Supervisor bashing: Round 1 book review

Abstract

Teacher Evaluation: Educative Alternatives is reminiscent of the many popular books of the sixties and seventies that "bashed" American education and offered romanticized alternatives such as A.S. Neill's Summerhill. The new bashing mania focuses on supervisors, or more specifically, all those who evaluate teachers. The editor makes two claims for the book in the Preface (p. vi). The first claim is that it is the most systematic exploration of the nature of teacher evaluation yet undertaken and does so with erudition and poise. Certainly it is a very interesting and heavily documented exploration. The reviewer believes those concerned with teacher evaluation will find it thought-provoking. However, it is unnecessarily biased against evaluators and evaluation in general. A book that claims to be the most systematic exploration of the subject must represent both sides of the coin. Few professors or practitioners (I've observed none) would suggest that teacher evaluation strategies and techniques are unimportant or not in need of improvement. The authors, however, lay the cause of all fault at the feet of supervisors. They repeatedly characterize supervisors and the entire practice of teacher evaluation as an evil, diabolical, and heinous crime against teachers, with claims that supervision is a way of controlling, disenfranchising, pushing teachers around, and "silencing" them. On numerous occasions supervisors are portrayed as dispensers of knowledge and teachers as the receptors to be "filled." They further illustrate this attitude by clothing supervisors with timeworn quotes from Frederick Taylor's scientific management theory. The following quote was used twice: