
Teachers, Administrators Give Mixed Reviews to New Evaluations after Test Run
But survey of educators who took part in tryout of new system shows most not worried about impact on jobs, tenure.
For all the debate going on outside classroom walls, New Jersey schoolteachers who actually have been through the new state-mandated evaluation system have not found it to be as nerve-wracking as everyone thinks.
In a survey conducted by a team of Rutgers researchers, teachers and administrators who took part in the two-year pilot rollout of the evaluation system had mixed reactions to the new rules and the potential consequences for their careers.
On one hand, there was a wide range of opinion regarding whether the system was entirely fair and accurate, with administrators expressing much more faith than teachers — by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
Nevertheless, three-quarters of teachers surveyed by the Rutgers team said they were not worried that the new evaluations – including those newly tied to student performance — would have a negative impact on their tenure protections.
Even among teachers working to attain tenure, a majority said the new metrics would have little impact or might actually help them more than hurt in keeping their jobs. There were some pockets of anxiety over job security, to be sure, but the Rutgers researchers said it was not widespread – at least not yet. (Mooney/NJSpotlight)
https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/14/03/17/teachers-administrators-give-mixed-reviews-to-new-evaluations-after-test-run/