Wendy Lecker, a parent activist in Stamford, Connecticut, has sent a powerful letter to President Obama.
The link is here.
The letter is here:
Parents Across America grieves with the community of Newtown, Connecticut over the loss of their precious children and educators. The following letter, sent yesterday to President Obama from the founder of Parents Across America-CT, expresses some aspects of what many of our members are feeling at this difficult time.
Hon. President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Obama:
As a public school parent of three in Stamford, Connecticut, I wanted to thank you for lending your support to the devastated community of Newtown. I listened intently to your remarks at the memorial service last night, especially to the questions you raised: “Can we claim, as a nation, that we’re all together there, letting them know that they are loved, and teaching them to love in return? Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?”
You indicated that you were reflecting on these questions, alluding to the issue of gun control. I hope also, that these questions caused you also to reconsider your approach to education reform.
As you said last night, “our most important job is to give [children] what they need to become self-reliant and capable and resilient, ready to face the world without fear.” You described in vivid detail how skilled the teachers and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School were at dealing with the immediate unthinkable trauma of the tragedy; how they managed to keep children calm and feeling safe in the face of life-threatening danger. We can predict that the teachers of the surviving children will have to be as equipped to handle the trauma these children will carry with them as they will be to teach them the subjects the children learn. We know that these teachers will have to help these children develop the non-cognitive skills that make all the difference to success in life- those skills we cannot measure on any standardized test.
We also know, as you mentioned, that those poor children in Sandy Hook are not the only ones who deal with trauma on a daily basis. Children today, especially those living in our poorest areas, face the stress that crime and poverty exact on their young lives on a daily basis. And we know from research, like that done at the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, that when children experience prolonged stress, it becomes toxic and hinders the development of the learning and reasoning areas of the brain. These researchers maintain that a nurturing environment is key to enabling these areas to grow properly. For many children, school is their safe haven; and science, and the awful events in Newtown show us that it is our paramount duty to maintain school as a secure and loving place.
In order to ensure that schools are a safe haven, where children can develop both cognitive and non-cognitive skills, they need to have preschool, reasonable class size, so children can get needed attention from teachers; enough supplies and books, and rich curriculum, including art, music sports and extra-curriculars, so children can explore and understand the world and have many outlets to express themselves; and enough support services, especially for children at-risk.
Many of our schools across this nation do not have the resources to make our schools a safe haven. As you noted in your recent report, for example, in New York City, the number of classes of 30 and over has tripled in the past four years. School districts across this country have been forced to cut support services, teachers, extra-curricular activities, music, art, even AP classes and core classes. They have to delay repairs until a roof collapses, endangering children.
Unfortunately, your policies toward our public schools are making it nearly impossible to keep public schools a nurturing and safe environment. Your chief strategies are evaluating teachers based on standardized test scores and implementation of the Common Core standardized tests in every grade, with a multitude of interim computerized tests as well as summative computerized tests. None of these preferred strategies of yours have ever been proven to raise achievement. Surely you are aware of the studies proving that rating teachers on standardized tests results in a 50% misclassification rate. The ratings vary by year, class, test and even statistical model used. The CCSS is not supported by any research showing that standards or tests improve learning. In fact, the National Research Council concluded that ten years of NCLB testing has done nothing to improve achievement.
Even more damaging, these strategies force teachers, administrators and children to abandon attention to all-important non-cognitive skill development, and focus primarily, if not only, on test scores. This shift of focus includes a diversion of limited resources away from necessary educational basics. You have moved the focus from the well-being of children to the job status of adults.
A recent report from the Consortium of Policy Research in Education reveals just how harmful this strategy is. The report found that NCLB’s test-driven mandates provided little guidance on how to improve. Consequently, schools tried a hodgepodge of strategies akin to “throwing many darts at a target and hoping one of them hits the bulls-eye.” The only consistent tactic used to raise test scores was test prep. As CPRE acknowledged, test prep is shallow and narrow. The report recommends changing accountability systems so schools concentrate less on standardized tests and more on developing the “host of non-cognitive skills found to be related to later success.”
Other researchers found a disturbing trend caused by testing, standardization and scripting: America’s children are becoming less creative. While other countries strive to build creativity into the curriculum, American schools are increasingly forced to homogenize. Consequently, creativity, which increased steadily until 1990, has declined ever since, with the most serious decline appearing in children from kindergarten to sixth grade.
This body of research demands that we rethink our national obsession to use tests as the goal in education. A low test score should be an alarm, not that a school or teacher is failing, but more likely that there are stressors in a child’s life that warrant intervention.
Your waiver and Race to the Top programs, which push the use of standardized tests to judge all teachers and the implementation of even more standardized tests through the Common Core State Standards, only increase this hollow focus on testing. You hold hostage funding to provide the necessary resources described above to the implementation of these narrow and destructive goals. You encourage states to withhold basic funding as well, as evidenced by Governor Cuomo’s threat to withhold basic state school aid unless districts implement a teacher evaluation based on test scores. You hold up as examples of model schools privately run charters that often exclude our neediest children and often are militaristic-style test-prep factories. Moreover you encourage the proliferation of these schools, which are not answerable to democratically elected school boards, and therefore disenfranchise our neediest citizens.
My oldest child is in 12th grade and my youngest is in 7th. I have seen the increased scripting and narrowing of learning that has occurred in just the five-year gap between them. I have seen the increase in stress in my youngest, who has to suffer through meaningless computerized test after test, while units on poetry and other subjects that would expand his world, are jettisoned (to the point where I have opted him out of many of these tests). I have spoken to so many wonderful teachers frustrated and dejected by their new roles as simple proctors, rather than inspiring educators. I have spoken to school nurses who tell me that at test time, they see a spike in headaches, stomachaches and the need for anti-anxiety medication.
Is this the safe haven to which we aspire for our children? Can this stressful and intellectually-empty school experience really teach our children that they are loved, how to love and how to be resilient?
You said last night that we have to change. While I believe you were hinting at gun control, I respectfully request that you expand this resolve to change and include a rethinking of your education policy. We want all our children to feel safe and loved. We want them to be able to find their own, unique voices. We want to protect them and teach them ways to adapt and protect themselves. Please help us do that by helping schools expand our children’s world. Let us build our schools’ capacity to serve all our children, rather than tearing down the foundations of our public education system.
Sincerely,
Wendy Lecker
Diane- Thank you for sharing Wendy’s heartfelt letter. Is there a way that we can ask her permission to join her and also sign that letter in support of what she so eloquently said??? So many of us are heartbroken. Parents and educators.
Marge Borchert
Thank you for your kind words. Anyone is free to join me.
Wendy
Wendy,
In fact, I am citing the brain research done on urban children that shows the impact of continuous stress on the development of the human brain, and its impact on learning in my class-action lawsuit against Malloy, Adamowski, Pryor, et. al. on behalf of Connecticut’s public school teachers.
Bill Morrison
I am so grateful we teachers in Connecticut have Wendy Lecker!
Wendy Lecker has looked beyond her grief and anger to pen a call to action. I will keep this letter as a reference. She has clearly described what needs to be changed if we are to truly create a safe and nurturing environment for our children. Responsible adults should not be at odds when it comes to loving, educating, and watching over our children.
Wow what a great letter you said it so well. Well done.
Well said, and to the point. We can’t expect to increase humanity in opposition to the culture crushing our kids and bearing down on their lives OUTSIDE of school by implementing de-humanizing reforms inside schools. How do you evaluate the power of a teacher hug when it could be the most powerful thing keeping a troubled student on the right track? Do you have Murdoch, Klein and gates come up with a metric and some cell phone hacking software to evaluate the hugger? This petition is something I whipped together after my wife told me about this site, which apparently gets a White House response if it makes the signature ceiling. You do have to register, but I want to see what happens. There must be many, many people who think the reform focus has to change.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/cease-harmful-public-education-policies-relying-standardized-testing/w8ZrZwVT?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
I’ve signed, but I only see 28 signatures! I’ll pass it on to my friends and fellow teachers.
Once I log into the White House petitions, I appear at a different screen and am not able to find this using the Search options. I Search with the full title, “standardized testing”, “public education policies” but the PETITION IS NOT SEARCHABLE (maybe that’s why there are only 28 signatures). ANY IDEAS/INFO from anyone?
try this https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/cease-harmful-public-education-policies-relying-standardized-testing/w8ZrZwVT?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
it’s happened to me a few times too, when I try hitting off different twitter posts, but I just checked now and got it. It’s not publicly searchable til it hits 150, and I know theres an AFT one out there, but we should combine or at least collaborate. I’ll see if I can find that one, but my wife told me about this “we the people” site, because it apparently gets WH response if it hits that enormous signature bar. Stoking the awareness fire is my realistic goal…but what if? Follow @DMaxMJ and hit one of my petition posts-most seem to work, and thanks. The denial of the human/subjective measures and social needs/goals are what lies under the data-for-profit reform. I had my children knowing they would be a financial cost in the end, but hoping for heart and soul profit.
Done – thank you for taking action.
Done!
Come on…we are only at 50 something people.
I know…but let’s give it a try.
The nuts who wanted to succeed form the union got more signatures!
Wendy Lecker for Secretary of Ed!
Thank you for sharing this wonderful letter. Wendy ‘s letter should be passed on to everyone. Let’s make sure we share it with all of our professional and personal contacts. What a great way to start today!
Thank you, Wendy.
Wendy – I am forwarding your beautiful letter to my teachers and the President of my Parent Teacher League (PTL).
Your letter needs to go to every Senator and Congressman. It needs to be read on the radio and on t.v.
Thank you for being my hero.
Marge Borchert
I don’t think there’s anybody back there.
spot on.
bravo Wendy.
kids’ work the last four years.. to redefine public ed:
redefineschool.com
cutting to the chase… because our days matter, let’s not wait.. no?
Dear Wendy, Thank you for penning such an eloquent and veritable letter to our president. I only wish there was some way that it could be hand delivered, read in person, ANYTHING to assure that President Obama hears your words. I’ve always felt that if the president ever had the time to actually sit down with teachers, his mind and heart would be changed about what is being done to our children in schools today, a horror in itself. I truly believe, Wendy, that your letter could be the foundation for action in more ways than one…thank you so much, and please don’t stop here. Admiringly Yours. Laurin MacLeish
He finds the time to sit down with hedge fund managers all the time. What makes you think he doesn’t have the time to sit down with teachers?
Sorry, but the President is preoccupied right now with initiating cutbacks to Social Security and its eventual privatization.
He’ll return to the destruction of public education as soon as he can.
We do have to do something to change Social Security, but Medicare is the much larger problem.
Right – we could start by funding both and stop leaving IOUs. Remember that “iron clad lockbox” we all laughed at Al Gore about? And if we still need further funding, I understand many corporations are sitting on trillions that they’re not using for much of anything.
On the contrary, Social Security is in surplus and will be for years to come. Any potential shortfalls in the future can be easily and permanently alleviated by raising the income limit for SS contributions.
Please reconsider before you drink the Austerian Kool-Aid, or recommend it to others.
The Social Security trust fund is going to have a surplus until the year 2033, give or take, at which point there will still be enough money to pay 75 percent of promised benefits.
Simple tweak to “fix” SS is to raise the payroll tax cap.
As I said, Medicare is the much larger problem.
I would look into broadening the tax base and perhaps a means test for benefits to fix Social Security financing.
Try working from this minimal link:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/cease-harmful-public-education-policies-relying-standardized-testing/w8ZrZwVT
I signed and shared to the Wear Red For Public Ed Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/WearRedForPublicEd/permalink/553945717966384/
I hate to be a Gloomy Gus — I can hardly help it these days — but I’ve signed a dozen of these WTP petitions and never seen anything come of them even when they do reached their thresholds.
The current record I think is this one:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-address-issue-gun-control-through-introduction-legislation-congress/2tgcXzQC
It has gotten 190,000 signatures in just 5 days …
We’ll see …
SINCE not just President Obama, but the Democratic party as well derives so much of its financial support from the hedge fund community, which sees immense profit opportunity available in accessing the money river of public education funding, it is quite unlikely that either he or Democrats in Congress or in State Legislatures will “do the right thing” with respect to public education. In any case, I am not holding my breath.
Yes. In my opinion, I hear way too much bashing of ‘conservatives,’ ‘the right,’ and Republicans (i’m none of the three) in this blog when it comes to education policy. Obama, Duncan, and their collaborators deserve just as much scorn for what they’ve done. When is the last time you saw someone react to Obama with the same vitriol as they react to Michelle Rhea? Obabam and Duncan could do something to change course, if they were really the men that many here seem to think that they are.
I guess that it is hard when your sacred cows turn out to be the same as everyone else’s cows.
Apparently you don’t read this blog much. There is plenty of Obama bashing around here. I don’t think very many of us around here are very happy with Obama. Some have decided he’s the lesser of the evils, some think he’s simply been misguided by his advisors, some think there is hope for him now that he doesn’t have to run for office again, and some (myself included) have thrown in the towel on him altogether. Even among those who still support Obama, however, I have seen no support for Arne Duncan.
But no matter how bad the Democrats get, it’s laughable to suggest that the Republicans would be any better (except for the plausible argument that at least if we had a Republican president the so-called liberals/progressives might once again find their backbone).
What she said.
Thank you, Dr. Ravitch, for sharing Wendy’s letter. Wendy’s letter is right on, eloquent, and expressed my concerns and as well as others’ who are not educators.
This is a great letter but it won’t change Obama. I think the teachers and parents must take greater action. They must organize and find ways to protest the cuts to ed, etc. He has no reason to change. It must be made obvious that the public is against these ridiculous policies. I see too many educators who are still sitting back and really not fighting for their profession.
“I have spoken to school nurses who tell me that at test time, they see a spike in headaches, stomachaches and the need for anti-anxiety medication.”.
And that’s just from the teachers;^)
Cartwheel — Last year during standardized testing I had students actually throw up on their test booklets. The teacher was so worried she wanted to wipe them off so they could be scored. I wanted to put them in a zip lock bag and send them to the politicians who feel teacher evaluations should be tied to student test scores. Talk about anxiety producing—
Marge
Brilliant idea, Marge! We should also bottle all the tears shed by all those students who cry during testing.
Dear Retirefbutmissthelkids- Thank you. Adding to your comment— how do we package “fear of making a mistake” ; ” fear of taking a risk” ; and years of “test – taking anxiety”- and is this what the politicians want for their grandchildren? Oh, how foolish of me to even entertain those thoughts. Those children will go to elite private schools or charter schools where standardized testing is NOT required and teacher evaluations are not open for public scrutiny. Bah hum bug!!
Marge