How Some Parents View Teacher Ratings

As students and teachers returned to school on Monday after the publication of performance ratings for 18,000 teachers, many parents said they were giving the reports serious thought.  Yet there was an equal measure of skepticism among parents that test scores bore any relationship to teachers’ competence. 

Some said they already knew how good a teacher was by walking into the classroom or by monitoring their children’s progress.  Others worried about how their fellow parents might respond.  Will they demand a new teacher?  Move their children to a new school?

Elizabeth Sane, the mother of a fourth grader at the Ella Baker School, said that her daughter was switched to a different teacher’s class over the summer, and that it was “like adding salt to the wound” when she saw the high ratings for her daughter’s previous teacher.  Her daughter’s teacher this year did not receive a rating because he previously taught high school.

Another parent Riney Christy, who looked up the scores for her fourth-grade daughter’s teacher at PS 11 said, “It’s hard to take it seriously.  I know I would not want to be judged on a criteria with an error margin over 30 percent.”

How do you think these teacher ratings will change or not change your views or the views of other parents at your school?