A Tale of an Urban Classroom

Once upon a time, I was the only non-teacher in an Educational Leadership Master’s program. I felt a little lost so I decided I’d volunteer at the local school I walked by every day between my apartment and the campus.

The school was a middle school in a fairly poor (over 90% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch) area of my university’s small city and was in an old building that has since been replaced. I went in one day, asked how I could help, went and got whatever TB test and clearances I needed, and was assigned to a ‘struggling learners’ 6th grade class. Every week for most of that year, I’d go in for an hour or two in the morning and see what I could do.

The class only had about 10 kids in it. One student would be walked to the classroom door by his brothers in the morning, and would sit quietly the whole class, unable to follow what was going on. Another often came in rumpled, dirty clothes, and would hardly perk up enough to participate. He was only 11. Still others were full of life and energy.

 I enjoyed these kids. Some of them were hilarious. Most of them were boys. I believe all of them were ‘minorities’. 

The teacher wasn’t much older than I was at the time (mid-20’s) and she used to buy coffee for one of the kids so he could focus. She would often  ask me to work with a few kids on math or with the one student who, she said, “really needs to be in a life-skills class”. I remember trying to get him to tell me what 2+2 was while I held up my fingers. He would just guess - if I could even get his face to brighten enough to focus on me. Looking back, it breaks my heart. What a childhood for this poor little guy!

The week of state testing, the teacher was so stressed. I remember sitting with one group and being slightly shocked that none of them knew about cups, pints, and quarts. I took a few minutes to tell them. The teacher said something about how it wasn’t on the test so she hadn’t taught it.

Another time, she said something to the effect of, “The principal doesn’t care about my kids because they are too far below average to show up as an improvement on testing. He only cares about getting the numbers higher.”

Now, mind you, I was not there to discuss my opinions. I was just there to learn. She volunteered that information. 

She was a sweet woman, she cared about those kids. She felt unsupported and defeated at the tender age of 25-ish because her job wasn’t about nurturing kids. It was about money, for the school. If the school test scores didn’t improve enough - meaning if enough  kids just ‘under’ the line of one performance category didn’t move up to the next category, the state would “take over”.  

Test scores and money were what was driving the entire schooling experience of each of the kids in that room- in that whole school. I remember thinking about bright little guy who was full of spunk, “This kid just needs to get outside and play. There’s not a thing wrong with his learning ability!”

Now, let’s think about this. This district is funded about 2/3 by local taxes, 1/4 by state taxes, and about 1/10 by federal funds (2021-2022 stats).  My little anecdote about one class in one school in this district was simply screaming to me that the money was what was driving the entire educational experience of these kids.

But it wasn’t the parents’ money. 

Success was being measured by test scores on a piece of paper. Statistics lumped together. Success was not being measured by a mom or dad just caring about their own kid.

This, my friends, could be a systemic problem. 

Remember that I was also working for CDUEL doing research and taking classes run by superintendents and principals and lawyers. Several were specifically about urban education. I watched and listened and participated in the conversations wrestling with the ‘problem’ of urban schooling.

These kids are poor, their parents are addicts, they come to school hungry, WHAT CAN WE DO?!!  It was a sad story. Most of these people really wanted to help.

But I kept thinking that I was watching a classic case of “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.  The publicly funded system was all there was to work with in the paradigm I was watching. Tax funding (I remember a small uproar about the idea of having to take a direct vote on the school budget and tax rates), politics (I remember a young teacher coming in in tears one day because she was being required to participate in a teacher strike and she said “I just want to teach my 11th graders History!” , and testing were steering the ship. More money, more training, more free food, more programs. Round and round it went.

I wasn’t convinced.

Let’s revisit that nerdy economic topic of ‘price signaling’ from my previous post. What would happen if the school lost money when it didn’t perform, but it lost it because the parents CHOSE to remove their monetary support from a service that was failing THEIR child? Not failing the statistics, not removing money after a political campaign and a year of committee meetings. Just one parent. Just one kid.

Would that principal have cared about those kids?  

(That’s kind of a trick question, because the principal SHOULD have cared about those kids, money or no money. A good leader would have supported that teacher and those kids no matter what or where money was flowing. I’m sure there are many principals who do. At the same time, I had a class in Organizational Leadership with a principal at another school. At least from what she taught in class, this was a very good leader who cared deeply for each kid and teacher. I was impressed by her sharpness and kindness). 

But what if even the very best and kindest principal is forced, by nature of the system, to play the game? The standardized test scores of the entire school will be reviewed by the bureaucrats who decide who gets what.  Like it or not, the principal may be forced to focus on getting the scores up of the students with the most promise for performing well.

The most caring teacher may also have to play the same game. What if she can’t focus on her classroom being a place to develop every kid as person no matter how much she may long to do so? What if she finds herself focusing on the two or three who may be able to up their scores?

Wouldn’t that be a travesty?