The article, gives parents a list of “to-do’s” when approaching their children’s teachers. Now, lets think about this. Educators, took on these jobs to educate children. This means that you are educating the whole child, not just the part of the child that you “like”, the parts that you “dislike” will inevitably involve their parents. He writes about teachers and administrators needing to “walk on egg shells” when it comes to parents yet fails to realize that in his laundry list of things to do, he is asking parents to now “walk on egg shells” for their child’s teacher.

I get the statistic, teachers leave in an average of 4.5 years, many of whom state “issues with parents” as a reason for leaving. My question is this, how are you resolving these “issues with parents”?

Being a Dean of Students, dealing with “issues with parents” was my job and sometimes, it wasn’t even my issue to begin with! I can only imagine how difficult, no impossible, my job would have been if I hadn’t developed relationships with these parents.

I know that I do not look like you or your child, therefore I know that you immediately don’t trust me and, I’m ok with that because I know that your experience has led you to a place where you shouldn’t.

But, knowing this, it is now MY job to show you why you SHOULD trust me. Let’s think about this. If we approach our difficult parents with this mentality, we will never stop trying. The idea is, I will keep showing you all the different ways and reasons that you can trust me. If the automatic is to be on the defense and “at war” with our parents makes for an impossible working relationship.

This is not to say, however, that any of these situations are easy. There is nothing more humbling or disturbing than to have another grown adult yell at you. I have no problem telling you that you’re out of line, “you’re yelling at me, we need to stop this conversation and we can continue it later but we can’t continue it right now because you’re yelling.” But we can’t take it personal. Understand, that for them, this IS personal, this is the life of their child, every single decision they make will effect the future of their child and one wrong move can make a world of difference. We’re talking about THEIR child. So, when they don’t understand, it’s all about showing them. Oh, you don’t believe that your child does this in class? No problem, lets have you come in and observe him/her for a day, lets bring all of his/her teachers to the table so we can talk about how we can best support him. (Support meaning, we tell you that this is what we see, and therefore we will support YOU with working with US in order to make sure he is successful) No parent doesn’t want their child to be supported, to succeed, they may not know the best way for them to get there, but they will NEVER say “you know, it’s ok, I really think I want my son to grow up to be an unsuccessful human being” and this, is why they get angry.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a small percentage of parents that I have encountered who have proven time and time again to be without reason. But, the truth is, 98% of our “problem parents” either 1) just need to be heard or 2) need to believe that you are there for their kid.

Ron Clark lists a few examples of “impossible parents” and for each one I wonder how the situation could have been prevented. For the parent with the child with a mark on her face from the teacher helping to rub off the permanent marker- if the parent really knew and trusted the teacher, had the teacher taken the time to build this trust, would the result still have been the same? Or would the parent actually have been thankful for a teacher helping her student out?

For the parent who refuses to believe that his/her child acts this way in class, have you spent time giving that parent any reason to believe what YOU say. If you haven’t, of course the parent will believe the child.

The parent who is angry about a low grade on their child’s report card? How many times did you let him/her know that their child was struggling in class? Did you let them know what steps you were going to take in order to help them succeed? If these things are mapped out, when you have to sit down and have that, your child is failing conversation, it becomes much easier because the parent KNOWS you’re on their side and not just wanting to “fail their child”.

This is why we spend so much time not only investing our students but investing our parents. We know that what we do is radically different from ANYTHING they’ve ever seen so it is our job to continue to show them why it works, why they should stick with us. We tell our parents from day one, this is a partnership. There will be times when your child will come home crying to you, complaining about school but we need you to support us in letting them know that you are with us. We often refer to the age-old saying “it takes a village to raise a child” and it truly does. Because the truth is, we can work harder than any other teacher out there but, at the end of the day, we need them in order to truly be successful.

I don’t think that any of what I say is radical or sensational. It just makes sense. As educators, we must know that the most difficult child is the child we must spend the most time with, the child we must cultivate a positive relationship with. Why does this not apply when we talk about our “problem parents”? Why is it any different? If they don’t trust us, it is OUR job to help get them there, because without their support, our job becomes a thousand times more difficult.

Those very leaders are the people I’ve been with for the last 72 hours- Truly inspiring me and amazing me for several reasons:

1) I realized that the world I had known as the “charter world” is actually infinitely larger than what I knew/saw
2) I am so humbled by the amount of COURAGE and tenacity it took all those that surrounded me to either pave the way where there was no path or fight a system that laughed in their faces
3) These were people who sacrificed everything because they knew that there were communities of children that looked like them who deserved so much better than what they were given

At my previous school, I felt like I was part of something but could never truly call it “a movement”, we were doing the work but nothing about it felt like a “movement”- the mobilization of a people around a common cause. I always felt odd saying that I was a part of the “charter school movement” because where I was, it was too easy, there was no struggle. Everything we needed was given to us because everyone was watching and everyone was waiting. A true “movement” entails struggle and fight and the very grass roots types of foot to the ground organizing of people, of communities that was completely nonexistent.

Fast forward to my move to Los Angeles, we opened our doors on Aug 23 expecting 80 of our 120 student goal. 40 of them actually showed up. Countless follow up phone calls later, we realized that not only were we shy of our goal of 120 students, we had just lost 40 MORE students that we thought we could count on. Some of the very students whose living rooms we sat in, were the ones that did not show up.

And so it began again. Hours spent in front of grocery stores, local parks, community centers, churches, libraries, the Crenshaw mall passing out fliers to families trying to convince everyone that our school was an option for their 5th grade child and to fill out an enrollment form for one of the 80 spots that still remained open. As we were doing this, I began to realize that the landscape of the charter school world out here in the southland is drastically different from what I had left in New York.

Here, one charter school represented ALL other charter schools and if one did poorly it became the burden of any other charter school that tried to enter to disprove the assumption that “all charter schools are bad”. Couple this with myths and flat out lies being told to our parents –

“charter schools charge money”
“they hand select their kids”
“you have to have good grades to attend”
and, perhaps the must offensive of all
“if you enroll with them and don’t have your papers, they will report you and you will be deported”
- all myths that meant most parents would not even consider crossing our threshold to find out more about the school.

So as we were out in the community recruiting parents and their children, the challenge was this- in the 3, sometimes 5 minutes that we held the parent’s attention we had to:

1) educate them on what a charter school was NOT
2) convince them to take their child out of their current school and put them in a brand new one by next week
3)convince them to fill out an enrollment form
4)overcome a language barrier and convince them that our school was worth any inconvenience it would be to take their child out of their current one

In October we adjusted our budget and our target number to 80 students.

January, 2011 we hit 93 and considered ourselves fully enrolled.

Listening to people speak from New Orleans, Texas, Memphis, Brooklyn, Chicago I realized that we were not alone and that what I experienced in NY was only a reality for a small percentage of the charter schools out there.

An advocate from a charter school advocacy/policy group gave this statistic:

70% of charter schools across the nation are independently run. Of those 70%, 60% of them are run by leaders of color.

Yet the only charter schools we hear about or those giant Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) with white leaders and administrators. (with the exception of the Harlem Children’s zone) However, even when you look at the beginnings of HCZ, their beginnings were radically different from the beginnings of the other CMOs– HCZ began as a community based organization and, to this day, remains a community based organization that not only provides educational opportunities for children of color but also health care and education to the students and their families. Within these large CMOS you always had the white administrator telling the black/brown educators how their children SHOULD be taught. While I don’t want to discount the success of many of these organizations, many of them have been extremely successful and many of my closest friends work for them, but even within those walls we always talked about how it always felt like something was missing-there was a certain grit and utter devotion that many of our leaders did not have.

Everyone I met on this tour was a pioneer in their communities, they went where no one else would and said, I’m going to make this work. No matter what happens, it will work. There were people that I met in ALL stages of the process, some were waiting for charter approval and others had been around since the beginning of the the concept of a charter school– literally selling an idea that no one knew ANYTHING about.

They all share a common thread- despite every obstacle, despite every surprise thrown at their way, despite every attempt to prevent them from reaching the children they wanted to serve, they made it happen.

If it meant being housed in a church where they would have to pack up their things EVERY Friday and unpack it all on a Monday, that’s what would have to happen. If it meant that they had to walk past hostility to get to open the school they felt their children deserved, they made it happen. Every single person in that room had a similar story, and every single person knew that if they didn’t do it, who would?

One particularly inspiring story that I heard was about a small network of schools that decided that they were going to, very purposefully, co-exist with an LAUSD (or as the call it, “traditional”) school. They decided that they were not going to have that tense relationship that most co-located charters experience. They were granted a new site being built by LAUSD, because they went, year after year, to the local district and asked that they create a cooperative learning environment where their charter school would exist and work with a “traditional” school. The result was the most inspiring display of teamwork that I’ve ever seen. Not only are they happily co-located, they share a common recess, common lunch times and even a common teacher lounge. There is no “us vs. them” sentiment but rather a happy co-existence with the principals of both schools working together to divide up the responsibilities of running such a large school site. Unfortunately, this example is a rarity and often seen as an impossibility. However, there is an entire list here of people who are making it happen. At the core of this synergy is the belief that we’re all in this for the same thing — creating good schools for ALL children.

To close out the few days we spent with each other, Senator Gloria Romero, the first female senator to be named majority leader, spoke with us. She was a pioneer of California’s Parent Trigger law because she believed that if adults in the workforce are given the right to organize and create a voice to demand fair practice, why is the same not done for the parents of children in failing schools? (I realize that the former is also something that is still not entirely true but at least, it is written) In the same way that workers, by law, are given the right to advocate for the quality of their job, why can’t parents advocate for the quality of their child’s education? She began with this:

“We have a system of education defined by zipcode. 5 digits determine your success or your failure”

It was because of this that she knew that she had to do something to mobilize the primary stakeholders- the parents of children in these failing schools, failing zipcodes. The story she told of her road to the vote was incredible and it began with empowering the parents to demand more. At the time the bill was introduced, Senator Romero carried around a list of 700 chronically low performing schools– each of these schools pushing out generations and generations children ill-equipped and, in many ways, unable to define their own success within our society. It was with this information that she began to mobilize the parents. After petitioning, evading lobbyists and facing resistance, even within her own party, the bill finally made it to the floor. The bill almost didn’t pass, Senator Romero knew that she was not going to get the number of votes for it to pass with urgency (meaning the bill to law process is expedited) so, in the 11th hour, she made the decision to strip the bill of its urgency and allow it to pass with fewer votes. Late into the night, in the face of people celebrating what they thought was the death of a bill, the California Parent Trigger Law passed. This was truly a grass roots movement, championed by Senator Romero that led to the right of any parent in California to push for a change in the failing schools that their child attends and, most importantly, give parents a voice for their community.

Why is this work so important? There isn’t a moment to waste- we don’t have time to sit and discuss theoretically what works and what doesn’t, we have to act. We don’t have time to watch more children go through a system that is flawed and is failing. Each day a child spends in a failing school, we lose an entire generation. When there are children out there attending schools that have become factories of failure, our work is incredibly vital and urgent. Many would even say, it’s a matter of life or death. However, many either fail to see this, choose to ignore it or wait for someone else to do it. WE are the “someone else” and we can’t even scratch the surface of the amount of change necessary without the outpourings of support and dedication that we witnessed in the 60s.

Senator Romero spoke of marching along aside the likes of Cesar Chavez and Dr. King and remembering the passion, the grit, the fight it took she then said,

“People say education is a civil rights issue – we don’t act like it.”

And it’s true, too many people are complacent and don’t fight for the fact that in 2011, our schools which are more segregated than ever, are failing millions of children across the nation. If people really took to heart the buzz phrase they love to throw around that education being “the civil rights issue of our time”, we should be fighting, just as visibly and passionately as the leaders of the 60s. Why then, are we not? Why do we only have certain pockets of people outraged at the injustice and doing something about it? Most importantly, how do we re-empower communities of color and the parents in our communities to advocate for their children and organize to demand change and why, are we not all running to do it?

Everyone is waiting. Waiting for someone else to do it, some elected official, someone with “power”. As Senator Romero said, “It’s not the elected officials, [that create change] it’s people’s movements”. The question now is, what are we doing to ensure that “the movement” actually happens? People say that the charter movement started in 1992, but with the strength and the passion of the people that sat in that room today, I think we might one day look back and say that the movement (in it’s true sense) is really just beginning.

In many ways, it is much more difficult to implement any sort of change. If educational reform seemed difficult on the East Coast, it is nearly impossible on the West. I have been fortunate enough to be in a position where I am able to witness what it takes to operate a charter school within the LAUSD and the amount of paperwork and red tape we must work through is never ending. When charter schools on the East adopted the idea of separating Principals from paperwork they had the right idea, it would take someone who is superhuman to run a school AND ensure that all the T’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted on paperwork to just make sure that the school can open its doors each week.

I wonder, if it is so difficult for charter schools who are supposed to have a certain amount of “autonomy” one can only imagine what it looks like for the public schools.

We get glimpses of this through the PA system that we just can’t seem to disconnect from our host school. The principal, who we rarely see in person, will occasionally come on the PA and remind students to “do well” and that “it’s raining today, so no outside recess” as if the teachers couldn’t look out the window themselves and realize this.

One day in particular, the generally long-winded principal came over the PA to announce that there were visitors coming from the district to visit the school. She then instructed all students to please take out their textbooks and put them on their desks. Presumably so the visitors could see them. This, I assume was in response to a recent, highly publicized audit the Principal’s request must have been a way of showing that their textbooks were being used (and not in some warehouse hidden in the basement). It does, however, call into question how often they are used when you have to make an announcement to make sure they are on desks.

We catch glimpses of these “announcements for the sake of compliance” over the PA on a weekly basis. It seems that the Principal is trying hard to establish SOMETHING – but it is unclear what that something is. The school is currently considered a failing school, but has been labeled as such for at least 7 years. Whats most puzzling is within those 7 years, a new principal has taken over and from what I can see, several staffing changes have occurred as well. The only thing that comes to mind is, why have they made no attempt to do anything about this?

The only answer that I can fathom is that they MUST have tried SOMETHING and run into some of the very same roadblocks that we find ourselves constantly maneuvering through. But how has it not been enough?

In our first week on the campus, one of the gardeners in the community garden housed within the school approached us and said that their hope was that we would take over the school. A tall order for a school which, at the time had only existed for 3 days. It made me wonder, just how bad could this school be? In the following months, I would soon find out.

Within our first month of school we had parents flocking to our door asking how to enroll their child and switch them from the current host school. Many of them complained of classrooms where their child wasn’t learning anything or classrooms where their 5th grade child was placed in a “combo” class where one teacher is expected to teach both 4th AND 5th graders. Others came from the 3rd grade saying that their child did not have a permanent teacher only a sub and they were looking for stability. Story after story came in and in talking to many of our students who had come from that school, these stories were confirmed.
What was your old class like?
The teacher didn’t teach us anything
the kids played all the time
I got in fights a lot
Now these proclamations of drastic change are not new to me. I experienced the same thing when I worked in Brooklyn. It is the source of these proclamations– the kids themselves. It was the certainty I could hear in our kids voices when they talked about how little they learned at their previous schools. Something that I was used to hearing from parents but not from the kids. Kids would generally just say that it was different but would never really point out the lack of learning – after all, if this is what you know, how do you know that you are learning any less?

This is not to say that all public schools are bad and I know that my current view is extremely limited. These are the beginnings of my own discovery of how the school system works out here. I certainly haven’t been here long enough to say anything with extreme certainty. But there is one thing that I do know, the change they need in the East Coast is even more pressing here on the West Coast and yet, in hearing about change and reform, the West Coast is rarely, if ever, mentioned. The eyes of the nation are on the East Coast- when will they turn towards the West?

This year it seems that the cost is that my own job has become the act of slowly de-individualizing my students to a point where even when they ARE heard, the say they have no voice. The charter school formula provides what some call “structure” for our failing black and brown children. Structure is a good thing — if you ever enter my classroom structure prevails in order to maintain a calm learning environment. But the danger occurs when structure becomes the mindset that the only way to teach “these kids” is to “control them”. For far too many teachers, a lack of structure is too scary and unpredictable and so the grasp at every opportunity for control and call it “structure”.

So schools proceed, creating structure to a point where it suffocates the creativity and critical thinking of its students. Children are taught to simply regurgitate what the teacher is teaching and not to solve the problem on their own or truly comprehend the underlying concepts behind why things are the way they are. Year after year we watch our students nail the questions that look exactly like ones we’ve gone over in class and utterly fail on any question that requires them to think just a little bit further, push just a little bit deeper. They’ve become so accustomed to things being “easy” for them (because of the way they are taught) that when they find something difficult, they give up before they even begin.

So then, the question is– why am I still in it? I do believe that there is something here. There is something in the autonomy given to charter schools that provides us with the potential to create truly institutions of learning. Schools where children not only learn but develop into critical citizens of our world. Where students are able to switch from moments of active participation in their education to more structured participants of learning. But the question that yet remains unanswered is, how do we get there?

What “successful” charter schools have figured out is a way to break down seemingly impossible concepts into smaller pieces for our students to understand and use. They’ve found a way to make learning, especially in the lower grades more interactive and fun. They’ve found a way to analyze student data on a daily basis that give the teacher the ability to plan lessons that are truly responsive to their student’s needs. But, with all of these great tactics in place, charter schools have yet to figure out how to teach, what many call “grit”. The perseverance and persistence to continue even when things seem unsolvable. We have put SO much time and effort into making sure that our students FEEL successful that we’ve held their hands a bit TOO much. The consequence of which is their inability to truly grapple with more difficult problems when we let go. Whether it is the analysis of a poem or the solving of a multi-step equation, if they haven’t seen it before, they won’t try it.

This however, is still more than we can say for the majority of their counterparts in the public school system. So at the very basic level we can still define this as progress. Unfortunately, this progress is still limited and we certainly have not “arrived”. What concerns me most is the lack of urgency behind addressing the issue that our charter schools do very little in promoting critical thinking, in providing avenues for students to express themselves as individuals. It seems that, as long as the test scores are relatively decent, then a charter school can be defined as successful. And, as long as a charter school is deemed successful, why push for more?

Charter schools have always been touted as this light at the end of the tunnel that, in the beginning, felt new and exciting. A “movement” as some call it for educational reform. Now, almost 20 years later, with charter schools still running on the same structures and foundations of its predecessors more than 20 years prior, can we really call it “new and innovative” any more?

I recently found myself interviewing for various positions within charter schools nearly 3,000 miles away from my home base. Part of me found it both reassuring and disturbing that for every single interview the comment “oh, your adjustment to the school won’t be as difficult because you already work for x charter school”. This turned out to be a pretty big “selling point” for me to use in my interviews but troubled me just the same. If charter schools are to be this image of educational reform and innovation, how is it possible that we are essentially trying to create exact replicas of the SAME thing from coast to coast? Doesn’t the word “innovation” imply something new, different and sometimes radical?

Even within my own charter network that spans across two states, we often find that when we gather as teachers the character of our respective groups of students are drastically different. We often say “what works for kids in _____ doesn’t work for kids in ____”. Now, if this is a conclusion that we can draw after 10 minutes of discussion, why is not the same from coast to coast? Sure, we can say that each school adapts to their own communities but, to what extent is this really happening? HOW can it really happen when the main focus of the charter movement is rapid growth and replication? And what exactly are we replicating?

Last year one of the most comprehensive studies, by researchers from Stanford University, found that fewer than one-fifth of charter schools nationally offered a better education than comparable local schools, almost half offered an equivalent education and more than a third, 37 percent, were “significantly worse.”

Ponder this for a moment.

Only 1 out of 5 charter schools actually offer an education that is better than the local public schools. Yet 100% of them carry missions that scream “college for everyone!”, “success!” and boldly compare themselves to “the public school down the street” when referring to places that their students DON’T want to be. 4 out of 5 schools are perpetrating a fraud but who is checking?

When you walk into a public school you can tell right away that the school is struggling. There are often telltale signs — the state of their physical space, the conversations in the teachers lounge and the look and feel of the classes as you walk by. Indications of struggle in a charter school are much more subtle. Teachers in a charter school sign up to work in an environment where doing “whatever it takes” is often the mantra so there is no question that teachers are putting in their time, working longer hours, investing more in their students and, on the surface it seems that everything is great.

After all, as long as the teachers work hard their students will succeed right? At least that’s what movies like “Freedom Writers”, “Dangerous minds” tells us. What these movies miss are all the little nuances that happen in every single interaction an adult has with the child or children they are teaching. Every word, every action, even the way you dress relays a message to your students and, it is a teacher’s ability to navigate these nuances that distinguish a mediocre teacher from a great one. But where, in this systematic approach to replication does it allow for these nuances? There is nothing in the books that provides a plan for this to happen. It is something that can be nurtured but not learned, it is an innate ability that either exists or does not.

Struggling charter schools struggle below the surface. Below the bold statements of “whatever it takes” “success for all” “college bound” one finds lack of leadership, innovation and teacher burnout. After all, there is nothing more tiring and more stressful than working hard for somethings that is destined to fail. It’s nice to be sitting in the best seat on a sinking ship but it’s STILL a sinking ship. Unfortunately, because of the stark contrast at first glance between a struggling public school and a struggling charter school, it often takes years and years of mediocre teaching, lack of leadership and deadly school culture before people actually realize that a school is struggling. This unfortunately means that hundreds of students have already gone through a mediocre school advertised as the best school in the area. And, if the school is allowed to remain mediocre for long enough, this could mean that someone has already attempted to create a replica of this seemingly successful charter school.

They imitate one another in superficial ways, too, like hanging inspirational banners: “This Is Where We’re Headed. To College!”

But the differences in how schools are run, the way classes are taught and how school culture is nourished are striking. It is like watching two couples dance a tango, one with poise and precision, the other stumbling to execute the intricate footwork.

On the surface, it is still the same dance but when you look more closely, one couple is just barely struggling to stay on their feet.

It is the challenge of the charter school movement to push further, dig deeper, find ways of educating our children that does not involve a one-size fits all mentality. As I look for the next place to hang my teaching hat I am looking for that school that truly delivers on its promises– not a mere facade of brightly colored walls, fancy signs and inspirational slogans. It MUST be so much more. That place where teachers are committed to continual growth and the creation of life long learners. A group of adults, searching for innovations in education and not just talking about it, but implementing it. Individuals who realize that innovation of the 90s cannot STILL be innovation in 2010 and that the power of the charter school movement MUST lie in our abilities to adapt and refine our schools to the children we intend to serve.

tomorrow-begins the first day of a new chapter in the history of our school. to our kids, nothing is the same, the principal is different, the deans are different and even the hallways that were once theirs– are different.
all with the hopes that if things are different enough– maybe things will actually CHANGE.
but to create change, we must invest people in change. and this, just might be the hardest part of it all.
i have spent the last month preparing for what occurred last week, only to realize that no amount of preparation could prepare us to battle old habits, old assumptions and mistrust. you can’t begin to rebuild a relationship of trust by saying “trust me” and unfortunately we cannot prove our trustworthiness until the kids are in the building.
in the upcoming week teachers are looking to see if everything that we have said for the last week has been true, if everything we have said will be followed up on truly is. whether what we say is what we mean or just a suggestion of what should have been.
in the world of teachers– teaching the teachers is by far the most difficult task. it is much harder to dismantle the walls an adult has built than that of a child and each time we’ve taken a little down, someone else has questioned and put it back up. everything is riding on how the upcoming weeks run– not only will our teachers establish themselves as trustworthy/unstrustworthy in the eyes of our students and WE must establish ourselves as trustworthy in the eyes of our teachers.
tomorrow truly is the beginning, of the rest of our lives.

welcome class of 2021. we have greatly anticipated your arrival.
- your Dean of Students

What color did you choose today?
Looked at your box of flesh colored crayons
Chose the one that would help you get by
put it on as you dressed for school
Exercised your ability to be
any color other than not
you are the one color that provides choice
choice our students will never have
Judged well before they reach that interview chair
always needing to prove their worth before respect is gained
needing to deal with a condescending air that you will never experience
but you conveniently choose to be someone
other than yourself
How can you teach a child to accept themselves when you can’t do the same?
How convenient it is for you to choose your color when it best suits you
the color of best fit for your day
Today- the color of privilege
Tomorrow- the color that makes you “down” with your students
Slipping into a fake vernacular when needed
Thinking they will accept you
For your tongue
Not realizing that if there is one thing a child does know
Its the truth
And our children don’t need another liar in their lives

For Desmon, Shantae, Jamani, Victoria, Chelsea, Danielle, Khaliq, Azhane, Nicholas, Ronnick, Michael, Clayton, Travis, K’lah and the class of 2018

They said:

“We wear Black for the color of our skin
Green for the land of our ancestors
And red for the common blood that bonds us”

They didn’t quite understand the meaning of power
Didn’t realize how much strength THEY had just displayed
A solidarity that helped them realize the power of their own voices

They had known that they were doing something big
They needed to show someone that they weren’t happy
didn’t know exactly what they were doing
Or who they were showing
But they knew they HAD to do something
And with the power of the revolution that WE instilled

 
They delivered.
Made plans to tell their peers
Decided the colors to wear
and delivered the message
spent the night
spreading the word

Wear Black for the color of your skin
Green for the land of our ancestors
And red for the common blood that bonds us

Their following was deep
But their conviction wavered
So many of them too fearful of consequence
Too young to fully understand the power of what would be done

the next morning
20 of them stood stronger than ever
Despite their hesitance
Despite their fear
They stood up
For what they believed in
 
They were alienated for being strong
Pulled to the side and kept out of sight for such
“a blatant display of defiance”
Many of their parents found out for the first time
When they were forced
To make that phone call 

WE were proud of them but others were not
 

A school divided on the very lines that separate privilege from color
One side standing strong with the very children they served
The other feared what could come
Afraid that children so small
Could find a power so strong
Afraid of what might happen if they were
Set free
Characterized them as animals needing to be tamed
Kept at bay
“volatile” youth needing to be censored
youth we could not “rile” up with our words of power

Take away their education to appease YOUR soul
What IF they stand up for what they believe in
What IF they find their voice
What IF they say something that makes YOU feel uncomfortable
Do we teach them strength or is YOUR intention to teach them
Compliance
Assimilation
And what it means to be oppressed
Do it MY way or you’ll pay
EDUCATE them and you will suffer
TEACH them and I will do everything in MY power to
Stop you
Adults knowing that this fight was so much bigger than our small school
Reached far beyond our four walls
And in brief fleeting moments, stood proud
with our children

Who wore Black for the color of their skin
Green for the land of their ancestors
And red for the common blood that bonds us

As a college student “closing the achievement gap” was sold to me as “being a part of the movement” — the movement to close this “gap” the “civil rights issue of our time” and, being the movement maker that I was— I hopped right on board. I didn’t realize what I was signing up for, I THOUGHT I had signed on to work with a group of like-minded individuals who were there for the same root causes– to work with children and make a difference in this twisted system we call education in the United States. I was wrong. I found that the rallying cry of the “ACHIEVEMENT GAP!” meant something completely different to me than it meant to the hundreds of others that joined me. These were people who signed up to “pad their resume” or to “do some good” (but just for 2 years) or the person who felt that they could save our children by committing to a two year agreement in the classrooms of the “nation’s roughest neighborhoods” or simply just to buy some time between college and— their REAL job.

As I came to these realizations I found my own ideals slowly disintegrating– how was it possible that people who felt that a curriculum for teachers that skirted around issues of race in the classroom was unnecessary (rather than being outraged that the curriculum was so poorly developed) were about to teach in a classroom where THEIR own race would be apparent to their students the MINUTE they walked through those classroom doors? After an eye-opening summer, my new rallying cry was “as soon as I get through this ‘teacher bootcamp’ I am fully employed by the DOE and I owe nothing to this organization!” After two years I realized that the small school in the Bronx that I worked in was lead by someone who would never have the vision or leadership to move the school towards the direction of change it so needed. 

The second rallying call I heard was once again an organization devoted to closing this ominous “GAP” and I thought I had found heaven. I thought this was it– this was the place I thought I’d find when I first walked through those doors at institute 2 years earlier and I was excited to once again do the work that needed to be done. While it took longer than the few days it took me years before, I slowly began to realize that the people here were no different. They too heard the rallying cry of closing the “Achievement Gap” but they too heard it in a different way. Rather than making it all about the kids it had become all about the numbers — and all about the “face” of the organization itself. If we were successful in our own schools, THEY were successful as an organization and they would do anything in their power to make it happen. I quickly realized that it wasn’t about the very kids they claimed to serve. 

To say that an “achievement gap” exists trivializes the real issues at hand. To chalk it all up to some gap makes it seem less important– the word itself making it seem empty and unable to be fixed. When visualizing the “achievement gap” I had always imagined a putty-like gap where the two sides were pushed together to finally meet in the middle. In fact it is much more difficult to close this gap than many believe it to be. When we talk about “holding teachers accountable” what do we really mean? It doesn’t mean that a school that produces great little test takers is a school that is working to effectively close this gap. After all, we could stuff the gap with straw but the gap would still remain– bits of sand would still fall through the cracks.

To truly close this gap we must examine both sides of the hole and asses what is needed to seal the hole itself– but this takes a specially trained eye. Truly closing this gap in achievement takes a specially trained person to do the job– all educators must be activists at heart– only then will we truly begin to see the walls of this gap closing in. Educators as activists are people who can see that a school is under-resourced and fight for it, see that curriculum is flawed and change it, see that it’s not just about student’s test score but about who they are as a person.  It’s undeniable that it takes work to say “I’m closing the Achievement Gap because I brought 80% of my students from a 1 to a 2 my first year and from a 2 to a 3 my second year” However, it takes a completely different kind of work to say “I realized that my students didn’t have access to the health care they needed to stay healthy and in school so I found one for them. I realized that my students weren’t learning from the scripted curriculum that my school gave me so I wrote my own” and finally, “I realized that my purpose as an educator was to inspire my students to become the best versions of themselves and their communities”. 

As educators, we MUST be our student’s biggest advocates to want more for them than we would want for ourselves. To only want their test scores to improve is not and cannot be enough. This “gap” is so much more than what we make it out to be– so while you “mind the gap” I’ll focus on the finding good teachers to teach our kids.

They call a fair fight?

Fifty against one could never be fair

The rules of the street are never

that clear

One false move and the one person you were supposed to fight “fair” with

Becomes 50

“But Ms. Tang

We fought fair with them before

They fought Jayden then Jacob

And…”

Without our knowing

They had created their own little turf war within the 5 block radius of our school

Kids forced to act “harder” than they were

Stronger than they were

To prove

that they were

Men and they “owned” this block

We didn’t know that each time they came back to us

With bloodied noses

Busted lips and broken pride

they were fighting for their right to exist

between Myrtle and Park

to walk home down Kent

and pass safely by Willoughby

each time they returned

to the safe haven we had created

for some hope of refuge

to feel protected

to feel that they had someone to tell and not snitch

to find shelter in our arms and comfort in the concern on our faces

young boys who still cried when it hurt

young boys who came back to heal their young adolescent wounds

Each time

We asked what happened

Listened to their stories

Felt wounded with them

And each time

We told them

That this wasn’t it

We weren’t telling them to become the victim but we told them that

Sometimes

You’re the bigger man

If you know when to walk away

we can’t go out there and fight your fight for you

even though our hearts wanted to run out and find them

we can’t protect you forever

even though we wanted to never let you go

Words we spoke covered the thoughts

Of wanting to protect your innocence – wanting to take to the streets with you and find the boys who did this to you

tell them to stop hurting our boys

tell THEIR young faces that there would be many fights in their lives and this fight

wasn’t worth it

Wanting to shield you from the reality past your 4 pm dismissal

Make something better outside of these walls so you wouldn’t have to worry.

Thought that

As long as you were in our care

We could protect you

Feed your soul

Shelter your hearts

And fill your minds with the knowledge that you were meant to be

more than you could have ever imagined

And while we taught you this

the street entered the one place you were supposed to feel safe

feel protected

five floors up we opened the doors of knowledge

while they opened the doors of the building and breached the sanctity of our small protective shield

Showed up at 2:30

50 waiting outside

5 walking right in through open doors

Looking for you

asking your classmates what time

You would be dismissed

Our children

Our babies

The ones we lived, ate and breathed for

The young minds who just 1 hour earlier

Sat silently as I read the words of Suheir Hummad

the very class that I couldn’t keep completely silent

listened intently

without a single word

The only sound the occasional utterance of “ase!” “I agree”

When I finished

One boy raised his hand

And, in his not yet 12 almost 13 awkward voice said

“Ms. Tang!

This line

This line right here

Tha- that’s deep!”

The one who moved and drummed even when there was no music added

Ms. Tang this—that right there… I know it’s not the MOST powerful line

But

To me

That’s powerful

The power of the word stronger than any fist you might meet

The power we hope to teach

the power we want you to keep

teach you to know

The difference between the power of the fist and the true power of

knowing better

rising above

fighting only for what you believe in

The power of choosing your battles and knowing that your ambition will overcome any fist that comes your way

42 chased off the block

But 8 remained

Refusing to back down in the face of a man twice their size

Flinging insults and phrases that proved that they weren’t scared, proved that they were HERE

for you

Kicked and yelled “get off me son!” as they were forced to sit down

Forced to

Call their parents

‘Cuse they were boys just like ours

Boys with no wisdom beyond the idea that

To fight

Was to be a man

And they had something to prove

And as we gathered our boys before dismissal

Made them aware of the danger they narrowly escaped

Told them the story of the crowd that showed up expecting to see their faces

Expecting fist to fist

And the eight who refused to go

it registered in their faces that

This shit was real

Each face registered acknowledgement

Each face revealed their experience

Some with the look of  having been their before

THEY had already met with the street and won

Others had the looks of boys who had no idea whether they would take the hit

run

or cry for their mothers

some of them spoke in nervous laughter

“i…. I’m calling my mommy to come pick me up!”

Others prepared their fists

The one who spoke of power spoke first

“what if they call a fair fight?”

“sometimes it takes a bigger man to know when to fight and when to just walk way”

Know when its not worth the pain and when the odds are set against you

Your power comes when you know the fight is not yours

And, as the words come out of our mouths,

We can do nothing but hope that you somehow

find those words just as powerful as the ones I read to you before

Our school is falling down, it has become THAT place where teachers would rather be everywhere else– but here. It has gone from my own little piece of school-based heaven to my own little piece of school-based hell. The rose colored glasses have been removed and what’s left in its place is nothing that anyone wants to see. While there are a number of factors that could contribute to this, it’s interesting to take into consideration for a moment an analysis of the changing color of the staff. In year one, the staff was comprised of 88% teachers of color and this was they year we thrived- this was the year that I would gladly, and quickly state that I LOVE MY JOB. The following year this number changed to 65% and the dynamic began to shift– we began to see our kids become jaded and angry because all that was promised to them in these new teachers was not met. This year, the number is at a meager 40% and we are falling down. While I’m not saying that the race of our teachers is the reason our school is falling down, it is intersting to note the dynamics that currently play out in the building.

Our teachers of color are the ones that do the most around the building, we are the deans of students (the “school culture mediators”, the math coaches, the teachers that everyone calls when there is an issue with particular students” and in the midst of all this, there seems to be a sense of learned helpnesses and entitlement amongst the White members of our staff– from the very first day the question was always “what can  you do to help me?” and rarely “what can I do to help myself”. As a teacher, I’ve learned that my own greatest defense is constantly asking myself “what can I do to help myself”– sure, I can ask for all the advice and help that I can but the bottom line is, I am the one that has to implement it, I am the one that is alone in that classroom of 30 some kids. And I have done well because of this- in my own methods of clawing and digging my way out of the swampy waters, I have found my own, found my peace.

There is only so much that I can tell you to do before you have to take it on yourself. Sure, I can tell you that this particular action deserves this particular consequence but at what point do you begin to actually mend the relationship with the child that is so broken that it causes them to retailiate in your classroom? At what point do you look at the 8 different kids that sit in your class making noises and being disruptive every day do you ask yourself WHY they might be doing this and think about what it is that you can do about it. It’s like a tell my students all the time, before you throw your hands up in the air, at least show me that you’ve tried. But I can’t be this blunt with our teachers– there are fragile egos that we must watch out for and entitlement we must cater to. And while we do this, while we hold your hand and make things better for you, our school falls down and our children suffer.

It’s not about what’s best for the teachers.

and the minute we begin to think that it is-we have failed. When schools adopt systems of zero tolerance and begin to escalate children from one consequence to the next we are serving the teachers– making THEM feel better about coming into the classroom everyday knowing that the most thought you have to put into a child’s consequence is to call the Dean.

It’s not about what’s best for the teachers.

It’s become more and more clear that everything that we do is to pacify a particular group of teachers and in the meantime the remaining teachers are being asked of and asked of and asked of. The culture of the school has become such that those that are able are the ones that are asked to do and those that are unable are the ones that are pacified and aided by the ones that can. It just so happens that those that are able are the teachers of color. As our school falls apart it is the ones who do the most for this school that are being put under the magnifying lens, held to the fire, scrutinized for every step, every breath. Somehow, the burden falls on us. It’s not that other teachers aren’t doing there jobs, it’s that those that already do more than they are asked are still not doing ENOUGH– even though we stay regularly well beyond your 7- 4 pm hours – we are STILL the reason the schools is falling down. It’s not that we have teachers who cannot handle a few disruptive outbursts from particular students it’s that WE haven’t done enough to help these teachers out and since WE haven’t done “enough” OUR jobs are at stake– because WE haven’t made it EASY enough for YOU to do your job.

It’s not about what’s best for the teachers.