An Education...

Last night, I had dinner with my Baltimore besties.   Since we’re all teachers, the conversation naturally turned to education issues.  What ensued was a debate about charter schools, school choice, and neighborhood schools.   Since I was the only one present who teaches at a charter, everyone assumed that my position would be pro-charter.  However, after participating in this discussion, I realized that I am most certainly on the fence when it comes to this issue.  I’ll share my musings with you here:

For years I contemplated making the career change and becoming a teacher.  I fought it for many years, knowing I could not maintain my banker’s lifestyle on a teacher’s salary .  The turning point for me was attending a screening of Waiting for Superman in late 2010.  I was quite impressed by the work being done by schools like KIPP and the other charter schools featured in the film.  I decided I also wanted to make a difference, and I completed my application to an alternative teaching certification program that same evening.  A little more than six months later, I moved to Baltimore primed with the mission to provide students with an excellent education.  Little did I know I’d be the one getting schooled. 

During my tenure in Baltimore, I have worked for both a traditional charter school and a turnaround school run by a charter operator.  In my ignorance, I thought that being associated with a charter would mean that the school would be run in a sound fashion and that students would be motivated and ready to learn.  This is not what I found when I walked into the school on day one my first year.  The charter-operated turnaround school was no different than your typical failing Baltimore city school.  As a former businessperson, the organizational mismanagement that I witnessed on a daily basis made me angry.  I couldn’t stomach it, and I thought it to be a blessing from the heavens when I was placed on surplus status at the end of the year.  I grew tired of being abused and mistreated, and watching my colleagues and students suffer the same. 

I received a pleasant reprieve over the summer when I left Baltimore and went to work at a school run by a national charter network.  To me, it was educational nirvana.  I was invigorated daily by witnessing an administration that ran a sound operation, staff that were motivated and excited to teach, and students’ eager to learn.  The students I had the pleasure of working with were of the same demographic of kids I taught in Baltimore.  Working here over the summer taught me that there are real education reforms that are actually working.  This compelled me to return to Baltimore and find an education nirvana of my own.

 

I returned to Baltimore with two offers to work at schools, one at a traditional school, and another at a charter.  I chose (controversially, but that’s another blogpost) to work at the charter, motivated by my summer experience at a similar school.  While the experience has been significantly better than my first year, I did not get the same sense of “nirvana” that I felt over the summer. 

As I wrap up my graduate school education and short teaching career, I have come to believe the following:

1. Charter schools are not the “end all, be all” answer to all things Ed Reform.  Some of them are AWESOME, some are average, and some are… not so great (I had to edit myself a bit here…) 

        2. It would be awesome if all neighborhood schools were excellent and provided a sound education for our children.  This may have been true fifty years ago, however, this is not the world in which we currently live. 

         3.   I may not know enough about the issue, but from my personal experience, I can only see the benefits of school choice.  I agree with the premise that students and parents have the right to be educational consumers, and if the neighborhood school isn't up to par, you should have the right to seek opportunity elsewhere.

         Here’s the bottom line: any school that partakes in sound business practices, has an administration that operates with integrity, and has high expectations of students and staff has what it takes to become an excellent school.   The labels (charter, neighborhood, turnaround, etc.) shouldn’t matter.  Once every school is on board to operate according to the tenets mentioned above, then we will truly be on the road to closing the achievement gap in America.