers performance.

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Doctors/Pharmacists/Dentists/Physiotherapists/Nurses all see hundreds of people every year. If they aren't good at their job they don't just get fired, they might even face legal action. That's why they self-regulate.

Powerhouse's example lists 200 hundred students, and assuming each student has both parents that's a possibility of 600 people reviewing a teacher's performance per day (at the very most). Being a primary school teacher, my possible review numbers would be much less, 30 children, 60 parents (at most). The bigger the numbers get, the bigger the variables are. And this I think is the crux of why people who work as teachers are slow to take on your ideas about student reviews. You really do not know what people are going to be saying about you. As it is, a teacher is fair game. A school I worked in last year had a small group of mothers who used to stand outside the school gate giving out about the teachers as they walked by to collect their students from the yard. So you can imagine what other people would say if they so wished. Thankfully the majority of parents in that school were sound, but it's always the one or two parents who put you on tenterhooks over the silliest things, and their children are usually the ones who are waiting to 'catch teacher out' because this is all they hear at home! Once again, the possibilities for informal review are endless because of the numbers involved, and the public nature of teaching (in my opinion and from experience).

Re self regulation : already exists in schools. Every teacher needs to do fortnightly and monthly notes for the work they do with their class. Assessment records for behaviour, social skills and learning are constantly updated for parent-teacher meetings (which can be organised at any time by any parent, open door policy). Policies are also written up to ensure the safety of children, plus the physical and legal safety of school staff. There are structures in place to ensure that a school runs well and that children have the opportunity to learn in a safe environment. Whole school evaluations by the DES (while admittedly not regular) review school structure and teaching standards across a school, and results for these are published on the DES website.

Your ideas are good and you've gone into great detail as to how they should work (much appreciated), but I still can't see how being reviewed by students would work (for the reasons outlined in the first paragraph), it's extremely personal and one-sided as there really is no onus on students to be honest and/or unbiased.

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Is that because self-regulation doesn't occur or because they're mostly competent? Jumping to conclusions doesn't help.

Or because they have the right to refuse to treat particular patients. Or at least private practitioners have that right.

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Don't really know where you're going with this or how it's relevant. Informal reviews evidently don't make that big of a difference.

I mentioned it because it might give an insight as to why teachers would be slow to accept student review and not because 'they just don't want to be held accountable'. This is just my opinion though.

A teacher can write whatever plans and notes you like. Action, not words is evidence of teaching ability.

It's all part of self regulation. This was in repsonse to your piece about nurses, dentists etc having self regulation.


You seem to be still under the belief that students will have any say in how your performance is assessed. The sole purpose of the student review is to flag teachers who students feel isn't competent to do their job. That's the extent of their input. It'll be another teacher working for DoE that ultimately decides whether or not the teacher in question is competent.

Of course incompetent teachers should be flagged, and rightly so. Having worked with students however, I know it wouldn't be as simple as asking them to be honest and open in their review. A student might hold a grudge because you've asked them to raise their hand to ask a question, or asked them to sit in their seat. If there was a way that students HAD to be honest and unbiased in their review, then it might work. Personally, I would hate it if my abillity to teach was called into question all because a few students decided to 'pay me back' for asking them to be quiet in class. Doesn't matter if the inspector thinks I'm a great teacher, your ability is still being questioned and all because of something put down 'for the craic, let's see what happens'.

It wouldn't do much for the relationship between class and teacher either. You're in a situation where you need to cajole students to work, and the fact that an inspector was called in would be enough for some to say 'sure you don't know what you're doing'.

Can you answer this question for me please? How would you feel in your job* if you had a group of thirty customers/clients you work very closely with. Your work involves having to tell these customers/clients what they need to do, sometimes they don't do what they're told to do because they're not interested in what you're telling them to do. Some customers bear a grudge even though you know you have their best interests at heart. They review you, and you receive notification that due to the review, you will be receiving an inspection.

1. How would you feel knowing that your ability is being called into question because a few people hold a grudge? You know in your heart and soul you're doing your best for these clients, so why the review?
2. What do you think your relationship would be like between you and your customers after the review?

*I can't even think of a job where one would tell (uninterested) customers what to do!

ntlbell wrote: »

no, nor should anyone in the public sector.

complete irrelevant to the topic tho.

how do we deal with sexual harassment in public work place != how to rate a teachers performance.

Of course the conditions that people have to work in shouldn't be relevant to their performance. What was I thinking. I am so sorry for bringing the thread of topic.

Ms.M wrote: »

I think the incidental inspections are a good idea because they're fair. I can't think of anything that would work better.
Why not just have more of them? What objection do posters on this forum who favour performance review have to incidental inspections?

None. The main issue is that they don't occur anywhere near often enough and teachers get notice of inspections which allows them to prepare for the day. At most, over my entire time in primary and secondary school I saw eight inspections. Every single time the teacher either tried to bribe the class to be good (No homework if you behave yourselves on the day) or threatened the class with severe punishments.

Feeona wrote: »

Of course incompetent teachers should be flagged, and rightly so. Having worked with students however, I know it wouldn't be as simple as asking them to be honest and open in their review. A student might hold a grudge because you've asked them to raise their hand to ask a question, or asked them to sit in their seat. If there was a way that students HAD to be honest and unbiased in their review, then it might work.

Losing the right to review and possibly giving your teacher a pay rise would be enough of a deterrent I think.

Personally, I would hate it if my abillity to teach was called into question all because a few students decided to 'pay me back' for asking them to be quiet in class. Doesn't matter if the inspector thinks I'm a great teacher, your ability is still being questioned and all because of something put down 'for the craic, let's see what happens'.

Problem students who would do that would be down weighted. As for "normal" students we're usually fair when it comes to things like these.

Can you answer this question for me please? How would you feel in your job* if you had a group of thirty customers/clients you work very closely with. Your work involves having to tell these customers/clients what they need to do, sometimes they don't do what they're told to do because they're not interested in what you're telling them to do. Some customers bear a grudge even though you know you have their best interests at heart. They review you, and you receive notification that due to the review, you will be receiving an inspection.

Sounds an awful lot like a Doctor or Pharmacist advising their patients to do something and them completely ignoring the advice being given to them and then blaming the doctor/pharmacist for their health problems. If you know you're not doing anything wrong, it's at best mildly annoying.

1. How would you feel knowing that your ability is being called into question because a few people hold a grudge? You know in your heart and soul you're doing your best for these clients, so why the review?

You know your ability and other teachers are more than capable of assessing your ability. What some students think of you isn't *hugely* important.

2. What do you think your relationship would be like between you and your customers after the review?

You could be a bit annoyed with them but as a professional you should be able to leave personal feelings out of the equation where possible.

*I can't even think of a job where one would tell (uninterested) customers what to do!

I can think of many...

jonseyblub wrote: »

If you were a plasterer or a painter who had just finished doing a job on a 7 year old's bedroom and the 7 year old didn't like it even though you had done exactly as his/her parents had asked, would you feel comfortable with that same 7 year old going to your next customer and telling him you were bad at your job?

No? Essentially thats what you are asking teachers to do. The teacher has 25-30 7 year olds in front of him and does what he is trained to do in terms of controlling the class, getting work done but annoys one of them because there was no time to get around to answering one of his questions. If you have a seven year old you'll know that this is frequently the case when they'll be seriously cheesed off for no apparent reason. This same 7 year old then happens to be asked his opinion of his teacher. What do you think he will say?

I know what you are saying in terms of kids need to have some input in the evaluation process but most at Primary school (and a large percentage at second level too) are just too immature to give a balanced opinion either good or bad.
These unannounced inspections in my opinion are a far better indicator of how a teacher is doing because the inspectors are professionals and should understand all the variables that are present in the different range of classes. So if a teacher is teaching a group of kids with special needs or the most able students the inspector should know whether the teacher is doing his/her job properly.

I never said anything about primary schools.