DEAR EDITOR:
While I hold grave reservations regarding charter schools
– their financing and their legal lack of accountability – I
would like to respond to the fallacy of your editorial on Friday,
Feb. 28.
DEAR EDITOR:
While I hold grave reservations regarding charter schools – their financing and their legal lack of accountability – I would like to respond to the fallacy of your editorial on Friday, Feb. 28. You, like so many, have a basic misunderstanding of what is meant by the “at risk” label and the “magic” of classroom intervention.
Characteristically, most at risk students are not just performing one or two grade levels below standard. Most at risk students, especially those who have reached the secondary level of their education, perform three, four, five, or even more years below grade level. That means entering freshmen might perform at the 3rd or 4th grade level in math or reading.
The reasons for this deficiency are many. They may lack a stable home environment. They may have parents who are unaware that in order to achieve that they should read to their children when they are young, take them to the library and have them join reading clubs, play word and number and other specific content games, restrict video game play, encourage supervised outdoor play where imaginations are used and the cerebellum is developed, and the host of other activities that ignite the desire to learn.
Many of these kids have real learning disabilities such as ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, etc. Many have emotional and physical disorders, such as childhood and adolescent depression. They might have had poor teachers. Finally, because of all of the above and years of failure, trying and not succeeding, many students lack motivation.
Your editorial failed to look at all of these factors. Yes, only 18 percent are performing at or near grade level in math, but where were they at the start of school and how much improvement have they made?
If a student begins the 9th grade doing math at the 3rd grade level and is performing at the 4th or 5th grade level at year’s end, you must applaud the accomplishment. You must applaud the student and you must applaud the teacher.
Before you criticize, be sure you get all the facts.
Karen Hockemeyer, Gilroy teacher, Gilroy High School
Submitted Friday, March 7 to ed****@****ic.com
