Are You 'THE WORST TEACHER EVA'?

NEA Today, Feb 2004 by Simpson, Michael D

A popular new Web site lets students praise or condemn their teachers onlineanonymously. Can they really do that?

As he explains it, Michael Hussey just wants to "hold teachers accountable." So the young entrepreneur joined California teachers Tim and Nancy Davis in creating RateMyTeachers.com (RMT), a for-profit Web site where students can "have their opinions validated."

If you're a teacher, chances are you've already been rated on RMT, whether you know it or not. RMT claims that 537,030 teachers from 29,254 schools have received some 3.2 million ratings since the site was launched in August 2001.

HOW DOES IT WORK? Students rate their teachers on a scale of one to five in three categories: easiness, helpfulness, and clarity. Based on the average of the latter two categories, the teacher is assigned a smiley, frowny, or neutral face.

Teachers are identified by name, school, and department, but only those in middle or high schools can be rated. Students are also free to post personal comments about teachers. Both the ratings and comments are anonymous.

Hussey, a former substitute teacher from Maine, claims that 60 to 80 percent of the ratings are favorable. Many comments are indeed complimentary: "Koolest teacher...Da bomb....He actually explains things, a refreshing change from the stuffy snobby teachers I've had before."

But other comments are just plain hurtful: "Killed most of my love of Latin.. ..She loves insulting and demeaning students.... THE WORST TEACHER EVA!!!"

One student, in justifying the 1.0 rating he or she gave a New York teacher (the worst possible), complained, "if ur standing up or talkin wen ur not supposed to be, she goes krazy and picks on u thru the rest of the period...! dont like her at ALL."

Hussey told NEA Today that his site is "just another resource to help teachers improve" and argued that it's had a "positive effect on classroom instruction."

While some teachers have complained, "many teachers thank us for it" Hussey added. "They take the information from the Web site and use it to improve instruction. Eventually, all teachers will accept it."

How would he respond to a teacher distraught over a student's comments? Hussey quoted his mother, a Maine teacher and union building rep: "You have to have tough skin to be a teacher."

Perhaps. But in complaints posted on the site's "User Comments" page, teachers have criticized the practice of student anonymity and threatened litigation.

So, can a teacher sue RMT over student comments that it posts? Michael Hussey and his lawyers don't think so.

Hussey says that RMT has adopted "Rating Rules" that prohibit certain objectionable comments. And he maintains that postings are screened by student volunteers and that roughly 5 percent of all comments are never posted.

Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center and an expert on the First Amendment rights of students, doubts that a lawsuit against RMT would succeed.

Teachers can't sue, he says, because student opinions about teachers are constitutionally protected. "One has the right to say someone is bad at what they do," he points out. "It's like calling someone ugly or beautiful. It's in the eye of the beholder."

Goodman says the federal Communications Decency Act probably would protect RMT. This law grants immunity from most civil lawsuits to "interactive computer service" providers that allow third parties to post messages on cyber bulletin boards.

What can be done? One smart option for an NEA local affiliate is to persuade its district to block access to RMT from school computers. According to RMT's "Wall of Shame," almost 500 schools have done just that.

And while Hussey states that he won't honor teachers' requests to remove their names from the site, individuals can have objectionable comments temporarily removed-by clicking on the red flag next to the comment-pending review by RMT staff.

One user recently suggested that RMT create a "ratemystudents.com" Web site for teacher use. We checkedthat URL has already been taken.

MICHAEL D. SIMPSON

MEA Office of General Counsel