Public Schools

Mad TV did a funny spoof on the "Dangerous Minds," "Freedom Writers" type movies, called "Nice White Lady" Eugene Cho includes the clip then talks about this stereotype, and then gives an example of a teacher in the Bronx.

Before I started teaching I thought that people like "Nice White Lady" were what was lacking in the public schools. But then I spent time in the schools and found teachers in the urban public schools that were more interested in professional development and improving their skills as teacher than I had ever found in the suburban, rural and small city schools. I found teachers who gave students their home phone number so that kids could call them at any time of day with homework or life questions. I found teachers who went to sporting events, baptisms, and 15aneras. Teachers had high standards for behavior and for work in their classrooms. I had expected to walk into Minneapolis Public Schools and find more bad teachers than good, and yet what I found were adults that were deeply committed to kids that had a lot of other factors working against them.

Now, it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns, I found some teachers and administrators who I was not impressed with, but over all, these were some of the most committed, hard working, loving, professional people I have ever met.

Minnesota has one of the highest achievement gaps between white and non-white students. I have heard it argued that this is partially because of the extra high standards that Minnesota has. (So we could theoretically close the achievement gap by lowering the standards for passing the tests, or making the test easier). But regardless of this, we have a situation where our white students are testing better on the state standards. This is not ok.

But, it doesn't seem like it's the teacher's fault, at least, not from my experience.

The Education secretary challenged the NEA last week to stop resisting pay for performance contracts for teachers. I deeply believe that we cannot allow the achievement gap to continue. It is not ok that we have a system that prepares kids differently depending on their ethnicity or race.

But I don't know that paying teachers more or less based on their students test scores will change that. I need to learn more. I don't know everything there is to know about pay for performance, but I know that it will need to be fairly complicated and nuanced.

I sat in my car and wept, last week, thinking about the achievement gap, and teacher pay. I wept for students who have more risk factors in their lives than I can count. I wept for teachers who are too often the scapegoat and stereotyped as either "Nice White Lady" or "uncaring/burntout/racist beurocrats."

My goal for this week is to learn more and to write letters. Then to pray for kids and teachers at Green and Whittier, and Jefferson and all the schools in our neighborhood. I don't know what the next step is, but I'll start there.

Lord have mercy.