Letters: Support System

Credit: Thomas Reis

Support System

Many teachers leave school in the middle of the year. Usually, the students miss their teacher but quickly recover. Yet in spite of a "crisis team" of counselors (there was a team for these seventeen kids?), the children in "Mr. Miller Goes to War: Students Feel the Impact When Their Teacher Is Deployed" [1] (April/May) feel that their teacher's deployment is their fault? Do they also proudly reflect on the fact that his service keeps us safe here at home? I'm sure the kids do support him, and I'm sure they're proud of his service, but that wasn't mentioned.

Judith Horner

Group Rethink

In the April/May issue, Alfred Bork questioned the value of putting a computer on every desk (Letters [2]). He wrote that "students acquire knowledge by interacting with other students" and that groups of three or four produced the best results.

In the field of gifted education, we know certain personality types dominate classrooms. Yes, most young people are extroverts, but introversion is not a defect, nor is preferring to work independently. All students should have opportunities to work in their preferred style at least some of the time. Being different does not need to be seen as some sort of deficiency to be addressed by creating a learning environment that forces those who are "different" to become just like everyone else in order to be seen as successful. Being an independent, creative, introverted student should be acknowledged and valued, not "fixed," and the learning environment should foster and nourish these differences.

Becky Whittenburg

A Test Of Character

I'm not convinced there is a truly objective and fair way to assess schools ("F for Assessment: Standardized Testing Fails," [3] April/May), but if schools must be assessed, I have a few suggestions:

* Include in a school's assessment some measure of the variety of its elective/art courses. Schools with a large number of elective and art choices tend to be vibrant, healthy places, regardless of students' economic level or test scores.

* Insist that all the required assessments (such as "standards-based" testing) be taken in the fall, preferably during the second or third week of the school year. These assessments early in the new school year would test for knowledge connected to deeper understanding from the previous year instead of testing short-term memory based on test-preparation practices.

* A student's academic growth should be compared to that same student's assessment from the previous year. This distinction means a school's score would not be linked to differing levels of preparedness of the entering class of students, but, instead, would measure what gains each student actually makes.

* Require that in order for any national or state legislative body (as well as a state school board) to mandate a high-stakes test (such as an exit exam), its members must take the same test under the same strict testing conditions by which students must abide. This step would encourage more realistic assessments based on truly significant content more likely to be remembered after twenty years, instead of tests that determine only whether students remember random facts that are not useful in life.

* Extend the school year to accommodate testing. Today, each new level of testing imposed on students actually eliminates learning time and reduces the education of our students, instead of increasing it.

* Finally, inform the public of assessment's true cost, including paying faculty and administrators for their time during countless meetings about test administration; the salary and benefits of all school faculty, administration, and staff during testing days; and the expenses of all test-preparation material.

Leslie Dietiker

W. James Popham becomes another in a long line of "educators" who have missed the whole point of the standardized tests being used with the No Child Left Behind Act. The point is to check what students know, and to make schools teach those topics that need to be taught -- not just what some teacher thought of at the moment. For too long, teachers have closed their doors and taught whatever they want. Nobody has checked -- and, for the most part, nobody does still.

Schools are now held accountable for failure to teach what is required, and such accountability is making a very positive impact on education. Quit griping that testing does not tell the whole story. There is no better snapshot of performance available. Stop the whining about testing and holding schools responsible. This is exactly what needed to be done.

Bryan L. Wilkins

Tomorrow's T.E.A.C.H.E.R.

Reading "Highschool.com: The Virtual High School Redefines Education" [4] (April/May) compelled me to send this imagined press release:

T.E.A.C.H.E.R. Units to Change Education in the State, Says Committee

The California Blue Ribbon Committee for Educational Reform, Inc. (previously known as California Republicans for the Alternation of Pedagogy), has announced a "giant breakthrough in educational technology." After years of experimentation, study, and research, the committee is ready to market a product that will revolutionize education -- the self-contained, portable, all-purpose T.E.A.C.H.E.R. (Technical Educational Advancement Component for Help in Educational Reform) unit. Available for purchase or lease by California school districts sometime in mid-summer 2005, the $3 million marvel is seen by the state Department of Education as the solution to all educational problems. It is forecast that school sites will need no more than ten units; long-term payment plans and amortized refunds are available.

The T.E.A.C.H.E.R. unit features include mega-subject programming that enables each unit to teach any subject at any level, from preschool through college. Though the units do not interact with students, they do deliver forty-seven-minute programs complete with audiovisual display as many times in one twenty-four-hour period as necessary.

The disciplinary function eliminates problems in pupil control. (Pollsters say this is the most attractive feature for school administrators.) The unit, while delivering its program, simultaneously scans and monitors students for degree of attention and reacts to low levels. At this time, however, units are not sufficiently developed to allow a range of response for lack of attention; because most schools request assistance at the highest level for attention problems, each unit has been set to respond with the D.E.A.T.H. (Discouragement of Erosion of Attention to Teachers and Helpers) level. Pilot schools report no complaints about the D.E.A.T.H. response and have noted startling increases in attention levels.

It is anticipated that the number of school districts interested in replacing their human staffs with T.E.A.C.H.E.R. units will be significant. The blue-ribbon committee has heard glowing forecasts of the disappearance of unions, teacher-student contact, lunchrooms, faculty meetings, and many more undesirable factors. Interested school districts may call 1-800-DISS-MAY for more information.

Joann Adams

Letters to the editor are a vital part of the conversation. Send your thoughts, corrections, or even complaints to letters@edutopia.org [5], or Letters to the Editor, Edutopia magazine, P.O. Box 3494, San Rafael, CA 94912. Be sure to include your name, affiliation, and contact information. Letters may be edited for length and clarity prior to publication.