A Tuesday in early December was about as bad a day as I can remember at the high school I teach at: At least three violent fights had broken out – one resulting in a girl’s head being smashed through the office window and another resulting in a boy being stabbed repeatedly in the face by a pencil. I wasn’t a witness to the one in the cafeteria, but I heard it was ugly.
It was 3:00 – twenty minutes before the end of the day and part of my planning period– and I had seen enough. “This place isn’t worth another minute of my time,” I said to another teacher who, along with me, was ducking out of the building early. “That’s for sure,” she replied.
From the doorway of a classroom, a lingering student said, “There you go, another teacher who doesn’t care about the students.” His verbal jab didn’t sting me a bit at the time, though I later felt lousy about what I’d said. The biggest burden I’ve had in the past two years is that I do care – a lot – about what goes on at my school.
So much is being made of the various reformers and reform movements in the education world. I think it’s great to hear people acknowledging the various challenges of teaching, especially in troubled urban schools where the achievement gap between minority and white students expands by the hour. I’d just like to hear more conservatives talking about solutions to the problems in inner city and high poverty areas. This is an area where our core values can be expressed so clearly: personal responsibility and accountability, making the most with what you have, advancing based on merit and achievement.
My colleagues in Teach for America are passionately committed to closing the achievement gap. We work at it relentlessly, with a sense of possibility and with an acknowledgment that we are working in often desperate schools that are understaffed and under-resourced.
I admire my Teach for America colleagues and our mission, but am sure that I could count the number of self-identified Republicans among us on one hand. I want to know what other conservatives think about urban poverty, the crisis in urban high schools like the one I teach in and what and who has the answers to help the kids in these areas. The kids I teach are like family to me now. I consider them “my” kids and wouldn’t leave the school for the brightest or shiniest school because I know I can teach them and I’ve done so much to relate with them and see life from their perspective. Also, I fear who would take my place if I left.
Rather than leave early that day, I should have stepped in to make the situation better. There should have been some structure in place, something I could have done in preparation, to help the school heal and come to peace rather than seem chaotic. I don’t put the onus on someone else or on the kids. It’s up to me to do these things. Isn’t that what conservatism is all about? As voters rejected GOP failures this Fall, conservatives should be relentless on urban issues linking failures to the liberal mind-set that dominates policy.
15 responses so far
1 frankt // Jan 20, 2009 at 5:03 am
“I’d just like to hear more conservatives talking about solutions to the problems in inner city and high poverty areas….I admire my Teach for America colleagues and our mission, but am sure that I could count the number of self-identified Republicans among us on one hand.”
It seems obvious that the solution must come from Democrats and their enablers, then.
2 Neo // Jan 20, 2009 at 8:37 am
“Democrats and their enablers” are sucking the life out of urban America as fast as they can.
3 Clarence Darrow // Jan 20, 2009 at 10:11 am
See The National Civility Center for a great organization working on solutions here side by side with you.
civilitycenter.org.
They use best business organizational development practices to create a “kaizan” type approach for local communities in need. They use the same tools from folks like Peter Senge, Jim Collins, etc to help make communities better and empower local communities.
They help empower these troubled young people take control of their lives and their communities – ending the “client” and “professional” mentality of welfare.
They are doing good work in Detroit and are worthy of support!
4 turnturn // Jan 20, 2009 at 10:13 am
Urban schools are just awaiting a touch of “hope and change!” Maybe a speech or two and a new coat of paint… Urban areas provide an optimal environment for conservatives to run principled, albeit losing, campaigns. These fights are critical to starting movement a la Goldwater. What we need are young people bucking for a fight, running against the establishment
5 jonnyjayhawk // Jan 20, 2009 at 10:27 am
The concept of feeding more benefits will surley help a select number of people in poverty, and lower class, but the value of knowledge to these classes is far better than any benefit or break. The willingness to find that knowledge of what must be done, rather than what you have been doing is by far the most important goal.
6 vrob125 // Jan 20, 2009 at 12:51 pm
You are a hero. Thank you for what you do.
7 ziss // Jan 20, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I have had—and still do—-considerable experience in public schools that run the gamut from affluent suburban to poor urban. To be sure, good teachers, administrators and staff make a very important difference. But the most important factor is the students’ families. Until we learn how to contact with families that are “indifferent” to their childrens’ education, effort and money will continue to be wasted.
8 Bob // Jan 20, 2009 at 6:58 pm
“…conservatives should be relentless on urban issues linking failures to the liberal mind-set that dominates policy.”
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It would indeed be a nice change to have conseratives focus on urban issues. Conseratives/Republicans should give up on muzzling science, give sex a rest, acknowledge that markets need regulation, labor should have a place at the table, America exists north of the Mason-Dixon Line, yes, it would be nice to see conseratives drop all that “neo” crap and focus on the real issues of urban and rural America. Drop the constant campaign that Karl Rove thought would bring about the permenant Rebublican majority. That idea ended in November 2006, and the election of 2008 shamed those who bought into the hate and division sowed by the un-christian right. Conseratives have a lot to answer for and a lot of rethinking to do.
9 Clarence Darrow // Jan 20, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Killer comment Bob – 100% spot on in my mind.
10 wishujoy@gmail.com // Jan 21, 2009 at 12:20 am
I also admire you, your Teach for America colleagues and your mission, but it’s not enough. One or two teachers can’t reform a school and certainly not a poor school district. What’s needed are more charter schools where teachers and principal and parents and kids work together toward a common goal of learning. One school can be changed and made accountable; school districts are hopeless bureaucratic quagmires. Abolish them.
11 skirkboulter // Jan 21, 2009 at 5:22 am
The private sector must command a better fraction of the education of American students; principally because the left wing indoctrination and/or deficiency in the quality of that education dooms not only additional generations to stupidity, but also to left agenda habits.
Pragmatically, the Republican party needs to establish luncheons wherein adults and teens meet for intellectual discourse on an O’Reilly or Cavuto segment. A social gathering, based on bringing out younger input, centered on food, will help.
12 fact based // Jan 21, 2009 at 3:00 pm
“I admire my Teach for America colleagues and our mission, but am sure that I could count the number of self-identified Republicans among us on one hand. ”
ask David Frum for the reason maybe it’s because (at least up until recently) cost benefit analysis of the marketplace steered your fellow young republicans to trade derivatives instead of teaching for america
13 fact based // Jan 21, 2009 at 3:02 pm
“party needs to establish luncheons wherein adults and teens meet for intellectual discourse on an O’Reilly or Cavuto segment. ”
I think you need to look up the term oxymoron before trying to set up an “intellectual discourse” based on an oreilly segment.
14 sw // Jan 21, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I teach ESL in the LAUSD (high school). I get kids who are new to this country and I try to teach them what I learned, as a child of immigrants myself: America is the best country in the world, there is more to our history than Wounded Knee and Abu Ghraib, the Bill of Rights is real and working on their behalf every day. Kids today have never heard of Valley Forge or Gettysburg. They do know about Wounded Knee.
The history teachers are the worst: nice people, but whack jobs extraordinaire. And am I wrong to think it is inappropriate for teachers to wear political-statement T-shirts to school?
15 exDemocrat // Jan 21, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I won’t work for a socialist organization so I have found other outlets for my teaching/helping. I’m working to get school vouchers passed. That will open up opportunities not only for students but for TEACHERS too (or those like me who would change careers to teach). [to sw: no you're not wrong about the t-shirts on teachers! That type of stuff keeps me away from public schools.]
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