We have surveys for just about everything in our lives. Why don't we do this for the school and for individual teachers?

By and large my children have had pretty good teachers.
Some have been exceptional and some have been very disappointing.

Currently our school district is going on a PR campaign to discuss their financial woes as the school board considers raising taxes. Having just received my new property tax assessment, I feel we should have more say in how school does things and a more comprehensive way of voicing this.

I realize I can write the board, the principal, the district, etc… but I don't feel that would go as far as a rating system offered to every family in the district. This would allow the best to be recognized and the less strong teachers goals for improvement and accountability.

I may be in the minority, but if the district was using data as part of their PR campaign and could show that they are trying to give bonuses to the best teachers, I'd be far more inclined to support their efforts.

In my job as a physician I have a portion of my compensation tied to patient surveys. This obviously is done in many industries. Why not school?

Neighborhoods could band together and give all teachers 1 star hoping it would lower their property value/taxes.


It would probably be have to be something decided on the state level, and the popularity a that sort of proposal would be pretty low.

Some school districts do this as student surveys. Research say that if you throw out the outliers on either end, the results are actually pretty accurate. Teachers and school administrators, however, fear them like the plague.