This is an article from Sydney Morning Herald i would like to cherish for my remaining secondary education year... Teacher fury at rating website by Anna Patty
May 3, 2007
Teachers are trying to sue and shut down a website that names and shames them and gives them a mark out of five.The website names individual schools and teachers, scoring their performance, and in many cases defaming them. One Sydney principal, who is given a score of 1.7 out of five for "overall quality", is described as rude, condescending, pompous and arrogant. "Who could allow someone like her to run a school? … [she] is a terrible principal. She is a bully who does not care about the students or the school's wellbeing, but rather how they appear to the outside world." The NSW Department of Education has blocked access to the site from all school computers, but is powerless to shut it down, because it is based in America. The NSW Teachers Federation is looking at how it can take legal action against the company. Its president, Maree O'Halloran, said a number of teachers had complained they had been defamed on the site. The issue will be raised with the new director-general of education, Michael Coutts-Trotter, when Ms O'Halloran meets him next week. "It is clearly an absolute disgrace that people are anonymously able to make comments about teachers that are quite atrocious," she said. "We are aiming to have the site shut down. The problem is that it is legally based in the US. Our next step is to consider how we could use defamation action." Comments about individual teachers and principals are posted anonymously and teachers are badged with either a smiley or frowning face, depending on their rating. One maths teacher at a Sydney school is described as being unable to control a class or spell. "He can't teach at all and going to his class is like having an unofficial free period. He can't control the class to save his life and his teaching is repetitive and boring. Yet he labours on and you have to wonder why." The president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, Jim McAlpine, said the Federal Government should block access to "scurrilous American websites". The NSW Department of Education has given legal advice about cyber bullying to all schools. A Sydney high school sent a memo to parents last year, asking them to monitor their children's internet access after students were suspended for threatening school staff on a website. And guess what??? A Sydney High School = Fort Street High | 