Parents
may rate teachers
Hazel Park would become first school district in state to use evaluation
system
Parents
evaluating teachers
Pro:
* Encourages parental involvement in the schools
* Helps weed out bad teachers
* Allows good teachers to be rewarded
* Parental praise could balance a biased
administrator's views
Con:
* Too subjective and unreliable
* Interferes with established evaluation
processes, won through collective bargaining
* Parents don't generally have day-to-day
contact with teachers
* Disgruntled or disruptive students could bias
a parent's responses |
By Janet Naylor / The Detroit News
HAZEL PARK -- Hazel Park schools could become the first district in
the state to let parents have a role in teacher evaluations.
The south Oakland County district of 4,500 students will
set up a committee of parents, teachers, administrators and school board
members to look at a proposal first offered by Mark Tierney, a father of
four children in Hazel Park schools.
"I don't want parents to beat up on teachers ...
but we need to have more of a say," said Tierney, an insurance
adjuster.
The idea is no different, Tierney said, than the survey
his health care provider sent him recently asking him to rate a recent
doctor visit. Or surveys consumers fill out when they buy a car -- or deal
with insurance adjusters.
"It gives people another avenue to
participate," he said.
But it also veers into the area of merit pay, an area
that nationally has spawned many fights between school administrators and
teachers' unions.
In Tierney's original proposal, parent evaluations would
account for 15 percent of a teacher's overall rating. Principals, who now
are responsible for teacher reviews, would get a 60 percent share and
other teachers, 25 percent.
Tierney admits now in his haste to get the idea out for
public discussion, he forgot what are traditionally two important factors
in the raise game: number of years teaching and advanced college degrees.
"Everything's negotiable," Tierney said.
The Hazel Park school board voted unanimously last week
to approve allowing a committee to hash out what has been a fractious
issue in schools from Florida to Alaska: Should parents have a say in
rating a teacher and if so, how much?
Supt. James Anker said he's willing to have the
community discuss the issue, but sees a process fraught with legal and
pragmatic obstacles if it's put in place.
"If I have 20 students, and I send out 20 surveys
and I only get three back, what does that say?" Anker asked.
"The possibility of abuse in this thing is substantial."
It's also something that would have to be discussed
during contract negotiations, due this summer, Anker said.
School districts in Alaska, Virginia, New York,
Connecticut, Arizona, Kansas and Wyoming also encourage parental input --
to some degree -- in the evaluation process. In Rochester, N.Y., for
example, the parent evaluations are part of the evaluation process but
don't influence teacher raises.
Hazel Park has about 300 teachers at eight elementary,
two junior and one senior high school, plus several other programs. In
recent years, it has become a haven of sorts for new arrivals to America,
adding another challenge to teachers' loads.
Tierney said the recent statewide debate over vouchers
had a potent influence on his pushing the idea. Although the concept was
defeated overwhelmingly by Michigan voters, Tierney was troubled that
leaving public schools for private ones was offered as a way for parents
to have a choice in their child's education.
"I don't necessarily think that, by gutting the
public school system, that's necessarily going to help parents have a
choice," he said.
Local union officials could not be reached for comment.
The statewide union that Hazel Park belongs to, the Michigan Education
Association, does not support the idea, spokeswoman Margaret Trimer-Hartley
said.
"We don't support politicizing teacher evaluations
and this has the potential to do that," she said.
Most troubling, she said, is the prospect that the
parent evaluations would turn into a popularity contest. "Teachers
want to be evaluated in a fair way."
The MEA is also opposed to the notion of peer reviews,
but supports districts encouraging veteran teachers to mentor their
younger colleagues, Trimer-Hartley said. Research has shown that mentoring
helps fend off problems that lead to burnout and bad practices when done
right.
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