Schools ban website that lets pupils rate teachers EDUCATION: ROW

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Oct 29, 2006 | by Jenifer Johnston

MORE than four-fifths of Scottish councils have banned school pupils from accessing a website which invites young people to grade their teachers over fears that offensive messages would spread across the internet.

The Educational Institute for Scotland (EIS), Scotland's largest teaching union, told the Sunday Herald yesterday that 26 of Scotland's 32 councils have restricted access to RateMyTeachers from school computers or they intend to do so in the future.

The EIS became concerned the pupils' "grading" of teachers would lead to a string of defamation suits or possibly breach data protection legislation and wrote to the Information Commissioner earlier this year to ask him to investigate.

Although nothing about RateMyTeachers was found to be in breach of the law, the EIS has written to every local authority in Scotland to ask them to consider banning access to the site.

So far 26 have have agreed to follow the request.

A spokesman said yesterday: "It's difficult to see what purpose this site serves other than to give scope for certain aggrieved children to have a free 'hit' at their teacher.

"Comments are frequently petty and serve no value, other than to distress conscientious professionals.

"While we are grateful that the vast majority of councils have closed down access to the site from their school networks, we are also aware that the oxygen of publicity this provides the site operators is possibly counterproductive for schools."

The EIS would also like to "encourage" members who find comments about themselves on the site to let them know so that the union can "consider what action may be appropriate" in the event that the comments are defamatory.

Around nine million ratings have been made on RateMyTeachers since the site began in 2001, and it now features reports on teachers from Canada, India, Italy, Australia, the US and New Zealand, as well as Scotland, through its sister UK site.

There has been the fear that parents seeking the best schools for their children could start to use the site as a guide to teacher quality instead of official school inspection reports.

Some of the Scottish teachers featured on the site are clearly unpopular with pupils: one PE teacher from the south side of Glasgow is called a "scary witch . . . I wish we could send her to Mars and leave her there, that would be good", while a Stirling computing studies teacher is warned "I'm not going to pass my exams just playing games on the internet like she wants." However most reports from pupils are positive: one west of Scotland maths teacher gets the accolades "wat a guy", and "great teacher", alongside posts that include "Mr X should stop using that stupid interactive board thing, its been the downfall of my highers and wastes so much time" and "he can be moany but once u get him goin hes dead funny".

Although teachers can email the website to complain about inaccuracies, the EIS maintains that the concept of pupils rating teachers in this way is unhelpful and inaccurate.

John Swapceinski and Michael Hussey, the US owners of the site, could not be contacted for comment yesterday, but they put up a robust defence of RateMyTeachers on their homepage, claiming that "in the public discourse on improving education, we believe the most important voices are often ignored for the first time in the history of public schools, the student is being heard, and parents can share their experiences in an open forum.

"Administrative reviews of teacher performance can never substitute for a review coming from someone who interacts daily with that teacher the student.

"If a parent or administrator reviews the ratings on RateMyTeachers (assuming there is a broad enough sample), they will see that there is typically a consistency amongst the ratings. Most importantly, it is often obvious if a teacher has created an environment of mutual respect." They also claim that "about 70-per cent" of the ratings on the website are favourable, although there is a stern warning that any legal claims must be filed in Kern, a small town in California.

NEED TO KNOW THE FACTS Scottish councils have banned pupils from accessing a website which allows them to grade their teachers.

BACKGROUND The website, which was launched in 2001, invites pupils and parents to log on and rate teachers' classroom skills, such as helpfulness and clarity. It claims it aims to provide an insight into the classroom, but teachers have raised concerns over petty and offensive comments being posted.

NEED TO KNOW MORE?

www. ratemyteachers. co. uk