There is a problem here: The evaluations would be most helpful if they occurred partway through the year/semester, rather than solely at the end of it, because it would give teachers time to react to the feedback. Would you be willing to honestly critique a bad teacher if it meant you would have to deal with them actually doing their job for the next few months?
I'm also not so sure that everyone would be so willing to honestly critique their teachers at the end of the year, either. A lot of kids come to like their "bad teachers who lead fun classes" almost as much or more than the teachers who do their jobs well. Kind of like how many kids are unwilling to "snitch" on kids who have wronged them, even when guaranteed anonymity, I think a lot of them wouldn't want to get their teachers in trouble, even if they weren't doing their job properly. In my experience with such teachers, even poorly behaved students would act extremely respectfully when the principal came around to observe. Then again, maybe they were just afraid of getting on the teacher's bad side.
Even worse are instances where the administration knows fully well that a teacher leads a "joke class" and keeps them around to funnel the "bad kids" into. I grew up in a school system that straddled the border between a middle class college town and Section 8 housing packed with families ruined by the collapse of unskilled industrial labor in the area. I have no doubt that a large number of the elective courses existed solely to fill credits for disruptive students and keep them from causing problems in the "real classes" that the middle class and brighter/better-adjusted lower class students took. It didn't matter if the class actually learned anything, the school was just desperate to raise their graduation rates.
I do think these evaluations can help good teachers improve and possibly help to identify people who don't deserve to work as teachers, but they can't solve fundamental problems like "the early education and home environment of these students has failed them, and now the administration of their high school is ready to roll over to keep them from dropping out."
I'm also not so sure that everyone would be so willing to honestly critique their teachers at the end of the year, either. A lot of kids come to like their "bad teachers who lead fun classes" almost as much or more than the teachers who do their jobs well. Kind of like how many kids are unwilling to "snitch" on kids who have wronged them, even when guaranteed anonymity, I think a lot of them wouldn't want to get their teachers in trouble, even if they weren't doing their job properly. In my experience with such teachers, even poorly behaved students would act extremely respectfully when the principal came around to observe. Then again, maybe they were just afraid of getting on the teacher's bad side.
Even worse are instances where the administration knows fully well that a teacher leads a "joke class" and keeps them around to funnel the "bad kids" into. I grew up in a school system that straddled the border between a middle class college town and Section 8 housing packed with families ruined by the collapse of unskilled industrial labor in the area. I have no doubt that a large number of the elective courses existed solely to fill credits for disruptive students and keep them from causing problems in the "real classes" that the middle class and brighter/better-adjusted lower class students took. It didn't matter if the class actually learned anything, the school was just desperate to raise their graduation rates.
I do think these evaluations can help good teachers improve and possibly help to identify people who don't deserve to work as teachers, but they can't solve fundamental problems like "the early education and home environment of these students has failed them, and now the administration of their high school is ready to roll over to keep them from dropping out."