Please lick on SCRIBD (lower left), or

the rectangle icon (lower right) to see larger image.

Daun Kauffman testimony:

Philadelphia City Council Education Committee:

hearing on Standardized Testing
November 19, 2014

SLIDE 1

I am Daun Kauffman, an educator in North Philadelphia, on the front line, 14 years now.

Id like to thank Council for the 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 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 visualized in overwhelmed, helpless fear state.

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

Sometimes referred to as Adverse Childhood Experience, or 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, psychologically 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 to the U.S.. 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, 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 ! 22% had experienced 3 or more ACE categories.
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 !

SLIDE 10

For one point of perspective, the average Philadelphia 4+ ACE rate, 37%, 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: 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 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