Dealt The Toughest Hand
A cohesive group of committed teachers who believe that inner city students can learn could make a school work anywhere under any conditions. I say this confidently after teaching in what has been deemed the worst of the worst city high schools in a city with a ruinous system of schools. Recently, our entire school except for the 12th grade, which I teach, was shut down.
Social ills will always be with us, but failed schools need not be. So, how to get the best and most committed people into city schools where they are needed the most?
Last Wednesday's lead NY Times editorial discussed a provision in the No Child Left Behind act that it said would “finally give poor and minority schools a fair share of experienced qualified teachers. The House version of the stimulus bill requires states that get the new money to comply with the law. If the Senate fails to embrace this provision, it would be selling out impoverished children.”
Great, but simply including this provision won’t draw great teachers into awful schools. Throwing money at so called “experienced teachers” won’t do the job either because it takes a lot more than experience to succeed in an urban setting. We need to find people who have heart and are committed to teaching in these schools for the long run. No amount of “experience” or money is going to keep a teacher in a school where they are cussed at by students and not backed up by weak administrators. It takes heart.
There are a number of good charter schools and a couple high performing high schools in this city. There are vastly more schools that are dysfunctional. These are the schools recruiting Teach For America (TFA) and foreign teachers on resident certificate programs. These and other alternative programs are a godsend for poor school districts, but it’s true that we are trial and error teachers since we are largely new and often foreign to the communities we teach in. As a member of TFA, I am one of the teachers the Times editorial board would call “inexperienced.” I am admittedly so, but at least I’m here doing my best. I don’t see experienced teachers from nicer schools beating down the doors to join the various urban education movements.
According to the Times editorial, “The House bill also contains crucial funds for performance-based pay for teachers and higher quality tests and for data systems that will, with luck, give us an accurate view of how students, schools, districts and states are actually doing.”
Lots and lots of luck, of course. Our school is without enough copy paper and maybe has five working overhead projectors. Mandating that every district in the country give similar tests based on similar curriculum is too far fetched. Until we are able to do that, I doubt merit pay will become standard. There are too many variables; you must take into account just how far some students are behind their peers from across this country. How are you going to earn merit pay as a teacher of seniors who often read at lower grade school levels? I can definitely bump them up a few grade levels, but probably not all the way where they should be. Does this mean I’m less effective as a teacher than one more experienced? Or does it mean I’ve been dealt a tougher hand as a teacher? The debate is endless if gone over at length.
Thankfully, there are reform movements like TFA and offshoots that believe it’s possible for all students in any situation to achieve and receive a great education. In TFA, we are told to keep a sense of possibility and to make the most of our natural abilities to teach and lead in even the most difficult situations.
I think that’s what it will take first - for people to believe it’s possible to educate well in low income urban areas that are all but written off and stereotyped to death. Once the expectation is leveled that all students can succeed in spite of the circumstances, I think many liberal arguments (too much poverty, institutionalized segregation and racism, lack of funding, etc) could be more legitimately debated. Most people, unfortunately, don’t believe it’s possible. As a result, our city schools are ignored, and to all our peril. This is true whether you live in the city, suburbs or rural areas. When we fail children, all of society pays in one way or the other.
Some readers have posted that they are “for merit pay.” Many have commented on the fact that traditional school systems need to be abolished. Noted. But right now we are a long way from that happening. We are closer to establishing continuity in education across the country because of NCLB, but are still a long way from attracting experienced and dedicated teachers to teach in our worst schools. I’ll take dedication over experience, but a combination of both is crucial. A provision in the stimulus bill can’t buy the commitment it will take to build school systems that work.