Education Week - December 5, 2012 - 34

EDUCATION WEEK

DECEMBER 5, 2012

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LETTERS to the EDITOR Teachers Can Help Prevent Discrimination
To the Editor: The Commentary “Two Lives Diverged” by David Bamat (Oct. 10, 2012) brought back memories of Boonton (N.J.) High School, from which I graduated in 1966. At Boonton, we were separated into general, commercial, college, and scientific tracks. I chose the scientific track because of a lifelong interest in science (not realizing at the time that women would be discouraged from entering those fields). My best friend, Maureen, was put in the general track. Maureen told me that the school must have thought she was a dummy. As a result we had very few classes together. We lived in adjacent neighborhoods, both of us had horses, and we would ride together after school. Maureen had more common sense than anyone I knew and could read people like an open book. She attended Meredith College and became a certified equestrian instructor. We both learned gender discrimination. One summer, Maureen showed me a boarding stable that was hiring help. We went up to the owner to ask about the job, to be told that he only hired boys to work for him. There was no legal recourse at that time. As the article so poignantly points out, race (as well as gender) discrimination still exists. As educators, we must recognize the presence of discrimination and take steps to reverse the situation, whatever it might be. Discrimination can be very subtle and insidious, and difficult to detect. It takes responsive teachers like David Bamat whose intuitive perceptions enable him to put in place the educational countermeasures necessary to change the status quo. Karla Christensen
Jordan, Mont.

seen it all before. What about addressing poverty? And the accompanying health issues, damaging home environments, and unsafe neighborhoods that more often than not come along with it? Perhaps Mr. Greenstone and Mr. Looney should look to this sentence in a news story on the first page of the very issue in which their Commentary appeared: “While educators and psychologists have said for decades that the effects of poverty interfere with students’ academic achievement, new evidence from cognitive and neuroscience is showing exactly how adversity in childhood damages students’ long-term learning and health” (“Scientists Trace Adversity’s Toll”). Fixing our schools requires a holistic approach, not a piecemeal one like what Mr. Greenstone and Mr. Looney prescribe. Our schools don’t exist in a vacuum. Fix American society and you fix American schools. Period. Patrick Hunt
English Teacher Transit Tech Career and Technical Education High School Brooklyn, N.Y.

basis by individual teachers. To be effective, these data must be expressed in very specific terms aligned with the expectations of the assignment. No single summary statistic will do. When teachers consider the second type of data, the focus is on what the students know and do well, what they do not know or are weak in, and what we (the educators) are going to do about it. Specific and concrete answers to these “what” questions form the heart of the type of data that Mr. Kohn does not address. But it is important data even though practically “numberless” and not fixated on comparing, ranking, or winning. It is all about student learning in relation to established content standards, and, much more importantly, it focuses on what our response as educators will be. Ronald S. Thomas
Associate Director Center for Leadership in Education Towson University Towson, Md.

PRESIDENT & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Virginia B. Edwards EXECUTIVE EDITOR Gregory Chronister
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School Climate Series Could Have Gone Further
To the Editor: Your recent four-part series on school climate and student behaviors offered practical strategies for schools and teachers (“Rethinking Discipline,” Oct. 17 through Nov. 7, 2012). However, addressing critical issues in education has traditionally required identifying root causes when determining solutions— something which regrettably was nearly absent in the series. Focusing only on symptoms does not generate lasting resolutions. Current neuroscience research can provide insights into learning and behavioral issues, which in turn can lead to proactive guidelines that can offer emotionally secure classrooms without jeopardizing the learning process and academic achievement. Infants who are not afforded the opportunity to form secure attachments miss out on critical early brain development. A child’s capacity for selfregulation, stress management, and empathy is determined by early nurturing. Those children who miss out do not have the neurological wiring for developing these skills, which are essential for the learning process. School and classroom attempts to manage disruptive student behaviors through disciplinary policies will undermine the emotional security of distressed students and lower their academic achievement. To successfully reach and teach today’s students requires trauma-informed education practices. Barbara Oehlberg
Education and Child Trauma Consultant Solon, Ohio

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Student-Learning Data Are Crucial
To the Editor: Alfie Kohn was right on point about lots of things in his Commentary “Schooling Beyond Measure” (Sept. 19, 2012). Yes, the public does have an overrated regard for numbers, and this has often resulted in curriculum reduction; an obsession with comparing, ranking, and winning; and a focus away from the important ethical considerations that should guide our work. But his Commentary did not tell the whole story. Mr. Kohn only addressed one kind of data, what typically might be labeled “accountability data.” To be effective, accountability data must be expressed in global terms. Accountability data are often aggregated into single statistics and disseminated publicly, reducing the work of thousands of hours and millions of dollars to a single number. Integral to accountability data is identifying how many and what students are proficient. Do teachers need to know this? Absolutely. Are these answers particularly helpful in identifying what to do next? Not really. So, we must turn to another type of data, which was neglected by Mr. Kohn. This “better side of data” goes by many names, including instructional-decisionmaking data and assessment-forlearning data. The key point is this type of data is collected in a different way for a drastically different purpose. Instructional-decisionmaking data are gathered on an ongoing

The writer is a retired educator and served as the Garfield County, Mont., superintendent of schools from 1994 to 2007.

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‘Holistic Approach’ Is Only Way to Fix Schools
To the Editor: Here are Commentary authors Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney’s recommendations for improving K-12 education: Look to charter schools for new approaches, start school later, institute after-school programs, and make sure each school has “great” teachers (“The Importance of Education: An Economics View,” Nov. 7, 2012). Groundbreaking stuff, and we’ve

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Education Week - December 5, 2012

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