Saturday, February 09, 2013

Probationary Report


Cleaning up some old papers, I came across lots of old observation reports (ranging from minimally satisfactory to excellent, letters from supervisors (all good) and the above report for when I completed probation.  The report covers all matters that concern teacher competence.  Note that there is no column for percent passing or VAM.

This method seemed like a good way to know whether a teacher should be granted tenure or not.  It still seems like a good way.  A young man I know is now in his fifth year of teaching.  His school still will not give him tenure because the subject he teaches has no standardized exams and thus there is no data to evaluate him.  I don't know what he is like in the classroom, but 5 years seems long enough for a Principal to know whether he should stay or leave.  If he is not good, why keep him all these years?  And, he teaches Saturday classes, so why give him extra when the administration hasn't deemed him good enough to be permanent yet?

(I had a great time putting most of these papers in the shredder, just keeping a few out as a reminder of my years in the system.)

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