This advice comes from a posting on ratemyteachers.com, a Web site which has been a source of controversy in many schools across the country. The site allows anyone with Internet access to do exactly what the URL implies — rate his or her teachers. The simple design and colorful format makes it very easy for students to rate their teachers on a scale of one to five in categories of easiness, helpfulness, and clarity. In addition, students have the option to designate a “cool” teacher by putting sunglasses on a smiley face rating, and they can write up to 500 characters about why they like or dislike a teacher’s approach.

RateMyTeachers, which has grown exponentially since it was founded in August 2001 by a California Internet entrepreneur and two teachers, now receives more than 8,000 new ratings per day, according to the site. Students are becoming quite fond of RateMyTeachers, especially at Lowell, where it has become a tool for many self-schedulers. Students have posted over 3,500 teacher ratings for 194 teachers on the site. “If I really don’t know anything about a teacher, I go on the site to look at how much work they give and whether or not they have a good atmosphere in the classroom,” junior Christine Sierra said.

Despite its popularity among students, some administrators question its reliability. “It’s too unstructured. I would look at the ratings with a great deal of caution,” principal Paul Cheng said. “Comments could be from Fargo, North Dakota,” math teacher Laura Neri pointed out, “If my students in the classroom told me the comments, it would mean a lot more than anything on the Web site.” Nancy Davis, a co-founder of RateMyTeachers, explained the purpose of the site in an e-mail. “I hope the students use the site as intended, as a feedback tool for their education — and I encourage teachers to not be afraid of the site, but to use it to improve,” she stated. “We are all in this together —- students, teachers and parents -- and if we want to see education improve, then anything that helps should be encouraged, not feared.”

Fear is a common response to RateMyTeachers. More than 700 of over 44,000 registered middle and high schools in the United States are blocking access to the site on their computers. RateMyTeachers lists the names of these schools on their “Wall of Shame.” A few of these schools are located in the Bay Area, but none in San Francisco. Two schools even threatened to suspend students who visit the site, one in Manitoba, Canada, and one in Maine.

Although no lawsuits have been filed against RateMyTeachers, attempts to take similar Web sites to court have been made. In 2000, two instructors at City College of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against Teacher Review, a review site for college professors, because several ratings were posted that were extremely offensive to a gay English teacher. The charges were dropped a few months later because the Communications Decency Act of 1996 gives immunity to Webmasters who run open forums online. Since the ratings were anonymous, the instructors had no case.

RateMyTeachers insists that these types of postings should not be a problem, as each school has its own student moderator who reviews each comment and decides whether it is appropriate for online display. “We have over 4,000 student moderators who handle their school and the ratings from schools without moderators,” Davis writes. “I think the success is because of the student involvement. We couldn't do this without them.” The Web site states that if a rating happens to get past a moderator anyone can flag it, citing obscenity or inappropriateness, and it will be reviewed again and removed if necessary.

However, the Lowell site does include ratings by students who bash their teachers for revenge. One student, who wished to remain anonymous, admitted that he gave a teacher the lowest possible rating because he was upset about the grade he received. “I thought I deserved an ‘A,’ but I was given a ‘B,’ so I went on the site and rated him all ones.”

RateMyTeachers believes teacher bashing is not a serious problem, claiming that about 70 percent of teacher’s ratings are favorable. This seems to be true for Lowell where the average teacher quality rating is 3.7 out of five.

English teacher David Hathwell looked at the site and its effects on the teaching community. “I wish the site were less of a polling booth for a teacher popularity contest — who’s cool, cooler, coolest. That puts us in a bad, competitive relationship with one another.” Problems on the site for students are simpler. “Everyone has different opinions,” sophomore Nick Rosenheim said. “I’ve taken teachers who were rated highly but ended up disliking them, and I’ve taken teachers who were rated poorly but ended up really liking them. From now on, I might just go with the opposite of what the site says.” Hathwell admits though, “I couldn’t help but see the gallery of faces and gloat that mine wasn’t green.”