First and foremost, I’m a working mother of two young children. This role looms large in shaping my current perspective on education. It is interwoven with my experience growing up in low-income circumstances—as a little black girl in a small Midwestern town whose trajectory was changed via entry to a gifted program in third grade.
Heather Harding with her family. Photo by Satsun Photography.
My six-year-old son has been attending charter schools in Washington D.C., since he was two years old. I want several things in a school for him: quality instruction, a balanced and enriched curriculum, racially and socioeconomically diverse classmates, and safety. I want much the same for my three-year-old daughter, who will join her brother at school in the fall, but I have to admit that I worry a little bit more about my son given his “dreaded” status as a black boy in the US education system.
Jessica Eastman Stewart, a 2005 Bay Area corps member, brings us the first post in a new series: TFA Love Stories. Jessica met that special someone at Teach For America institute, and while institute is not quite the "hopeless place" of the Rihanna song, it's probably not where Jessica expected to find love. Stay tuned for more TFA Love Stories in the coming weeks.
Teach For America institute: it brings back a variety of memories for all of us who have participated over the last few decades—good, bad, inspiring, intense, emotional, exhausting, and more.
I don’t remember much from my first day of induction in the Bay Area, but I do remember my first interactions with many of the staff and corps members that I am fortunate to call my friends today. One of those interactions was with a guy with shoulder-length bright red hair—not an easy guy to forget.
Photo courtsey of Jessica Stewart. From left to right, back to front: Amanda Klein, Jonathan Klein, Dana Russo, David Silver, Amy Carozza, Andrew Sullivan, Greg Holtz, Mike Sawyer, Greg Klein, Alicia Hardy, Rebecca Miller, Liz O'Hare, Jessica Stewart, Jonathon Stewart, Emily Novick, Sarah Pratt, Paymon Zarghami, Neena Dass, Allison Henkel. Alumni from the Bay Area, LA, Philly, New York, and Newark regions were present!
The Bay corps headed to LA at the end of the week for institute—we bonded in our shared dorm throughout the summer over lesson plans, printers that never quite met our needs, a rollercoaster of steep learning curve highs and lows, and the SoCal heat. When we got back to the Bay, four of us were lucky to find a beautiful house in East Oakland to rent together. One of my roommates was that hard-to-forget redhead.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to our blog! We’re so excited to offer this new forum where we’ll be posting commentary on news events, sharing on-the-ground stories from the communities where we work, and engaging in candid discussion and debate about the biggest issues surrounding education today. Pass The Chalk is a blog for everyone, not just members of the Teach For America community or education policy wonks.
I’ll be one of many contributors who will be blogging regularly, along with our staff members, alumni, corps members, students, parents, teachers, and local leaders and advocates. We hope to add our voices to a vibrant online conversation about one of the most pressing social justice issues of our time.
There’s a robust discussion about education that’s increasingly taken place online and on social media, and too often it focuses on the negative, oversimplifies issues, and creates false dichotomies, thus failing to advance our collective learning and understanding.
Matthew Phillips teaches middle school in North Philadephia.
When I walked into my classroom for the first time last September, I had a vision of what I wanted my middle school science classes to look like: I wanted students working with lab equipment to gain a better understanding of the world around them; I wanted students striving to meet the expectations I set for them; but above all, I didn’t want my students to come back to our school next year.
Matt in his classroom. Photo courtsey of Matthew Phillips.
The school I teach in is an alternative school. My students have all been transferred to here by the School District of Philadelphia for disciplinary infractions. If they show improvement, they get another shot at proving themselves in traditional settings. While the challenge they face can be daunting, I prefer to look at it as an opportunity: each of my students is at a turning point. If they can move in the right direction,they’ll experience a dramatic change in their life trajectory.
It’s an opportunity for me as well: I get to be there to help them at this critical point.
Welcome to Pass the Chalk: The TFA Blog. I'm Ruiyan Xu, senior web editor for Teach For America, and I'm excited to share this blog with you. We hope this blog will contribute to the larger conversation taking place online about education in our country. Pass the Chalk is a work-in-progress, so thanks for your patience.
Photo by Tomas Sienicki (via WikiCommons).
What We'll Talk About
We're here because we believe education is the most pressing issue facing our nation. On the blog, individuals will share their take on education news, discuss and debate various issues, and tell stories from classrooms, schools, and communities around the nation.
I majored in criminal justice as an undergraduate, and I learned that the rate of incarceration is higher for people living in poverty, especially minorities, than for any other group. After I graduated college, I became a fourth grade teacher and learned about some of the reasons for this. I became aware that there is a pipeline that makes it possible for people living in poverty to seem destined from birth to go on to commit or be accused of committing crimes and enter prison.
Here’s a statistic I shared with my fourth graders: 2/3 of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Everyday, my students and I fought against this statistic. After all, the stakes are high for kids living in poverty.
Photo by Christina Xu (Via Wikicommons).
Here are the 3 causes I see for the pipeline that funnels students from low income backgrounds into the criminal justice system:
In 2008, I joined the Houston corps and taught 6th grade reading at a predominantly Latino school. At that point, I knew little about the culture of the immigrant families living and working in Houston. Although my mom’s house was less than two miles from my school, my world and those of my students seemed disconnected and distant. Over the course of two years, I heard countless stories about families struggling to realize their own American dreams on this side of the border. For most parents, that meant working multiple low-wage hard labor jobs with little to no health benefits.
Of course, I encouraged my students to work hard, stay in school, stay out of trouble, and go to college so they could get higher-paying jobs with better benefits. But I soon learned that for the vast majority of my students, college was not an easy option. Take Jonathan: because he lacks documentation, the high cost of college will almost definitely prevent him from enrolling. Although Texas is one of 12 states that offers in-state tuition to undocumented students who meet qualifications, Jonathan still cannot apply for federal financial aid. He once told me that he wants to be an engineer. I felt like a liar telling him that all he had to do to get into college was work hard and get good grades. It would take far more work than that.
Graphic from the National Immigration Law Center.
Five links that made us think this week.
Henry V is one of Shakespeare’s most appealing characters. What would he have been like if he went to an American school? David Brooks on the boy crisis in schools.
They’re curing cancer, founding startups, and excelling academically despite being homeless. They’re also teenagers. Meet the kids who are making the rest of us feel bad about ourselves.
Michaela is one of the most impressive kids in America. Photo from First Position.
The Huffington Post recently reported that cash-strapped states are having trouble enacting President Obama’s call to raise the high school dropout age to eighteen. Despite political will for the initiative, its high cost has made it a non-starter in legislatures across the country.
Reuters–US
This lack of action is hardly surprising from states and municipalities that are still struggling economically, despite the fact that dozens of studies have shown that kids who dropout are at much higher risk of incarceration, teen pregnancy, and drug use. Yet it strikes me that whatever financial hit raising the dropout age to 18 would have on state coffers, it surely pales in comparison to the $320 billion of economic potential that is lost each year as a result of students dropping out.
So why the short-sightedness?
Alex Almaguer is a ninth grader in Dallas, Texas.
My name is Alex Almaguer and I graduated from T.C. Marsh Middle School in Dallas. This summer, I had the chance to attend the Roadmap to College Tour with my aunt, some friends, and amazing teachers including Ms. Isaak. The main reason to attend this tour, for me, was to determine the location of the college I would like to join in 2016.
I have always wanted to attend college outside of Texas, to get a new point of view of other places and to be independent. Before registering for this trip, I never knew exactly what I was searching for in a college. To be honest, I really didn’t focus at all about the details to attend a college and all the years in between. My dream is to become a family attorney. All I knew was that to make this possible I must go to law school.
Alex Almaguer during her college tour. Photo courtesy of Courtney Isaak
During this trip I visited nine different colleges around Texas, including Texas A&M, Austin College, Rice, and others. All these colleges are different in many ways; some are big, some are small, some offer study abroad, many don’t, many have traditions, and some don’t. It made me realize that there are many unique colleges I could go to. If I really put my mind to it and become a well-rounded person I could choose any college that’s right for me.
We believe education is the most pressing issue facing our nation. On Pass the Chalk, we'll share our takes on the issues of the day, join the online conversation about education, and tell stories from classrooms, schools, and communities around the nation.
Learn more about Teach For America.
We want to hear from you. If you have a question, a comment, or an idea, please get in touch »
The thoughts, ideas, and opinions expressed on Pass the Chalk are the responsibility of individual bloggers. Unless explicitly stated, blog posts do not represent the views of Teach For America as an organization.
TFA-Related Blogs
Admissions Blog
TeacherPop
Teach For Us
Elsewhere
City Year Blog
CNN: Schools of Thought
Eduwonk
Ed Week Blogs
Flypaper
Good: Education
Gotham Schools
The Hechinger Report
Huffington Post:Education
Impatient Optimists
KIPP Blog
KQED: Mind/Shift
New Schools Venture Fund Blog
New York Times: Schoolbook
Taking Note
Time: School of Thought
World Bank: EduTech
Copyright 2012 Teach For America, Inc. All rights reserved
Teach For America logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Teach For America, Inc.
Teach For America was named one of America's top 100 Ideal Employers in Universum's 2011 American Student Survey.
Teach For America was named one of Fortune magazine's top 100 employers to work for.
Teach For America thanks our National Partners for their generous support.
