German students can grade teachers
p2pnet OT news | off topic:- It’s legal for students in Germany to rate their teachers on Spickmich, a web site created for the purpose, the District Court in Cologne has ruled.
Overturning a temporary injunction that would have forced the operators to close the site down to prevent a female teacher from being graded by pupils, the judges “rejected the plaintiff’s claim that the publication constituted an invasion of personal privacy,” says Heise Online, going on:
“With her name, school, and the subjects she teaches explicitly mentioned the pupil network had given the high school teacher from Moers (in the District of Wesel) an overall grade of 4.3 [on the grading scheme see below].”
Spickmich teachers can be graded in categories such as “sexy,” “cool and funny” or “teaching style,” says the story, adding:
“The grades they receive range from 1 to 6 [which is the German equivalent of the A to F scheme].”
Also See:
Heise Online – Court: Grading a teacher on the Internet is legal, July 14, 2007
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July 17th, 2007 at 7:32 am
AN OPINION
The best and unavoidable way to grade a teacher is to grade the results as given on student reports cards adjusted for those same students performance in previous classes. If all students pass with great grades, and the students had a history of great grades, the teacher did a good job but if those students had a history of bad grades in previous classes, the techer did a great job.
In other words, teaches should be graded by measuring the improvements made by the students.
The caveat is that if teacher knew they were graded the proposed way and their salaries depended on their measured performance, their student’s grade, some teachers would artificially jack up the grade of students if he/she could.
This caveat problem could be solved by testing students at the beginning of the next class period (semester?) so that grades in previous class are verified or rejected and if the studend is found to be not qualified for the new class (course) the student is returned to the previous one.
To finish, is it not about time that educators asume responsibility for the resuts?, very badly as of late.