RateMyTeachers.com Gives Students Freedom of Opinion

Ratemyteachers.com is a free website that allows students to anonymously rate their teachers, as well as school staff. 

As we enter a new semester of classes and dealing with new teachers, it seems this site could be useful to both students and faculty at Scarsdale High School.

This website is great for students because this allows students to express their unbiased opinion without pressure from teachers or peers, and without the worry of being exposed.  

This website has over 500 schools nationwide, and boasts over 11 million ratings.  The population who are actually rating the professors isn't restricted to students. This website allows parents to rate teachers as well.  

The great thing about this site is that it can, hopefully, prompt teachers to view their own ratings and (if they wish) change their disposition to achieve better ratings.  

Of course, the bottom line is that the students decide, so if a teacher or faculty member is going to change, don't change for the worse.  

About half of the students I asked knew of the website, and only about 75% of them actually [admitted to have had] rated teachers.  Also, based on my research, almost every teacher was on the site, and half, if not more, were positive reviews.  

I asked a teacher whether he saw his ratings on the site, and, although he wasn't happy with the results, he saw the benefit of the site allowing for honest (+/-) communication from students to teachers.

This teacher, who wishes to remain nameless, said it helped him to figure out some reasons students were not happy with his classes. "The great thing about this website is it allows students to anonymously express opinion to teachers on ways to improve," he said.

One of the most important aspects of this website is that it is completely free.

Read what SHS has to say on RateMyTeachers.com.

Jake Tesler is a student reporter in his freshman year at Scarsdale High School.