Philadelphia City Council

Education Committee: hearing on Standardized Testing

Daun Kauffman testimony:

November 19, 2014

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SLIDE 1

I am Daun Kauffman, an educator in North Philadelphia,

on the front line, 14 years now.

Id like to thank Council for this hearing, and

APPS & Alison McDowell for the invitation to speak.

My component of this discussion is Childhood Trauma: The

Power, The Prevalence, The Price.

The research says that in a room this size there will be many
folks whove been trauma impacted.
I hope you will feel free to step out if my discussion gets too
close.

Danny sent me . . .

Theres no better use of my time and energy than

to give Danny voice.

(All those in Dannys story are real, from an earlier school, only the names are changed. )

Let me insert 4 slides outlining :

The Effect of High-Stakes Testing on Trauma Impacted children
AND the effect of Childhood Trauma on Testing.
They are interrelated, interactive.
Its all Neuroscience and Public Health research:
SLIDE 2

High-Stakes testing results predictable. The data says that

children with unaddressed trauma are shown to:
have lower attendance
have cognitive impairment
have social dysfunction
have lower test scores
High Stakes test results are meaningless for individual,
trauma impacted children.
Aggregate results are meaningless, unless corrected
for differing trauma rates.

All the while, trauma impacted childrens needs are ignored.

The Elephant in the room.

Why ?...

SLIDE 3

Events that can become traumatic :

Traumatic concept is captured in overwhelmed, helpless fear.

Unpredictable.Uncontrollable. Terror, as perceived by the child.
In several acute events, or a chronic and ongoing series.

Sometimes called Adverse Childhood Experience(ACE).

SLIDE 4

The Neuroscience of trauma:

Fight, flight or freeze (survival mode). Natures, or the brains,

automatic defense.
Stress hormone cortisol and adrenaline increased.
Cognitive functions in Prefrontal Cortex muted
to deal with immediate threat. Academic functions
(and testing) physiologically impossible.
Ultimately the physical brain changes. Changes
directly linked to cognition and education

SLIDE 5

The SOCIAL defenses

Trauma impacted children are not bad kids or sick,
they are injured.
Memory becomes locked-in from trauma injury.
On high alert, suspicious:
Hyper aroused: aggressive
Dissociation: psychological splitting from the environment
Very logical defenses, based on experience with
complex trauma, easily retriggered.
That was a taste of the data from Science and public health

SLIDE 6

Now, back to Danny :

Dannys parents struggled to find steady jobs and income for their
family. Theyre still dealing with the stress from their familys
immigration. They moved to a north Philly neighborhood, full of crime
and drugs. Dannys dad was violently murdered when Danny was very
young. During his early years, he was told his dad was away.

Dannys mother, Maria, now left alone to support three children,

became despondent and desperate. Drinking and meds dulled her grief
and stress. Her own attempts to survive financially led to her
incarceration. Danny was left with no parent.

Dannys older siblings had a different father, who had taken custody
while Maria was incarcerated. When she was released, Danny
witnessed anger and violence between Mom and now reunited siblings,
often. Eventually Maria sent them back to their dad. More sadness and
loss in Dannys life.

All alone with Danny now, mom confided that his father was not really
away, but that he had been murdered. Confusion and grief tortured
Danny.
It was at that point, eight years of age, Danny walked into our
classroom.

Some days, at first, he seemed resilient. Danny could share a great,

toothy smile that stretched from ear to ear. He loved learning and
sharing about his familys culture.
He loved to run, seemingly free as a bird, in those moments. Danny
was a talented artist too, at times loosing track of his surroundings
while he created other worlds on paper.
On his good days, Danny's academic ability was on par or ahead of his
classmates and his street smarts were well above average.
Those were precious, rare days. . .

Underneath Dannys smile was a learned mistrust of adults, and refusal

to attach. Danny's mother was using alcohol again, and hed been told
that dropping or spilling any of Mom's alcohol would result in
punishment: standing naked in an extended icy-cold shower.
His mistrust created misunderstandings with other kids too. He spent
recess alone as often as he joined the others. Danny once told me that
his favorite toy and game was guns so that he would be practiced
and ready when he was able to find his fathers killer

Although Danny's chronological age was only 8, his life story was
already defined by fear and loss. His hyper-aroused scanning for any
threat he might perceive in the classroom created a wall between
Danny and others. His traumas could be retriggered by a classmates
slight shift in position, or an innocent look. When his fears were
triggered, Danny could go off track quickly with a loud, nervous laugh,
or a threat yelled across the room. Hed rip up his classwork, and
throw his books, dump his desk, and often make a run for the hallway,
with screams and angry tears. His classmates watched, gripped in fear.

At other times, Danny kept his panic hidden, emotionally

dissociating, maybe drawing or reading something off-topic, but
experiencing the same fear state. At least twice during his
dissociating, Danny quietly, but tensely broke small plastic pencil
sharpeners. When confronted, he quickly put a jagged piece, on his
tongue and when approached further, he swallowed. On another
occasion he threatened to swallow the loose blade. Our school did not
have other spaces or adults available to allow Danny to de-escalate. I
could not leave the other 25+ children to be with Danny. Our counselor
was on long-term leave with no replacement. Our school was not
staffed with a nurse, daily. Maria was informed, about the seriousness
of Dannys state. Her initial responseS were to claim that Danny was
just having a bad day and to inflict corporal punishment at home. It
will go away, she claimed.

Dannys story is NOT an aberration.

Danny didnt know it, but at least 11 other children in our classroom
had similar life stories full of trauma.

Dannys story is NOT an aberration.

Back to the Science and research:

SLIDE 7

The initial ACE study had 17,000 participants. Huge ! But,

mostly suburban, middle-class, college-educated, mostly white,
employed people with health insurance.

SLIDE 8

The findings were stunning !

ACE categories.

22% had experienced 3+

Experiencing 3+ ACEs is significant because it correlates with

double risk of depression, adolescent pregnancy, lung disease,
and liver disease. It triples the risk of alcoholism and STDs. A
5X increase in attempted suicide.

SLIDE 9

Urban ACE rates across our city, are more shocking 37% (tens
of thousands of children) experiencing 4 or more ACEs.

In North Philly, the prevalence is devastating:

45+% with 4+ ACEs, essentially half the population!

SLIDE 10

One point of perspective: the average Philadelphia ACE rate of

37% with 4+ ACEs, DWARFS the IEP and ELL % COMBINED of
only 24%.

Researchers have documented many impacts of 3+ ACEs.

Classroom-specific impacts included worse health, lower
attendance, more frequent suspension, lower standardized test
scores, more frequent designation as special education
students, 250% more likely to be retained in grade.

SLIDES 11, 12 (return)

For trauma impacted children, it doesnt matter how good the

curriculum, the teacher, the test design, the cultural fit, the age
appropriateness. They are all irrelevant! A developing childs
trauma impacted brain shuts down cognition to deal with
threats they perceive. Its normal. Its natures way of
increasing survival.

Trauma-impacted children who live with unaddressed

trauma can not access education equally. They do not perform
on standardized tests at the same level.

We wont have a successful education paradigm,

or even accurately interpret academic success,
while ignoring traumas overwhelming presence.

Conversely, many Education Reformers (most have not been

in our classrooms) are oblivious to the childs injuries and to
their continuing fear and stress. Ignoring, or not caring,
they continue to push and push for more standardization, more
testing.

They push on, effectively bullying the children, even though

the test content itself is in question. They bully, even
though the data says that enduring the test and its high stakes
adds even more trauma.

Meanwhile, the test ignorantly masses together our "epidemic

numbers of trauma-impacted children with all other children
into one "score" for the school, and then misleadingly
compares the school's score to other schools. The numbers
give a false sense of reality and reliability. The approach is so
very unsafe for so many of our children.

In CLOSING :
The ultimate injustice is then to classify, or label individual
trauma-impacted children like Danny, based solely on results of
the test. The testing process is not safe. The process is not
fair. Children with unaddressed trauma can not equally access
education. They can not equally access the test.
Children do have a right to be safe when they come to school . .
. and a right of equal access to education
I choose to confront the bully for Danny.
Help us, Please.

SLIDE 13

Again: Thank YOU so much for giving Danny voice, for being
engaged, for seeking Local input.
You are deeply, deeply appreciated.

Daun Kauffman testimony:

Philadelphia City Council Education Committee hearing on
Standardized Testing
November 19, 2014