Why Students Should Grade Teachers

The practice of evaluating students and teachers based on expensive and stressful standardized testing has been the focus of educational reform for over a decade and has thus far proven to be ineffective (Ravitch 51).

School is a place where individuals grow, develop, and explore their future interests. This necessitates that the classroom is an environment where students feel supported, respected, and competent. I

School is an environment for those who want to learn, and receive an education. Schools are an equal place for everyone to learn, and try to understand one another. People of all color go there to learn how to read, write, and become a great person in society. I believe that school does have its flaws and caveats. In a book called Rereading America there are passages that my classmates and I have been reading that really opens up your mind, and views about school and education issues.

Schools are the places where the children shape their personalities and behavior.A School is also a special place where small kids and even teenagers meet people from all different situations, backgrounds and all walks of life.A school is a place where kids get to determine their future and what they want to do in life.Kids will be thrown into a mix of people they don't know and have to work together.This is good for them because it sets them up for the future when they have to deal with people from the real world.

A main issue why you cannot judge a teacher based off their students test scores is because some factors are out of their control. In any classroom across the world there are some students who are smarter than others. (Popham 13) Some can be excellent at math, while others can exceed in science. (Popham 13) A teacher can give over a lesson in a clear and succinct way but there will always be students who do not do well. (Popham 13) Recent thinking among leading educators suggest that there are various forms of intelligence, and a child who is born with less classroom skills may possess other abilities that will not be shown by a test. (Popham 13) For a student as such, a teacher is limited in finding a successful approach to help them gain a high test score.

This is putting a lot pressure on teachers and is resulting in “Teaching to the Test”, which means they are spending a great amount of time teaching students only the objectives that they know will be on the test. This is only a small sample of what students should be taught throughout the school year. Another effect of these evaluations is the loss of effective teachers. A survey by NEA Today showed that nearly forty-five percent of teachers have or have contemplated leaving their profession. It is clear to see teachers’ evaluations need less emphasis on their students’ standardized test scores and more on their ability to teach. This would allow teachers to teach a wider range of objectives and be evaluated on their ability to teach and not their students

Schools today, are a place for students to come and learn as much as they can. Only by valuing their time spent there can students learn how important their education really

There are many ways to test if a student or teacher is doing an effective job or not, but have you ever considered what kind of harmful stress the test is putting on these students and teachers? Teachers are graded on how effectively they are teaching their students and students are looked at to see if they are making progress and often told whether they can go on to the next grade or not. This kind of test can cause a great deal of stress and often kids completely giving up. These test cause stress, internalized failure, loss of curiosity, and students also lose their love of learning.

Besides all the good stuff, a lot of people doubt that students grading teachers will have positive results. Many educators believe that students are far too immature to handle the responsibility of critiquing a professional. One author (referring to students) states, “They may like or dislike their teachers depending upon the amount of homework he/she gives, the easiness of his tests, the leniency of the marking, their appearance, temper and such other things that appeal to the students” (Gupta, 2010, para. 4). Teachers are afraid of these biased opinions. Some even doubt the mindset of college students. The main issue that is raised is whether or not students can handle the fact that

But, a standardized test does not do either accurately. Studies conducted in the past decade have shown discrepancies in the evaluation of teachers. For example, in a September 2010 report made by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, they tested the same students, teachers, subjects, during the same time of year, but used two different tests. Over 17% of Houston teachers that were ranked at the top of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills reading tests were ranked among the lowest two categories on the Stanford Achievement Tests. Even with the top teachers, there are many different factors that contribute to a student’s performance on a standardized tests. And measuring a student’s achievement using tests given in only a small piece of the school year cannot give the whole picture of a student’s education. Also, out-of-school factors contribute greatly to a student’s performance, such as race, class, disabilities, and knowledge on the English language. In fact, researchers calculated that a teacher’s influence on student test scores ranges from 1% to 14%. Then, why are we still evaluating teachers using standardized tests? If standardized tests do not even do the job they were supposed to do, then it is not an effective way of improving the education of Americans

Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).

Standardized tests are categorizing teachers based upon how their students are performing on a standardized test. The way that teachers are trying to teach is controlled by standardized tests in order to provide the student with as much help as possible to guide the student to succeed as well as the teacher. As a result, the teachers are put upon a great amount of pressure in order to meet the needs to guide students for a standardized test so that both the teacher and students is able to be successful. For those teachers who wish to teach differently, it is more of a struggle for them to receive an exemplary label due to the fact that standardized tests judge them unfairly. Standardized tests are measuring many people in an unfair manner all over the United States. “In the United States, standardized testing is one of the primary methods used to measure the performance of educational institutions (and often teachers) and to make decisions about the distribution of funding” (Issitt). Many schools and teachers are being judged primarily as to how well their students perform on a standardized test. As a result, this can negatively impact many teachers who are able to teach really well

Do you think that teachers should make an effort to make sure that other teachers of the same subject are grading/teaching

School is a place that a very young age you 're made to attend on a daily basis to get good grades and learn new subject matter to have a bright future and a fulfilling lifestyle. School is also a place where you are taught to believe that it is a safe place to be around in and that the staff and security (if there is any) are there to protect you and make you feel comfortable enough to approach them if any issue arises from within yourself or another

A teacher is one of the noblest professions there are. It is also very well one of the most criticized professions there are. If we are talking about a school teacher, then evaluating their effectiveness becomes, sadly, a fairly narrow scale. Because of standardization, the results of students test scores is the primary evaluation of the teacher’s effectiveness. It has also been said that test scores do not equal intelligence, so other more important characteristics