SMH - Rate my teachers headline article (1 Viewer)

[SpLaTHoWA]

Late reply - been busy...

PC you seem to have a deepset hatred for that site, any conflicts of interest or personal interests that you would like to disclose?

It was hardly my point that the site was credible, but it's a step in the right direction towards having a performance rating system for teachers. Silencing students and parents is definitely not the right way to go about it, and as far as I'm concerned, it's hardly constitutional.

What is the school system becoming? Propaganda based? It's all pretty ridiculous. Students only get to see what the Dept lets through their locked down networks. Yet they expect students to be able to assess "reliability and relevance" of information for their learning?! What kind of thought process is that? Oh wait, it's physically impossible for the education department, nevermind...

Do you really think it's fair to have such a site exist? How about we make 'rate your accountant' or 'rate your plumber' or 'rate your student' websites. They wouldn't be fair either. It's not fair to publically shame people. It's also not fair to take away their chance at a second beginning if they move schools. If you're not happy with your teacher, report them to the appropriate people, not to a public website.

Report to appropriate people? Like who? What, you're going to report the principal to themselves now are you? And what are you going to do if they haven't actually done anything particularly offensive or reprehensible? Rather, they haven't done anything at all, especially in regards to teaching? Do you really believe that anyone is going to take you seriously as a disgruntled highschool student? And for the record, if it's publically acceptable to shame doctors, pharmacists, lawyers and politicians for not doing their jobs properly, then it's perfectly acceptable shaming accountants, plumbers, teachers for not doing theirs. Isn't that what the group/social mind is all about anyway? Bringing shame upon those that do socially reprehensible things? If you're going to do it implicitly, you might as well go the whole hog and do it explicitly.

Another gripe that I have with the school system is the way in which HSC subjects and subject matter in NO way correlate with the stuff taught in first year undergraduate subjects - you enter a first year basic sciences/maths class and the stuff taught there from the start is already far above and beyond the level that you leave highschool with. Now I'm not sure how it was with the old HSC system or how the current HSC cirriculums are, but when I left highschool in 02, they were dumbing down chemistry and physics even further for subsequent years, making it even more irrelevant. Shouldn't universities and the education department work together on forming a cirriculum for school students which prepares them for entry into further education?

 

[SpLaTHoWA]

Apologies for double posting

Incidentally, found this on the BoS front page:

Expert to develop performance-based pay

12 June 2007 http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Bishop/2007/06/B001120607.asp


So there you go, steps in the right direction. Although it remains to be seen whether the systems will be results based or a more wholistic approach. I strongly support the latter.

 

[xXeMoxXxCoRexX]

As sad as it is, the destruction of the hsc science courses doesn't really have anything to do with posting potentially defamatory comments about teachers anonymously on a website where you won't be accountable for them.

EDIT: More like uni graduates who can't write a rational argument

 

[Josie]

It was hardly my point that the site was credible, but it's a step in the right direction towards having a performance rating system for teachers. Silencing students and parents is definitely not the right way to go about it, and as far as I'm concerned, it's hardly constitutional.

Sorry to rain on your parade, freedom of speech is not protected by the Australian constitution.
Edit: I'm also against public 'naming and shaming', especially from people as biased as parents and students.

 

[SpLaTHoWA]

As sad as it is, the destruction of the hsc science courses doesn't really have anything to do with posting potentially defamatory comments about teachers anonymously on a website where you won't be accountable for them.

EDIT: More like uni graduates who can't write a rational argument

Haha i never said it was part of the argument, I'm just too lazy to start another thread to bask in my own narcissism

Sorry to rain on your parade, freedom of speech is not protected by the Australian constitution.
Edit: I'm also against public 'naming and shaming', especially from people as biased as parents and students.

So you're saying we've all been conned and they can take our rights to free speech away at anytime? Well that sucks.
Against public naming and shaming, and anonymous posting is gutless eh? I'm not against your stance on this, but from my occasional glances at the newspaper I seem to remember incidences of people doing something as innocent as posting on forums/writing in a blog with negative references to teachers and schools and subsequently getting disciplined and sites taken down. Gutless for not revealing your identity? More like self preservation. I honestly don't see how the education department has managed to gain so much political clout and gotten away with it for so long.

 

[Josie]

I never said anything about gutless (although some people did) I've got a problem with the public access part of it, and the biased part of it.

The Australian Constitution does not have any express provision relating to freedom of speech. In theory, therefore, the Commonwealth Parliament may restrict or censor speech through censorship legislation or other laws, as long as they are otherwise within constitutional power. The Constitution consists mainly of provisions relating to the structure of the Commonwealth Parliament, executive government and the federal judicial system.(6) There is no list of personal rights or freedoms which may be enforced in the courts. There are however some provisions relating to personal rights such as the right to trial by jury (section 80), and the right to freedom of religion (section 116).

Since 1992 decisions of the High Court have indicated that there are implied rights to free speech and communication on matters concerning politics and government, e.g. permitting political advertising during election campaigns.(7) This is known as the 'implied freedom of political communication'. Issues arising from these decisions include defining when communication is 'political' and when the freedom should prevail over competing public interests.(8)

So you're protected if you get a nice judge basically, but not within constitutional law itself.

Edit: Source: http://www.aph.gov.au/LIBRARY/Pubs/RN/2001-02/02rn42.htm

 

[wuddie]

2. The naivety of many people about this issue amazes me. Why would anyone place any trust in a website which is (a) based in the US and (b) is simply a commercial enterprise. For goodness sake, even if this was a worthwhile exercise, have the balls to set up something in NSW that is fair dinkum, accountable and free from "ads provided by Google". The use of the phrase "School District" simply indicates a lack of attention to detail and no concern about what the site is supposedly trying to do. The website ends in ".com" which is a suffix to indicate a commercial enterprise. In some Commonwealth nations the suffix is ".co". This means that the motive of the website is largely for advertising and profit. It's based in the US, so that's hardly surprising.

if the website is so untrustworthy and its info is so unreliable, then why would the teachers care that there is a website setup to criticise them? i think it is a chance for the students to voice their opinions. how often does a high school conduct an evaluation on the teachers like they do at uni? the fact that the quality of the teaching has gone unquestioned and unchecked is obviously one of the reasons this site was established.

mate you got to check what you are talking about before you post.

 

[Serius]

haha when i first checked out this site there were only a couple of ratings for my school, now theres 20 teachers listed with multiple ratings for each. Looks like banning this site only made it more popular.

 

[Ranger Stacie]

its a personal attack, and its cruel.

 

[xeuyrawp]

hahahahaha.

Victory is very, very sweet.

 

[xeuyrawp]

Okay, I've rated all the school teachers I've had since year 7.