Should Students Grade Their Teachers? Essay

In the article, “From Degrading to De-Grading”, by Alfie Kohn he discusses the harmful effects grades have on students. Kohn argues that there are better ways to assess students’ progress other than letter or numerical grades. Grades are a great concept but they tend to be more hurtful than helpful. Cheating can become a problem, students won’t take challenges, and they develop unhealthy competition between one another. There have been many studies conducted over the years that support Kohn’s argument.

Alfie Kohn discussed multiple fabulous points in his article, “Degrading to De-Grading”. The author suggests more effective ways to assess students’ progress other than numerical or letter grades. Kohn goes into detail about why our current grading system is flawed. Grades can cause students to lose interest in learning which causes them to stop taking challenges. If students are not engaged and interested than they are not retaining the information they are being taught. The grading system can also cause students to develop unhealthy competition with one another for instance, “I got a better grade than you!”. Indeed, grades are a wonderful concept, but they tend to be more hurtful than helpful. In some cases, grades can have positive effects on students. For example, setting goals for various assignments, or receiving help where they are struggling. Though, there are alternatives that could make positive changes in the system.

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

There has been a lot of ideas on how students should be graded yet it always seems to be the same. Tests, tests, and more tests. There are so many issues with this due to so many variables. Everyone has a different life and some students do more than others outside of school. Why can’t students be graded based on how they perform on their personality, how much they are involved outside of school, and their home life? Is not everyone different?

Parents what if you paid your children for doing well in school? If you paid your kids for getting good grades it will make students actually work harder and listen more if they know they are getting rewarded. Kids should get paid for good grades because, it gives them a chance to understand money and how it works, they can save that money up and won’t have to ask you for money all the time, wouldn’t that be nice, and finally it causes them to do well in school.

Education reform takes on different forms depending on the goals of reformers. However, most will agree their ultimate goal is to positively impact student achievement. Changes in public education continues to increase teacher accountability, as well as, update curriculum standards and standardized tests. The teacher evaluation system is one focus of recent initiatives. While district implement new teacher evaluation methods, skepticism surrounds its effectiveness, in improving teaching, and comprehensiveness, in assessing the multi-faceted role a teacher plays in the lives of students. I have experienced the good, bad, and ugly of the teacher evaluation system of Shelby County.

One reason why kids couldn’t grade teachers is that the school system can’t trust a bunch of middle schoolers to seriously grade their teacher and not make it a joke. Many students would abuse their right, and ask for less homework or more recess, which would hurt the kids trying to actually learn.

The argument that's brought up more often then not concerning the subject is the, "wouldn't it be fair" argument. This argument states that students should be able to rate their teachers because it lowers the chance that students will be taken advantage of. It forces teachers and professors alike to perform at the top of their capabilities and provide a fair learning environment for their students. One where the students will be punished for their wrong doings and so will teachers. It keeps things fair

Teachers should still grade homework. If they did not grade homework kids would not do it. Kids would also not learn or remember it as much. Homework also gives us a reminder of what we previously did. Kids would also lose some responsibility.

I heard there is a new rule going around that we might be graded by our conduct. In my opinion I don’t think this should be done. I think our grades don’t necessarily go hand to hand with our behavior. These are the reasons I don’t think we should be graded by our behavior.

Imagine you are in an important meeting of school education, you are chosen to make the last decision of how should students be graded. Would you choose to be graded on skills or effort? An issue that teachers have is how should students be graded. Many schools all over the world are choosing to be graded on their skills and not effort. Dr. Francis Underwood is an educational expert. He believes that students should be graded on their skills rather than effort. This issue affects the world by grading students with different choices. Some people agree that students should be graded on skills others believe they should be graded on effort. Underwood opinion that students should be graded on their academic skills, rather than effort, is correct because it is hard to grade effort and if students cannot show their skills then they don’t understand.

I agree with your thinking here; there must be a more effective way to assess teacher effectiveness than based mostly on how students perform on a test. I had not considered that teachers are not seen as true professionals I wonder if that may be a part of the push to use student test scores as an evaluative tool for professionalism. Playing the devil's advocate, I can understand how the general public, who have not stepped into the classroom and experienced the demands of teaching would see a benefit in using the test scores as an evaluative tool. From their worldview and limited knowledge test scores appear to be tangible assessment-if students score high this means the teachers and schools are doing their job. However,

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

Assessment enables educators to provide feedback to their learners, this in turn promotes self-evaluation by the learner, as they use the assessment feedback to scrutinise and make judgements about the quality of their work (Spiller, 2009:6 & 7).

In America, not enough information is considered when evaluating our educators. Current evaluations involve assessing teacher performance in the classroom and analyzing student performance on standardized tests. To assess teacher performance, a principle takes notes during a sit-in on a teacher 's class. This may only happen once a