Some 750 school districts in the United States, Canada and Britain have banned school use of teacher-rating Web site RateMyTeachers.com, a report said.
Students make up 95 percent of users and parents make up the rest on the 5-year-old Web site set up by New Yorker Michael Hussey, who has been a substitute teacher and whose family includes many teachers.
But hundreds of districts have banned students from using the site during school -- fearing the anonymous ratings could unfairly ruin a teacher's reputation.
"I don't think it's a very scientific way to do an analysis," one unidentified teacher told the Detroit Free Press. "What's stopping me from telling my children to go online and bump up my evaluation⢠Or, what's to stop someone who really wants to get someone⢠They can say they're monitoring it, but it's not really being monitored."
However, Hussey said comments are monitored and sometimes pulled, teachers can post their own response and 70 percent of the ratings are positive.
© Copyright 2006 by United Press International
