I so easily could have ended up on the other side of this reform debate.
My story was straight out of the Educators4Excellence playbook: after graduating from an Ivy, I entered urban education because I had been so inspired by W.E.B. DuBois’s writings on teaching in the Reconstructionist South (I had a major in Intellectual History, minor in African-American Studies: you know, just to keep my hegemonic worldview in check). I had been an overachieving kid who felt bored in elementary school, so I had no reservations about waving the “strive for academic excellence” banner. I applied to the NYC Teaching Fellows, an alt-cert program that boasted an acceptance rate of 12%. With that stat, how could anyone accepted not feel like a member of the “elite”?
I went to work in a public elementary school in Harlem, in a K-2 self-contained special education class. My only classroom experience was shadowing a 9th-grade math teacher for four weeks. Apples and oranges much? I interviewed and was hired for the K-2 job within my first week of training. Could I change to a more relevant setting, I asked the Fellows office? No. What about training at the school that hired me, as they had offered? No again. Does being part of the elite 12% mean that I have intrinsic knowledge of how to teach elementary school? I hadn’t even been inside of an early elementary classroom in 15 years!
My start date was February 1, and I soon learned that the class hadn’t had a permanent teacher since November. The math coach handed me the Everyday Math Curriculum and shrugged, “I guess you’ll have to start at Unit One.” [For those unfamiliar, EM is a “spiraling” curriculum that has to be taught in sequence.] My most vivid memory of the first month of school was the adaptive Phys Ed teacher wrinkling her nose in disgust and sneering, “You went to Penn and you’re a schoolteacher?!” Of all the ways I could shame the good name of my university, this wasn’t the one I expected. Despite the program’s assurance that I was part of a capable cohort of elites, I felt like I wasn’t taken seriously when I talked to parents. When I told a colleague that I felt like my classroom parents didn’t respect me, she bluntly said, “You have to face facts: if you’re a white teacher in Harlem, the perception is going to be that you’re not very good or you would be someplace else.”
We went through four different principals in the two and a half years I taught there. Not that it mattered, since the principal and assistant principals spent most of their time behind locked doors. Nevertheless, all our photocopies had to be submitted a week in advance, along with a form justifying their instructional purpose (did they spend all day in that room deciding which copies to approve or deny?) Teachers were told that we should not make any parental contact (notes sent home or phone calls) without administrator approval. A colleague had a medical emergency, and I was disciplined for calling 911 from my cell phone while another colleague notified the main office. When the paraprofessionals (older women whose years of experience exceeded my age) in my self-contained classroom were actively undermining me (telling parents that I babied the kids, refusing to assist me with any classroom tasks on the basis of, “If you were a regular teacher, you would have to do it yourself”), my assistant principal told me I was to blame for “not managing them effectively.” When my DOE-assigned mentor tried to advocate for me, she was banned from the building.
My class was always 1 or 2 students above the roster limit of 12 (I handwrote their names onto the printed attendance sheet). Most of my students were officially 1st-graders, but about half of those were at a pre-kindergarten level instructionally, still learning their letters and sounds. Despite their needs for intensive instruction, I was required to keep pace with the school-wide scripted Reading First curriculum. Meanwhile, the other Fellow at my school, taught a 3rd grade self-contained class with only 4 students. Why not put my two second graders, who were also my highest students academically, into his class, making a K-1 class and a 2-3 class? Because the THIRD grade students are the ones who need intensive test-prep, that’s why! (I didn’t begrudge my colleague at all in this situation; it was an administrative decision.) I stayed with that group of children for one full school year after my half year, and then was switched to a 4th-grade inclusion setting. Contrary to the inclusion model of placing students with disabilities into classes with their brightest peers, the “general education” students in my class included all of the students who were repeating the grade, the students who had been unsuccessfully referred for special education services in previous years (lots of parental resistance to labels), and the biggest behavior problems in the grade. The logic went that the neediest kids would benefit the most from having the support of two teachers. In actuality, it was like teaching a self-contained special education class, only with 28 students instead of 12. [Edit: Or 14]
So why do I think that this school should be saved? The teachers at that school had deep ties to the community. Many of them had taught the parents of their current students. There’s a stereotype about old, lazy teachers, but the dowdy woman in the classroom next door had an enormous binder filled with detailed notes on all of her students. Some of the instructional methods used were not supported by the most current research, but no professional development was offered to allow teachers to change them. When I was moved up to fourth grade, I was excited that I would no longer have to teach the regimented Readers First program. The literacy coach gave me the curriculum calendar developed at Teachers College. The first unit dealt with building up readers’ “schema.” Less then a week later, the literacy coach returned with a set of basal readers and a yellowing teachers guide. “We’re using these instead.” My knee-jerk reaction was to blame the coach for falling back on the old ways. I didn’t realize yet that, without professional development, asking teachers to switch from the basal model to a highly conceptual workshop model was as unfair as asking me to teach K-2 after being trained in 9th.
Yes, there was frustration and bitterness, but that frustration was with the administrators and the system that made our school a dumping ground for principals who had failed elsewhere – our first principal was a young Broad graduate who was abruptly “removed” midyear (rumors abounded: was it corporal punishment? Mismanagement of funds? Drug use?). The young, inexperienced AP took over for the rest of that school year, only to be replaced by a principal that we discovered had been ousted from her previous school by the parents, and an AP who had been demoted from a principal position. A charter school was given the top floor of our building – as well as the most advanced and motivated students from each grade. It was hard to object to another school taking our space when my school wasn’t even using the space it had: the computer lab was closed, the computers all unplugged, and the library was turned into a storage closet (we made it onto Fox 5 news – the reporter ambushed the principal outside of her home and she denied being who she was). I don’t know who was to blame, but it certainly wasn’t the teachers. Putting teachers “like me” into the mix certainly didn’t help in any measurable way; in fact, it hurt, because it implied that an idealistic white girl from the suburbs with a fancy degree and no education experience was more qualified to teach inner-city kids than a person of color from the community who had completed a traditional teacher-preparation program. No impressive statistic or Ivy League credential could compensate for the fact that I didn’t know the first thing about teaching. No amount of liberal idealism and good intentions could ever change the fact that my presence sent the message to students, parents, and colleagues that their community needed “fixing” from outside.
I deeply regret the harm my incompetence and hubris did to my first class of students. With my experiences in mind, I reject the elitist, classist, racist, and ageist rhetoric of the education “reform” movement.
The only issue I take with this essay is that Fellows are only EVER used by a school district as a last resort. That being there are no qualified teachers that will take the position. As you stated the place you filled was vacant for the better part of a year. Were you as effective as you could be? No. Were you better than the alternative of a different sub ever day? YES. So, quit you whining. Virtually no one is the best teacher in the world their first year. Your dedication to the belief that you can be effective and the desire to discipline yourself to learn the practices that have been found to be useful are what is important. If you had staid in that community over time you would have won those Paras over and the parents. You were treated as an interloper because you were and when you left you proved it.
I agree that you took and stuck with a job that no one else would take and that you were clearly the best option available for the school and the students. That said, I don’t think that it can be overstated how frustrating and painful it is to work in schools like this one. It is not your fault that the school was so bad, and it was not your responsibility to fix it (although, having taught in a tough school as a Fellow myself, I know how much you, and it sounds like Jeremy too, wish it were). You didn’t prove that you were an interloper when you left; you proved that the position and the school were untenable. I hope you’re still teaching somewhere with better support. If you stuck with that school for two years, there must be something about teaching that is right for you.
The same is being completed in big cities all across the country.
I was part of the Phoenix Teaching Fellows who places qualified “teachers” with a bachelors into the most struggling classrooms around areas of low economic status. I was shocked to realize that the students who need the most help are being put into classrooms where their teachers have the least experience and don’t necessarily have any teaching skills. The only reasoning behind their placement is they went to college, completed the testing and interview process better than their peers, and are looking for a new beginning (or filling a gap between jobs in their field during the recession). Zero of these reasons directly correlate to a productive teacher.
The LA Times had a piece in November about this same topic and it is something that should be looked at. They reported that the difference between the education a student receives from a great teacher and a crap tecaher is up to 8 months of learning in one school year.
How can we shift this obvious disconnect that allows under performing students to be taught by unexperienced teachers?
Great piece,
Mr Matt Pieroni
http://mrmattpieroni.com/
Okay, your opinion seems to be that layoffs and firings are equivalent. You dislike unions. My opinion is different. I will not respond to any more of your posts. We disagree and it’s pointless to argue any longer.
Above is in response to Jason’s last reply to me. I’m not sure why it showed up down here since I replied from within the email his post was in. Anyway, I’m done arguing LIFO. It’s gone in MA so Jason should be thrilled. Education in MA should begin to improve immediately, or as soon as we start to lay off the legions of those horrible lazy older teachers and replace them with rookies.
Hi Lauren! What a great essay and your voice is so important! Thank you for speaking out.
You may be familiar with it, but your post and some of the comments that followed made me think of a poem I heard online a while back. “Hallelujah, the Saviors are Here” is by an African American high school student, and it lends support to your astute observations on the “elitist, classist, racist, and ageist” education “reform” movement. Glad to see that you’ve stayed in the classroom and worked on improving your craft. Humility, insight, and empathy are necessary traits for good teachers to have, and you have all of them.
racisthttp://www.wbez.org/story/hallelujah-saviors-are-here-97183
I made a mistake on the URL for the poem: It should be
http://www.wbez.org/story/hallelujah-saviors-are-here-97183
you lasted & didn’t quit because you got attached to trying to help the kids that tried, regardless of why or how they were where they were ?
as a 20 something with the opportunity to try things out, and with this under your belt, you should try things out – sell stocks – go work in an Alaskan cannery … and please consider how you can get back to a classroom in a situation which isn’t so completely inexcusably f’ked, so you can use your experience to put your shoulder to the wheel to make some corner of somewhere better
As a 50 something 8th year seattle high school teacher in the eye of the storm of the lying deform elitists with their fancy credentials, fancy job titles, fancy home zip codes, fancy power points and fancy paychecks – I’m seeing the same elitist social cla$$ I serfed for when I was a Microsoft serf over 10 years ago, or the same finger snapping arrogant a-holes I cooked for 25 years ago in Boston. They’re a bunch of pompous Malvolios who deserve and who’ve earned and who merit ridicule … and a few days in a dark cell …
and who need to be politically beaten. period.
rmm.
I’m no longer a twentysomething, but I did stick it out and am about to begin my 8th year of teaching in the NYC public schools
What kept me teaching wasn’t the kids per se, but the professional development offered once I changed schools. I began to see teaching as an art rather than a set of “tricks” and a script to follow. Teaching continues to challenge me daily, which is why I can’t identify with the groups like Educators4Excellence that decry a lack of “career ladder” for classroom teachers.
Thank you Lauren, for sharing a story that needs to be shared. The realities of what “fast tracking” and “alternative certification programs” are doing to public schools needs to be shared. What worries me more than the racism, sexism, and all the other -isms, is that the idea that urban schools NEED “white knights” to save them.
Our daughter spends her summers in DC, working for a company that offers a scripted program to parents willing to pay for one on one attention. I can’t fault her (as a teacher) as she is paid a lovely wage for working with mainly white, upper class kids. She has no delusions about TFA and as the child of a teacher KNOWS that she isn’t one simply by working at this job. I can’t fault the parents for sending their kids there either – after all, it IS all about getting into the “right” schools for them.
What frightens me more is that as she returns from work, a lovely African-American gentleman who lives in the neighborhood where she stays with her uncle tells her almost daily that she’s doing a “good thing” because that’s what the black kids need – someone like her to fix the problems in DC schools. I’m concerned that a fair share of the population of parents has bought this nonsense hook, line and sinker. To think that because she’s white she can “fix” kids is patently false. She knows it, and she reminds him of this as they chat. They debate, they discuss, they disagree. Being white and fairly intelligent doesn’t make her a savior or a teacher, for that matter. She knows this, but I worry that there are too many who don’t.
great piece Lauren! You are not helping/teaching “them” you are one with your students and you embody the true meaning of education. thank you for sharing your experiences and shedding a light with what’s fundamentally wrong with the current education ‘reform”s disguised racism, classism, homophobia, ageism.
Keep telling it like it is, Lauren!
Recognizing isms and then taking action that requires deep reflection and sometimes the rejection of deep inner beliefs is the true hallmark of critical learning. Thanks for the lesson in humility Lauren.
Amen! Thank you for sharing and giving me some hope that there may be others like you out there. The public school advocacy group that I am part of likes to refer to me as a “recovering (corporate) charter school teacher.” Yes, I was completely wrong about that whole charter school idea.
Share your group.
The reason why the so-called “reformers” place unqualified, inexperienced Fellows and TFA into inner city schools is to weaken them and the teachers unions. They know that the parents don’t know enough to resist the displacement of staff and students, and the foisting of for-profit charter schools on the community. Did you ever notice that they don’t pull this garbage in middle class communities?
i could not agree with you any more!!
It’s not white guilt. It’s acknowledging her position of privilege, being honest with herself and the society in which she lives. Too bad other folks don’t have these moments. The education reform debate right now is a white conservative movement, driven by all of the things Lauren state.
Racism: that “urban” kids need to be civilized by wearing uniforms, like the old “Indian” schools.
Classism: there is a two-tiered education system in the US based on social class and a bunch of “activists” or “reformers” who refuse to put poverty in its proper prominence in the reform agenda.
Ageist: the entire argument against LIFO is ageist.
I’ll do Lauren one better:
Sexism: teachers are abused so easily because they are women, they’re a second class still, and they perform “women’s work.”
Homophobia: current reformers, StudentsFirst among them, are exploiting misconceptions of men working with children in order to bust unions. Sound like a stretch? Not so much. There is the stereotype that men working with kids must mean there’s something wrong with them, perhaps they’re gay. Then, there’s the old saw that gay men are pedophiles. Drum up fears about teacher predators. Talk about unions protecting teachers who are accused and you have an argument against unions. There.
Jason: educate yourself. Lauren: welcome to the blogosphere.
LIFO is ageist; look up the definition of ageist. Eliminating LIFO wouid be meritocratic. Many people are saying stop being ageist, and start judging teachers based on their teaching skills, not seniority.
As for classism, reformers are rightly separating two issues: eliminating the two-tiered education system is a contentious question of redistribution, and would help some students and hurt others. Reforming LIFO and looking for new educational strategies is about reducing waste and inefficiency to benefit all students. The first is political, the second is technocratic.
Last in, first out is the only fair way to go about laying off teachers, if it should be necessary. This has been in place for over 70 years. The reason why it is necessary is because it prevents management from getting rid of teachers for reasons based on age, salary, gender, religion, race, poitical affiliation, sexual identity, national origin, because management wants to get rid of them because they don’t want them to earn a full pension, unwillingness to kiss up to the principal, having a difference of opinion from the principal, whistleblowing, because the principal’s niece needs a job, or because management made a sweetheart deal with TFA or the Fellows program to send in their brainwashed newbies to undermine the schools.
We just lost LIFO in MA. Stand for Children came into the state and threatened us with a ballot question eliminating LIFO and other things, so our union leadership brokered a deal with them to change current state laws so that teacher evaluations have to be the main criteria to use in layoffs starting in 2016. Seniority will only be able to be used for ties. This is very disheartening news for those of us who are older and/or who tend to be more outspoken. It’s making me worry a lot about the future and also worry more about speaking out. So far I haven’t stopped yet but I have to say that this law is having a chilling effect already on my thinking and on other teachers attitudes. I’ve had other veteran teachers tell me that they no longer plan to voluntarily reach out and help newer teachers b/c they fear that they could teach them everything they know and then be cut later to save the system money. It’s really a valid concern. Bring in the business model to schools, and you’ll get more businesslike behavior. I doubt that the business world finds too many people sharing tips and practices that give them an edge over their competition.
there isn’t a point in a detailed repeating of how they’re going to use this to clean house of anyone over 35 with more than 7 years in – how many more private sector b.s. rules do you live under before you wonder why you’re paying union dues? do you need to send monthly support to an organization which kow tows to right wing lies – I get that from the Democratic Party, and I don’t send them money anymore!
I care a lot more about my children being educated by good teachers than about bad older teachers getting fired or being afraid to speak their mind. If you’re a good teacher, your evaluations will be good and you won’t be fired.
Public schools are on the frontlines of democracy. If teachers are afraid to speak out, then our society is in trouble. The new definition of a good teacher is one who is compliant and well behaved. Thus, children will become compliant and well behaved, good little workers, and unable to image a better life for us all.
Jason, sometimes teachers speak their minds to disagree with policies that they know are not good for students, but this is discouraged in schools b/c they tend to be run in a very top-down, hierarchical fashion. Many times policies are determined by people far removed from classrooms, but they don’t like to be questioned with valid concerns, so if you question them, you can oftentimes be labeled as a trouble-maker and complainer.
In a perfect world, evaluations would be fair but we don’t live in a perfect world. LIFO is fair and objective and has been used for many years.
Layoffs are supposed to be a response to financial problems, not a place for firing incompetent teachers. It seems to me that if people are not doing a good job, they should be removed by other means rather than waiting around for layoffs. The stock response to that statement is that unions make it impossible to fire teachers, but that is a fallacy.
I want to add that the school I am currently in does consider teachers’ points of view, and we do have some input into policies, but that could change with a different principal, superintendent, etc. And not all schools are run that way.
How is LIFO fair? It is indeed objective, but that’s very different from fair. Fair is about rewarding skill and effort. LIFO is about rewarding older teachers who have been doing it longer, regardless of their competence, skill, and effort. It’s purely a self-serving tool of the teachers’ union meant to maintain their control and power. LIFO might be the single biggest problem in education today. It discourages ambitious intelligent young people from becoming teachers, keeps incompetent teachers in the classroom, and creates the powerful teachers’ unions that focus on protecting their members instead of the students.
Great piece. You should be commended for caring about your students and enduring the lack of preparation for a teaching career. Too many so called “experts” have no idea what is takes to be a solid educator, yet advocate policy that harms our children. Through your hard work and passion, you proved that experience is important in the classroom. The idea that someone can walk into any classroom and instantly be a great teacher is unrealistic. We need to move to an internship program of teaching that involves working for at least a year under master teachers. The traditional 8 week student teaching program is not enough. The idea that a TFA or similar program can throw someone from an elite college into the classroom is certainly educational neglect as you point out.
Pretty glad my concurrent ed program requires us to teach for 2 years before graduating.
Wowsers, you sure like to throw around terms like “racist”. Nothing in your story was close to racist, ageist, or classist. The idea that someone better educated might be a better teacher might be elitist and/or incorrect, but that’s about it. This sounds like just a follow up to your African-American minor – a white guilt trip.
We must disagree that it is racist to fast-track unqualified white teachers into positions that have been traditionally occupied by teachers of color.
See my reply below.
Nothing in your story was about fast-tracking white people, it was about fast-tracking young participants in elite programs. TFA fast tracks young, inexperienced, but passionate teachers into inner city programs. This may be stupid but it has nothing to do with race. Racism would be if they only did this for white participants of the TFA program, but they don’t.
We won’t be able to improve these schools and the problems with inner city programs until this stupid race-baiting stops. Do you seriously object to the rare white person teaching in inner city schools? Would you prefer if passionate young white teachers were kept out of primarily black schools? Are you seriously advocating segregation of teachers? I know you’re not, but that’s the implication of your complaint that having a couple white teachers in a black school system is racist.
You’re still ignoring the obvious. Schools are more segregated by race and class now than they were right after Brown v. Board. Elitist programs, although I dislike the word elitist, like TFA bring largely white, middle to upper middle income personnel into largely AA, working class schools. Their cultures are completely different as a result of race and class. It fulfills the whole image of the white knight or white savior coming into save all the poor brown people. Christ, look at nearly every film about inner city education out there, with the exception of a few. Dangerous Minds? Freedom Writers? Those films portray exactly what we are talking about here. Race, class, and other identities are never not part of the conversation. Being color blind, class blind, gender blind, all that of that, is delusional. Or bodies are marked by all of these, they are unavoidable in the way we speak, dress, and carry ourselves. Certain markers or those identities confer certain privileges. Look at the rather silly study conducted in Freakonomics whereby job applicants with whiter sounding names were preferred than more “urban” ones. That is all about race and class. And that’s just a dumb example.
I’m honestly having trouble following your line of reasoning. Yes, race consciousness exists, and racism exists. That doesn’t make a program that sends a small number of highly motivated young teachers into underserved schools racist. The fact that this fulfills the “white knight” image in your mind has nothing to do with the motivation for the program. Maybe Lauren wanted to be a “White Knight”, I don’t know, but it’s unfair to accuse all TFA teachers of having impure motives. Again, is TFA rejecting young black teachers coming from Ivy League schools? I doubt it. I think they’re just taking whoever applies that has the resume they’re looking for. Since fewer blacks attend ivy league schools, that means more of the TFA teachers will be white. To not allow passionate white teachers to teach in underserved schools would simply be propagating the lack of resources in the black school districts. Imagine if TFA announced they would no longer be teaching in black schools because the black students don’t benefit from their elite teachers. Can you imagine the screams of “racist!” that would happen then?
So again, you complain that schools are segregated (both in terms of students and faculty), and then complain when passionate white teachers want to teach in black schools. Maybe its stupid to send elite teachers into working class black schools because they can’t relate to the students; I don’t know, but it’s certainly not racist.