Choice is Not Enough

About a week after orientation started, I spoke to a parent who decided to withdraw her child and enroll her in another school. “Where are you enrolling her?” I asked. The response was a simple, “I don’t know yet.” I cringed when I thought of the other possibilities in the city, ranging from fairly mediocre to flat out unsafe. Our school, which she chose to leave, is the highest performing open-enrollment high school in the city. However, we serve just over 200 students in a city of nearly 500,000 people. This is simply not enough.

I wrestle with this idea each day as I drive to work as I pass kids waiting for their bus to other charter schools in the city. What will their day be like? I know the scholars at my school are getting quality education every moment possible. We know that there is still not a minute to waste when the goal is to get a ninth grader who reads at a third grade level ready for college in a mere four years. Every second is carefully planned to maximize student learning. I am aware that this is not the norm… but shouldn’t it be?

When kids leave our school, they walk away from opportunity. I watch them leave knowing that they will learn less somewhere else. Advocates for school choice say that we should leave education reform up to the market. In the end, they say, parents and students will choose only the best schools, and the others will fall to the wayside. According to this theory, high performing schools will have wait-lists because parents and students will flock to the schools that help students learn the most… What will these theorists say when they discover that we do not have a waiting list for 9^th grade enrollment?

Choice is not enough when parents don’t make the right choice. Choice is not enough when unsafe schools still exist. Choice is not enough if the choice is to move a child to an “easier” school where they will learn less. Though I am so happy and grateful to provide a place that is focused on learning and safety for our scholars, I am constantly reminded that the job is not finished. Every kid deserves an education. Not just those who choose it.

Turning Two Lists into One

I struggled over the topic for this week’s post. So much has happened over the course of the last four weeks. I wish I had hours to sit and share with all of you. The decision to narrow down these ideas came to me during church this morning. (Perhaps cliché, I know…)

Every Sunday, at St. Anna’s Church in Mid-City, we pray for the perpetrators and victims of the murders in New Orleans. The priest or a parishioner reads the name and age of each murder victim from the preceding week. They are typically male, between the ages of 20-25. Even when I know this list is coming, it catches me off guard. Perhaps it is the startling consistency of this list, or maybe that the dead are almost always younger than me. This morning, I had an odd but fleeting thought of hope, that perhaps in a few years, there will not be such a list to read each Sunday. These are not just the victims of horrific acts of violence but of a failed education system—one that could not provide the promise of future success for these boys or the perpetrators of these crimes.

New Orleans is in an interesting era of rebirth, one that is perhaps not all that unfamiliar to the city. It seems that the progress and failure of the city comes and goes in waves. We seem to be moving in a good direction, but the question of sustainability remains. Success and sustainability hinges on the triumph or failure of this experiment in education. Education must be the cornerstone of all efforts to improve the city. If schools cannot provide a safe environment for our youth where there is value attached to education, boys will continue to drop out of school. Violence will continue to plague the streets of New Orleans.

Our ninth graders arrive tomorrow for orientation. Today, as a team, we closed our eyes and pictured each one of them walking across the stage at graduation, ready to go on to college. I was moved to tears as the magnitude of this future accomplishment sunk in. As my principal read the names of each of our ninth graders, and I visualized them walking across the stage, the similarities between the reading of this list and the one at St. Anna’s were eerie. Of course the contrast in meaning could not be more vast. Perhaps one day we will need one list instead of two. The good people at St. Anna’s can certainly find something else to pray about…

Team Building, Not Group Building

Team is a word that gets thrown around a lot, all too often with very little meaning behind it. The single quality that strikes me the most about my new school is an inherent sense of trust between team members. The school leaders were able to establish trust amongst the staff within a matter of days, maybe even hours. Even in this short amount of time, this trust has allowed us to provide candid feedback to one another without fear of offending our teammates, and conversely has led us to expose ourselves to a surprising level of vulnerability. (Picture practicing a new taxonomy strategy in front of a group of people you have known for a matter of days, who also happen to be some of the smartest people you have ever met. Also, imagine role-playing a difficult conversation about a personal matter with your new principal in front of the entire staff.) A room full of highly educated people of this caliber jointly pushing their egos aside for the good of a common goal? Impressive, if not shocking.

Obviously, this is a bit of an anomaly. Even so, I wondered if this would be replicable in a traditional community school setting. My best guess is probably not. Even with the right leader, I do not think that this would be possible in a large, bureaucratic school district unless school leaders are given full control over the hiring and firing of staff, a luxury that my Dallas principal was never afforded. By finding teachers and support staff who were not only competent and highly qualified, but also aligned to the values of the school, my new principal was able to ensure “teacher buy-in” before day one.

I think back on my experience in Dallas with mix of pride and disappointment. We made amazing gains and improved the school by leaps and bounds, but we were never a team. It would have been virtually impossible to get everyone on the same page. In fact, I was told time and time again the attempts at consensus building were useless. There was always an assumption that certain teachers would fight against the vision of the school leader. So much wasted energy. What would we have accomplished with those kids if we had all been on the same page?

The blame in this case does not rest in the hands of individual campus leaders, but rather an overgrown urban school district spewing red tape in all directions. Dallas ISD is notorious for shifting teachers around, relocating them between schools with little consultation with the school leaders. Perhaps even worse, is the seemingly random placement of administrators. How would it ever be possible to accomplish anything with a random collection of individuals who may not even believe in the vision of the organization?

The autonomy granted to charter schools begins to solve this problem. Of course, this is a great responsibility for the charter school principals. Though I recognize that not all charter school teachers have such a positive experience with their principals, I am indescribably grateful for the leadership of mine. It seems that principals at traditional schools are not empowered to make these important decisions because of a fundamental lack of trust. Perhaps the next step would be to ensure that all school leaders, not just those in charters, are held to the same standard. But for now, score one point for the charters.

"This is harder than most things"

It has been one week, but it feels like much longer. To some, this may imply boredom or disillusionment. For me, it is just the opposite. I left every day more inspired and excited to be a part of this incredible team. This is truly the most intelligent, talented, and competent group of people with whom I have had the privilege to work. Though everyone on the staff seems to have a unique skill-set, we share common values and a trust in one another’s abilities. Every single person adds value to the team. Every comment seems to be insightful. Everyone contributes. What resonates with me in this reflection is that I am a public school teacher. I wonder how many other teachers have shared in this inspiring experience… My guess is not very many.

Unfortunately, this is not the norm in our field—far from it, in fact. When I began explaining my new school to people, they were surprised and impressed. I must admit that I had fun bragging about my new Ivy League colleagues. But as I reflect on the implications of this reaction, I start to realize the overall flaws in our mindset in regards to education. No one is surprised when a doctor, lawyer, or even a financial advisor is a Yale graduate, but people are shocked to hear that my new principal is a graduate of both Yale and Harvard. No one questions a doctor who works 75 hours a week. However, when I tell people that this is an average workweek for teachers at my school, they think I am crazy.

Education is the most important field. It is the solution to many (if not all) on-going problems in our society. Though some may wish to debate such a cut and dry conclusion, this is not a particularly controversial statement. If there is overall consensus about the importance of educating our children, why do we wince when we hear that teachers are working 75 hours a week? Why are we surprised when I mention that my co-workers are alumni of some of the best universities in the country?

On our first day of training, my new principal said these words: “This is harder than most things.” It seems simple, but in practice it’s true. Getting kids who are four or five reading levels behind to college success… That is hard. Thus, if teaching is among the most difficult but important professions, it requires the most competent and committed individuals to get the job done.

Moving public education forward requires a fundamental shift in mindset: We should no longer be surprised that some teachers are highly educated and committed. Rather, we should wonder why others are not.

My First Post- The Transition

Entry 1- Monday, July 5, 2010- The Transition

With the transition from my traditional public high school in Dallas to a charter in New Orleans looming, the anticipation grows for both myself and other curious onlookers. My decision to move into charters has been both intriguing and puzzling to many fellow educators, particularly when they hear about the extended hours that my new school demands. (When I mentioned my start date at my new school, July 12, one colleague had to pick his jaw up from the floor. He could only muster the words, “But you’re a school teacher!”) I hope that this, my inaugural entry to what I hope will be an ongoing blog, will shed some light on the situation.

I entered into the field of education with the purpose of serving those children who need it the most: urban students deemed “high risk”, and prove their ability to learn. Over the last three years at a traditional public high school in Dallas, I have learned that urban students are not only capable of learning, but most actually want to learn. They are overflowing with potential that yearns to be fulfilled. They are smart, compassionate, and persevering, but they are underserved. Through all of my struggles with overwhelming bureaucracy, poor district and school-wide policies, and sometimes outright incompetency, I could not escape one recurring thought: There has to be a better way.

That is when I began to read up on charters, public schools with private money, receiving near limitless autonomy while serving a public school population. Growing up among school teachers in the vast political blue sea of the Pacific Northwest, charter schools were not only seen as the enemy, they were a mere afterthought to a dominant public school system. Still, the systemic flaws in the traditional public school system prodded me as I weighed the options. My mind reeled. Charters: a mere replacement of a failed voucher system? Probably. Charters: a move towards privatization? Possibly. Charters: the end of the public school as we know it? Perhaps. But at this point, is that necessarily a bad thing? I wondered…

For those who have not followed the news about New Orleans schools, let’s get up to speed. Before Hurricane Katrina, public schools in New Orleans were among some of the worst in the country. In the wake of the hurricane, the city had a unique opportunity to hit the figurative reset button on public education. A new system was instated, largely based on the emergence of charter schools. Today, New Orleans has 60% of students enrolled in charter schools, the highest percentage in the country by far. (I believe DC public schools are the runner up, with about 35% in charters.) The city has become a laboratory for innovative practices in education. I am looking forward to being a test rat.

I must emphasize that my opinions on charter schools as a whole is still being formed, but I believe that my firsthand experience in New Orleans will only help to clarify my beliefs about educational policy. Ideology and politics aside, I want to know what is best for kids. There is a huge segment of our population that is being shortchanged. We must figure out how to get the greatest resources to those children who need it most. Are charters a part of the answer? I am looking for the answer.