Seeking Aid, School Districts Change Teacher Evaluations By MOTOKO RICH October 15, 2012
LONGMONT, Colo. - In an exercise evoking a corporate motivation seminar, a group of public school teachers and principals clustered around posters scrawled with the titles of Beatles songs. Their assignment: choose the one that captured their feelings about a new performance evaluation system being piloted in their district. Jessicca Shaffer, a fifth-grade teacher in this suburban community northeast of Boulder, joined the group assembled around "Eight Days a Week." (Other options: "We Can Work It Out" and "Help!") "If we truly had 52 weeks of school a year, we still would not have enough time to do everything we have to do," Ms. Shaffer said, sounding a common note of exasperation. "I am supersaturated." An elementary school literacy coach wondered whether the evaluations would produce anything other than extra paperwork. "Are they going to be giving us true feedback?" she asked. "Or are they just going to be filling out a form?" The teachers and administrators, who gathered last month in the boardroom of the St. Vrain Valley School District for a daylong training session on evaluating teachers through classroom observations, echoed anxieties that are rippling through faculty lounges across the nation. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/education/seeking-aid-more-districts-change-teacher-evaluations.html _______________________________________________ Please be sure to include a URL to the article. Reply to the sender with a "Thank you" if you like this post. _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
