Rate My Teacher--Officially

Via Joanne I learned about this:

How to improve high school teachers?

Ask students, perhaps.

Lawmakers this week sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill to create the state's first formal system for soliciting opinions of high school students about their classes and teacher effectiveness.

Senate Bill 1422 would authorize student governments at each high school to appoint a committee of students and faculty to develop surveys for "fostering improved communication between pupils and teachers, and improving individual classes."

Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, told a legislative committee that no one knows better than students which teaching methods serve them best.

SB 1422, sponsored by the California Association of Student Councils, passed the Assembly and Senate by votes of 54-12 and 22-4, respectively. Legislative committee analyses listed no formal opposition.

High school teachers would decide whether to distribute such annual surveys to their students – whose responses would be confidential, would be seen only by the affected teacher, and would not become a part of any personnel record.

Put simply, lousy teachers could just say no.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/16/2960882/the-buzz-california-lawmakers.html#ixzz0wtCn0OAn

Why do we need a state law to do this? Couldn't schools do this anyway? Or is it that schools now cannot say "no" to student governments that want to do this?

I gave surveys my first couple years of teaching, and got about what you'd expect--some very insightful comments, some general comments, and a few crappy comments. "Too much homework" isn't a comment I'm going to take to heart; "You should teach everyone the way you teach me", along with some specifics that I hadn't even noticed, really opened my eyes to how I operated in class.