To the Editor:

Although the new teacher evaluation process is presented as collaborative and constructive, it is primarily a judgmental instrument. In the right hands, the new evaluation system could be a useful tool; in the hands of a fool, it could be a hideous weapon. The issue is still the same: If we had experienced and intelligent administrators, there would be no need for a new teacher-assessment paradigm.

Administrators who adhere to bureaucratic edicts, all too often perceiving teaching in a linear and mechanistic manner as opposed to organic and creative, are problematic regardless of the evaluation paradigm. A student asks an unanticipated question, a door is opened, and the prepared lesson goes out the window. That is the core of quality teaching. While it is prudent to prepare a lesson, the best ones are often intuitive.

Visiting a classroom to determine whether or not a teacher is “effective” should not be subjected to domains and categorical imperatives. The new accountability system is more about empowering weak and inexperienced administrators than improving teaching. The system perceives teaching as a science, while those who practice it know that it is really an art.

While many are telling us that this is not designed as a “gotcha” process, many are rightly very skeptical. There is an implied and an explicit message delivered to teachers in the new assessment model: We are not to be trusted.

Larry Hoffner, LaGuardia HS