Education Week - March 27, 2013 - 31

LETTERS to
the EDITOR
Principal Performance
Unrelated to Test Scores
To the Editor:
In regard to the article “Principal
Appraisals Get a Remake”
(March 6, 2013), the Institute for
Educational Leadership joins a
steady chorus of researchers who
assert that evaluating principals
on the basis of student test scores
is psychometrically indefensible,
despite attempts at developing
value-added formulas. A working
paper published by the University
of California, Berkeley’s education
school proposes a tripartite
approach to principal evaluation,
including:
• A survey instrument that
uses feedback from multiple
respondents who know a
principal’s work firsthand and
can report their perceptions
objectively;
• A leadership accountability
report card that identifies
quantitative metrics that
principals have substantial
influence or control over and
that are leading indicators for
improved student outcomes,
such as attendance, teacher
assignments, and discipline data;
and
• Evidence-based practice using
a calibrated rubric and a revised
cycle of inquiry that informs next
steps using asset observations,
short-term outcomes, and evidence.

Since leaders do not have
direct influence over student
achievement and mediate
instructional influence with
students through teachers, we
find that the use of student
test scores as a measurement
of leadership effectiveness
is neither fair nor useful.
School leaders have primary
responsibility for teacher
working conditions and teacher
motivation; they do not teach
students.
Principal-leadership
evaluation that uses student
outcomes as a proxy for
leadership effectiveness
obscures our ability to
understand which leadership
actions lead to increased
supports for achievement.
We take issue with the
use of student test scores for
leadership evaluation, and we
expect that the members of the
leadership-research-and-practice
community will enter into a
discussion of alternatives that are
more useful and productive.
S. Kwesi Rollins
Director, Leadership Programs

Lynda Tredway
Senior Program Associate
Institute for Educational Leadership
Washington, D.C.

Children’s Sleep Health
Affects Learning
To the Editor:
The Building a Grad Nation
report revealed last month that,
for the first time, the nation’s

ONLINE

n Joseph W. Gauld doubts that students can

learn to weigh personal integrity in a world
where achievement is more important than
morality. Read his online-only Commentary.
www.edweek.org/go/gauld

www.edweek.org

n Marc Tucker responds to Diane

Ravitch’s recent rejection of the common
core in his Top Performers blog.
www.edweek.org/go/tucker

n Ken Kay and Bob Lenz in an online-

only Commentary write that common-core
implementation has the potential to serve either as
a driver for change for schools and students or a
continuation of the status quo.
www.edweek.org/go/kay

high school graduation rate is on
track to reach 90 percent by 2020
(“Some States on Pace to Hit 90
Percent High School Grad. Rate
by 2020,” College Bound, edweek.
org, Feb. 25, 2013). This proves
that progress is possible when
educators, government, and the
private sector combine their efforts
for a common good.
But there is an unrecognized
condition that also contributes
to the dropout crisis. While
pursuing my postdoctoral studies
at Stanford University’s school
of medicine, I was fortunate to
collaborate with Dr. Christian
Guilleminault, the scientist
who discovered sleep apnea in
children, on research that played
a pivotal role in describing
sleep and its effect on cognitive

Teaching the Common Standards in Math
Explain why the x-coordinates of the points
where the graphs of the equations y=f(x) and
y=g(x) intersect are the solutions of the equations
f(x)=g(x); find the solutions approximately, e.g.,
using technology to graph the functions, make
tables of values, or find successive approximations. Include cases where f(x) and g(x) are linear,
polynomial, rational, absolute value, exponential,
and logarithmic functions.
Remember the earlier example about the
teacher showing the students how to solve a system of equations using a set of steps? The first
sentence of the new standard, “Explain why the
x-coordinates where the graphs intersect are the
solutions,” really pushes the teacher to introduce
and explain a new concept in a way that goes beyond one-dimensional instruction. What is an xintercept, and what does it look like on a graph?
How is that related to the algebraic equation?
Perhaps rather than starting a lesson with the
steps for solving the equations, the teacher might
first have students consider graphs of related
equations, or better yet, a real-world example of
a system of equations and what the values of the
x-intercepts mean in that situation. This standard
also challenges the teacher to present multiple
types of equations from the beginning of the lesson so that the students can apply the concept of
an x-intercept to many types of functions.
For many teachers, myself included, this is a
fairly significant change in instructional practice.

MARCH 27, 2013

n A high school English teacher who
specializes in digital-writing methods
reflects on the course of his work under
the common standards in this First
Person Education Week Teacher essay.
www.edweek.org/go/malley

COMMENTARY

Getting Rid of the GPS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29

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EDUCATION WEEK

Although I have taught lessons on solving systems of equations using real-world applications
and emphasizing graphical connections, I have
not yet truly focused my instruction on the
“why” behind the mathematics or given students
opportunities to create their own understanding.
So how do math teachers make that shift away
from gps-ing students a reality? It won’t be easy,
and we can’t do it alone. We need opportunities
to collaborate, plan, and reflect with colleagues,
both in our buildings and nationwide. We need
quality resources and relevant, engaging professional development. We need time to learn from
teachers who are already successfully implementing the common core, like Kansas educator Marsha Ratzel, who recently shared insights
in her essay “The Talking Cure: Mathematical
Discourse” (Education Week Teacher online,
Dec. 31, 2012), on how her students’ mathematical-thinking skills evolved when she gave
the students time and space to have conversations about math. We need administrators and
parents to support us and play an active role in
helping us transform our classrooms into places
where students are truly engaged in what they
are learning.
In my daily classroom instruction, I am still
sometimes guilty of gps-ing students. But I am
hopeful that as I learn how to fully implement
the common standards, I will become less and
less dependent on steps and crossing standards
off a poster. After all, my students really deserve
to navigate themselves. n

n Follow Commentary on Facebook.

www.facebook.com/edweekcomm
n Follow Commentary on Twitter.

@EdweekComm

function and performance.
We never could have imagined
how far-reaching our research
would be. Today, we have
irrefutable evidence of the link
between learning ability and sleep
health.
Researchers have found that
sleep apnea causes a reduction
of oxygen to the brain and body.
Sleep apnea in a developing brain,
particularly in children, could lead
to permanent neurological damage
that affects learning and school
performance.
Children are rarely tested
for sleep apnea. That needs to
change. It should be routine to test
children ages 3 to 14 who have
key factors such as hyperactivity,
snoring, attention difficulties, poor
school performance, and obesity.
We owe it to our children to
deploy every remedy available
to stop the dropout epidemic.
Identifying and resolving the
impediments to sleep health
for children must be one of the
remedies. Ensuring that every
child in America has a fair chance
for a successful future is within
our reach.
Asefa J. Mekonnen, M.D.
Director, Premier Sleep Center
Rockville Internal Medicine Group
Rockville, Md.

The writer is also chief of pulmonary
medicine at Suburban Hospital, a
member of Johns Hopkins Medicine,
in Bethesda, Md.

Tie Between Education,
Military Is Tenuous
To the Editor:
I am puzzled, not to say
perplexed, by the inclusion
of the Commentary by Paul
Kimmelman, “Learning From
Military Leadership” (Feb. 20,
2013). I cannot begin to imagine
what his intention was in writing
it, nor yours in publishing it.
Mr. Kimmelman’s argument is
rife with logical inconsistencies.
For starters, he fails to note that
the military is organized in a
strict, rigid hierarchy based on
unquestioning obedience. I’d love
to meet the principal whose school
operates on this basis.
Douglas C. Thompson
Menlo Park, Calif.

Critical Thinking Is the Key
To Historical Reading
To the Editor:
Teaching adolescents to
“read to learn” continues to
be a challenge for contentarea teachers. The lessons
presented in the Education
Week Teacher partnership
video produced by Teaching
Channel “Reading Like a
Historian” (edweek.org/tm,
March 4, 2013) were well
planned and executed, but
the video should have been
titled “Comprehension of
Historical Topics.” There
was no evidence of critical
thinking, and the material
presented did not represent
how historians read, either.
Historians read
discerningly because they
have depth of knowledge and
context. The model presented
in the video reflected a
traditional classroom: Take
notes or read a textbook for
background and then look
at a primary document and
try to figure it out. Until
content-area teachers are
given some training in
teaching adolescents how to
read, the type of superficial
reading portrayed in the
video will continue to take
place in social studies
classes.
Students need meaningful
reading experiences that
provide opportunities to
explore. Instead of the topicdriven focus of “March on
Washington” or the “Gulf of
Tonkin Incident,” why not
ask questions? The teachers
could ask students: What
shapes a social movement?
The other prompt could have
asked kids: What motivates
and challenges leaders as
they make decisions?
Then the primary
documents could be part of
the students’ research. This
also provides opportunities
to explore these questions
in relation to other topics or
across disciplines.
Historians read because
there are questions they
want to answer. They use
primary documents as tools
to gain insight into a time
PAGE 32 >

http://www.edweek.org http://www.edweek.org/go/malley http://www.edweek.org/go/gauld http://www.edweek.org/go/tucker http://www.facebook.com/edweekcomm http://www.edweek.org/go/kay http://www.edweek.org/tm

Education Week - March 27, 2013

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