Playing System for Grades
Children learn early on that extra money is earned by home, care by relatives or shopping. When young people, such as school, many parents use incentives to encourage positive results. For good grades, parents are willing to pay more money for better schools, nicer clothes and new cars come with a note – the best numbers, the better the car. The idea of ​​performance pay may be relatively new to the American health care, but the youngsters soon learn that the car is on the line if they do not produce the sounds.
Once in the room seems to change the reward system. In class, these young adults to keep their teachers playing the system high marks for good teaching evaluations. In most universities have teachers for good performance at school, as reward, other scientific activities. Finally, his teacher tenure (ie the right to hold their position forever), based on performance over time, usually 6-7 years.
For assistant professors without tenure, the pressure to get good reviews, so great that the non-compliance with these positive assessments of the students receive is likely to result in the loss of a job. On the one hand, teachers should sit down with all kinds of student behavior. Examples include listening and accepting weak excuse for missing class, attributed to the use of mobile phones, computers and games, to lesson disruption, although simple policy against its use, and give makeup exams because the exams its hard as “not to help students” when it comes time for students to evaluate faculty performance.
To survive in this system, a system that never existed in the class of 25 or more teachers to lower standards. For example, if the material is too hard, some students use their poor performance as an excuse to downgrade teachers on teaching evaluations. So the mood for more teachers is to give “As”, like student evaluations of teachers will be better, and everyone is happy. Remember, as Summa Cum Laude and Magna Cum Laude, used to mean something? The students are really smart or has broken the process of evaluating their teachers, so the effects will be handed out like candy on Halloween? One faculty member shared a story about a student in the office and complain that they are two points to Magna Cum Laude needs. The student was very excited, exclaimed the teacher, and finally called A ‘Anyone can be “‘ in this class if they just studied.” End of discussion. In retrospect, the only thing different, the only new what appears to be the formation of the assessment process.
Well, the possibilities for the system to correct? End of the tenure system? No, the tenure system ensures a healthy balance between teachers. Without the tenure system, there is concern that some academic units would be a mini-dictatorship. Evaluations of other teachers are not the answer that the policy applies to the evaluations was to create a popularity contest among the teachers. How can we stop this madness? Perhaps the evaluation process should be outsourced. Pay-for-performance is important, but uses the current structure, to evaluate the teaching in the universities must be improved.