“Leadership Through an Equity Lens” by Matt Utterback in your November 2017 issue is one of the most profoundly truthful articles on segregation and white privilege that I have read in years.

This is a MUST READ FOR SUPERINTENDENTS who passionately have been struggling with this issue for years and for policymakers and the courts who have had their head in the sand for years. It is so rare today to hear “equity” mentioned in the same breath as leadership and instruction.

Among his six powerful principles, Utterback indicates that inclusivity, based on white privilege, does not mean equity. Equity, he says, is created by leadership “that allows our students to listen to one another and when we create space for multiple and diverse perspectives on various issues.”

At a time when school districts fear addressing students’ race, gender, sexual orientation, language and identity differences, UTTERBACK TACKLES THEM HEAD ON through the lens of equity and not the status quo of white conformity. As a former teacher, principal and director of desegregation in underserved districts, Utterback sings a powerful song of courage and advocacy, passion and humility.

I commend the magazine staff and AASA for this publishing what I think is one of your signature editions.

ARNOLD F. FEGE
FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT,
PUBLIC ADVOCACY FOR KIDS,
WASHINGTON, D.C.


Perceptions of Policy
I enjoyed reading Todd Gazda’s My View column, "Our Perceptions of Education Policy" (August 2017), which was based on his doctoral dissertation about the perceptions of public school leaders in Massachusetts on policy implementation.

As Gazda shared his various findings, he extended a compelling argument for adding an "anticipatory" skill to leadership decision making at both the state and local level. The research on effective leadership skill traits is well established, yet the need for a new skill set is advanced by my Massachusetts colleague. His findings on the disconnect between policy and implementation suggest the need to add the art of anticipation to the quiver of those who set policy as well as those tasked with implementing it.

As anticipatory skills are honed, the advantage of synchronizing policy and implementation through greater collaboration with practitioners should become apparent. If policy makers set policy with greater awareness of its implications for the local school system, the likelihood that the desired effect will be realized is increased.

Conversely, the local school administrator who actively anticipates change and its effects will be better prepared to implement new policy effectively. This will prove to be an asset in other situations as well. Uncontested and often erroneous social media attacks plague educational systems and our society at large. A proactive superintendent is far better positioned to address these attacks and to shepherd his or her system through such challenges.

MICHAEL F. FITZPATRICK
SUPERINTENDENT,
BLACKSTONE VALLEY VOCATIONAL REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT,
UPTON, MASS.


Rewiring Brains
I want to commend School Administrator for its September issue on “Rewiring Students’ Brains,” which explored what we know about the adolescent brain and how understanding brain development can inform educational practice. Although there remains much we don’t understand about the developing brain, Frances Jensen’s interview on the adolescent brain and Jack Naglieri’s article on executive function illustrate how information obtained from brain research can provide actionable data to improve learning.

In coming years, educators will learn more from a landmark Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study conducted by researchers at 21 sites nationwide. The ABCD study will follow 10,000 diverse children from ages 9-10 through their teens into early adulthood to assess how various childhood experiences (e.g., screen time, sleep, sports participation and sports injuries, caffeine, e-cigarettes and alcohol use) affect brain, social, emotional and cognitive development.

GAYATHRI J. DOWLING
DIRECTOR, ADOLESCENT BRAIN AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT,
DIVISION OF EXTRAMURAL RESEARCH,
NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE,
BETHESDA, MD.


Teen Brains
Frances Jensen’s Q&A article (‘’The Developing Teenage Brain,’’ September 2017) highlighted many of the recent studies that have alerted educators to the profound neurological changes taking shape during the teen years. David Sousa’s article (‘’The Rewired Brain’’) emphasized the important role that new technologies are having in changing the way the teen brain functions for good or for ill, and Judy Willis’ article (‘’Connecting Brain Research with the Art of Teaching’’) provided educators with many excellent strategies for using current knowledge about teen brain functioning to craft better lesson plans. I also found the articles on brain concussions important and illuminating.

What I found missing from the issue, however, was a broader discussion of some of the current educational practices that work against what research shows that the adolescent brain needs. School leaders should be clear on what those adolescent “brain-unfriendly’’ practices are so they can adjust policies to eliminate or ameliorate their negative impact.

First among these practices are boring fact-giving lectures, which proliferate in an educational climate where standardized test results are considered the most important measure of classroom learning. Teachers who are being evaluated on the basis of their students’ test scores are especially motivated to deliver the information that will be on those tests and not necessarily to provoke curiosity, creativity or imagination.

Teacher-centered instruction of this dull kind fails to engage the dopaminergic pathways (or reward centers) and limbic system structures that are so sensitive during the teenage years. To provide real brain-based learning, educators need to be encouraged to deliver more interesting, captivating, inspiring presentations of the learning material at hand, so that the pleasure-seeking, sensation-seeking proclivities of teens are fully engaged.  These lesson plans may include the appropriate use of humor, novelty, hands-on demonstrations, drama, artistic expression or other multi-sensory, context-rich presentations that can capture the attention of technology-primed students.

Other practices that seem to be counter to the needs of the growing adolescent brain are the posting of grades and test scores (which serves to humiliate students in front of their peers), the pressures of standardized testing itself (which place greater stress on already ultra-stress-sensitive students), the locking of students into fixed college preparatory course requirements (depriving them of the opportunity to use their brain’s executive functioning to plan a course of study more in tune with their real needs), the cutting back of recess and physical education programs to allow for more academic time (which deprives students of much-needed stress reduction activities), and zero tolerance discipline policies (which deny students the opportunity to use their executive functioning to work out behavioral and social problems for themselves with school support).

Administrators need to look carefully at these and related school policies with a mind to assessing how they impact the developing adolescent brain. 
THOMAS ARMSTRONG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR LEARNING AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT,
CLOVERDALE, CALIF.