Education Week - April 27, 2016 - 25

How to Improve Teacher Evaluation
In the Age of ESSA
ers can ensure that their policies and systems-
including those around evaluation-move in the
right direction under ESSA, supporting educators
and students on their paths to success. n

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28

succeed without having a solid quality-assurance
process in place. This can involve sending teams
to learn from schools with strong results and to
monitor and coach schools with shakier results.
States also can analyze data to find broad correlations between teacher ratings and student growth
across schools and districts. Other measures, such
as attendance data or staff surveys, may also corroborate evaluation findings-or raise concerns.
Massachusetts developed a dashboard that allows
district leaders to analyze each district's implementation of the evaluation process, as well as
teacher-performance levels, to help them identify
both bright spots and potential problems. States
can also build trust in the system by asking teachers directly how evaluation is working for them
and publicly sharing the feedback and actions
taken in response.
States and districts are entering a new era in
education policy, and they face the important-but
not impossible-task of focusing on improvement.
Just as teacher evaluation calls for feedback that
improves teacher practice, states need to learn
what's working and what's not to improve policy.
By clarifying their vision for education and learning from best practices around the country, lead-

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Cellphone Addiction
Is No Joke
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

with them by their beds and
text each other throughout
the night.
I don't want to be a part
of the cellphone police. It
is a losing battle. This addiction is so strong that it
is not going to change one
bit because I ask them to
put away their phones and
discuss a short story with
the class. It is not going to
change because I confiscate
a phone and take it to the office. In fact, in the latter case,
the students report to the office shaking, the administrators tell me, in a state of panic about how
to get their phones back.

There are legitimate reasons to have cellphones
out in class. There are applications that work exceptionally well in most subject areas and make
the cellphone a good learning tool. Even during
those situations, however, a majority of students
will be off task and doing
something besides the assignment. They cannot control good use of the device. It
controls them.
What will they do when
they are out of school and
in the workplace? Many of
them will lose jobs based on
their obsessive and dependent behavior.
Yes, addiction is a strong
word, but physically, mentally, and emotionally, a high
percentage of teenagers are
addicted to their cellphones.
We have incentives to proGetty
mote attendance and graduation, but many teenagers need help, because their
bodies are in the classroom, but their minds are
inside their cellphones. n

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Education Week - April 27, 2016

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