Education

TeacherComplaints.com: Productive or Inflammatory?

By Katie Ash — March 21, 2011 1 min read
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Are you unsatisfied with a teacher, principal, or even bus driver at your student’s school? Have you thought about setting up a meeting to address your concerns with that person?

Why do that when you could complain about it for the whole Internet to see on a website called TeacherComplaints.com?

The website is exactly what it sounds like: a virtual place for parents and students to voice their complaints about their schools, teachers, and principals. The site says it uses keywords to tag the complaints so they can be found by anyone searching online for information about a teacher. Complainers aren’t required to list a name, but there is no such policy protecting the full names of the teachers or educators under fire.

The press release states, “Some teachers and school’s cry foul. But parents and students argue, What’s unfair about calling out a person or school out by name. Especially when teachers and schools call out students for their misconduct?” [sic]

The site claims it increases accountability by making the behavior of teachers in schools public knowledge and protects children by reporting their bad school experiences for the community to see. Why the owners of the site feel that complaining anonymously online is a more productive route than other forms of mediation is not mentioned.

TeacherComplaints.com differs from other websites, such as Rate My Teachers, by being free to use, it says.

I will leave you with one last view of the website: a YouTube video that explains the mission of TeacherComplaints.com, which is narrated over—you guessed it—Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in The Wall.”

A version of this news article first appeared in the Digital Education blog.