Community Members Show Mixed Feelings Towards Ratemyteachers.com
By Steven Choi ‘10
News Staff Reporter
Ratemyteachers.com, a popular website for many students around the nation, has resulted in mixed reactions from the Choate campus. This website, founded in 1999, contains more than 2.5 million comments pertaining to approximately 500,000 teachers, including the majority of teachers who teach at Choate today.
Claiming that it is “for the first time in the history of schools [that] the student is being heard, and the parents can share their experiences in an open forum,” Ratemyteachers.com has been both an incredibly controversial site across the country and slightly frustrating to certain members of the Choate community. Many schools in the United States have forbidden the use of Ratemyteachers.com, though Choate has yet to establish any restrictions.
Mrs. Katie Levesque, a Choate English teacher, says about Ratemyteachers.com: “I ignore it because there are far better things to do. I see it as a natural impulse for students to vent about things they’re frustrated about. They don’t provide accurate and robust information about the teachers.” Providing a similar reaction, Sabrina Shin ’10 states, “Not a substantial number of students use it, so only a few end up commenting. Those few students tend to be those who have a bias against certain teachers, so overall I believe it’s a very unreliable source to assess teachers.”
Contrasting Shin’s informed opinion was a multitude of students who were oblivious to the notorious website. “I know absolutely nothing about it,” says Ian Chan ’10.
Math teacher Phillip Kalikman expresses his two different opinions of this website. “I’m of two minds about it.” He continues, “Ratemyteachers.com is good in that it provides a forum for students to communicate to other students, as well as teachers, the strengths and weaknesses of the teachers.” Mr. Kalikman diverges from his first opinion, stating, “The site still has no accountability. You don’t know who says what because of the anonymity, and you don’t know if the rater is a reliable source. There are other risks involved: students risk having prejudiced views of teachers who they may not know well. Another downside is that all of this happens outside our school community. Integrity is something that we as a school foster; that is not part of this website.” He concludes, “Collegiality and respect cannot be maintained in an environment that the school can’t control.”
“I’ve had a suspicion that students are totally misinformed because of it. I think it’s just a place for students to rant or rave about a teacher, but as of right now, I don’t think I’m [listed on the site],” said French teacher Rebecca Abbate.
It is difficult for many, especially in a community as tightly-knit as Choate, to accept the unnecessary and seemingly uncensored teacher rating website. Some, such as Mr. Kalikman, deem the principles behind Ratemyteachers.com fairly justified; however, he also suggests an alternative to this disreputable website. “[One of the most useful things] about criticizing or rating a teacher is that the teacher has the opportunity to improve his or her teaching. I’ve created a system where I can give students an anonymous e-mail address so they can describe to me how I can improve my teaching as opposed to sites such as Ratemyteachers.com. In this way, I know how I as a teacher can improve, and it doesn’t pose the issues that Ratemyteachers.com may.”
