Popular Web site rates schoolteachers Students comment in anonymous forum

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A University of Maine graduate who wants to “give students a voice” said the RateMyTeachers.com Web site that he helped develop two years ago is fast gaining popularity in the state.

The Web site, which describes itself as “the first forum to publicly expose ineffective teachers and broadcast praise for stellar teachers,” is just starting to catch on here after succeeding elsewhere in the United States and Canada, Michael Hussey, 25, said this week.

“It’s only a matter of time before most high schools in Maine are using it. Once a handful of students begin, it spreads like wildfire. Next thing you know students are on it and teachers are checking their ratings.”

The site is free and students can use it to rate their teachers anonymously. Through word of mouth it has garnered 2.4 million ratings of more than 403,000 teachers and is used at more than 23,400 middle and high schools across the United States and Canada, said Hussey.

So far, Maine students, including those from high schools in Hampden, Bangor, Brewer, Orono and Old Town, have left 3,108 ratings on more than 1,000 teachers who have been assessed on a five-point scale according to how helpful and clear they are as instructors.

Students also are asked how easy the class is, but that is not factored into the teacher’s overall quality score.

The most popular teachers get a smiley face with sunglasses next to their names.

There’s also room for several lines of comments which are reviewed for libelous, malicious or vulgar content by a nationwide panel of 1,600 “student administrators” and six adults before they are posted, Hussey said.

The New York State Attorney General’s Office has issued an opinion that the site is clearly protected by the First Amendment, Hussey said. Support also has come from the California First Amendment Rights Commission and the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va.

Despite the protections, the volunteers charged with reviewing comments have been “trained to know what to look out for,” he said.

“We want the comments to be related to what’s going on in the classroom about teaching, not about personal issues,” said Hussey, who was a substitute teacher for a year.

Down the road plans are to “allow rebuttals,” Hussey said.

While “there’s going to be certain students who are disgruntled and want to vent,” the majority of comments are positive, he said.

Each day 35,000 to 50,000 students log on “basically because they just want to have a say in the quality of their education,” said Hussey

Assessing clarity, students are asked whether the instruction makes sense and is organized and whether the teacher’s “approach to the classroom is effective.”

A helpful teacher is one who goes “the extra mile to ensure that their lessons are getting through to students,” Hussey said.

He emphasized that easiness isn’t factored into the overall quality score. “Just because a teacher may offer an easy course does not necessarily make them a good teacher – and vice versa. However, students and parents are interested in this statistic – it offers them additional insight into the classroom. Teachers are also interested in how easy or hard they are perceived,” he said.

Hussey grew up in Alfred and graduated from UM in 2000 with a degree in financial economics. He has spent the last few years in Washington, D.C., working as a technology consultant.

He didn’t say how much he makes from RateMyTeachers.com, but paid advertising has helped the site become “a profitable business.”

Students and teachers have praised the site, Hussey said.

“Many students are afraid to criticize a teacher,” he said. Now they thank him “for letting me share my opinions in a safe way.”

Teachers said the comments have made them better instructors, Hussey said. Some, “who get praised across the board,” said the feedback “lets them know they’re doing the right thing. It affirms their mission as a teacher.”

Others have “encouraged students to use it in a responsible way,” he said.

Hussey, who comes from a family of teachers, said accountability became the byword after the federal education reform law No Child Left Behind passed in 2001.

“Students were being ignored in the whole debate,” he said. “Teachers are accountable to students, and who knows better about what’s going on in class day-to-day but students?”

But Orono Superintendent Tom Perry, who wasn’t familiar with the site, disagreed that students have been forgotten.

“Lots of teachers gather student input as they reflect upon their own performance, and I think it’s valuable,” he said.

Brewer Superintendent Betsy Webb, who hadn’t heard of the site either, said, “If used appropriately, it might be a good way for students to communicate about their teachers.”

But, she added, “as with all communications, the most successful is face to face. Whether positive or negative feedback, I would hope students and teachers have relationships in which they could share that with each other.”

John L. White, 16, a Hampden Academy junior, is one of four student administrators from Maine. He reviews comments about teachers at his school, and said teachers are evaluated by “everyone else. But very few teachers ask for students’ opinions, so I thought it was really great that there was a way for students to communicate.”

White, who has been on the job since the beginning of the school year, said many people haven’t heard about the site. He said he has reviewed about 20 of the 26 comments made about Hampden Academy teachers.

Students, for the most part, have submitted salient information about their teachers, according to White. He said he hasn’t come across anything “insensitive,” although some students have commented about “things not relevant to teaching.”

Bangor High School science teacher Phil Emery, who said he was unaware of the site, learned Friday that he is described as “awesome.”

“It’s very nice to hear that,” he said.