Bush's Alamo: Public Schools

Teachers have to pick their battles.

I scanned my fourth grade students at the Bronx's P.S. 85, a monolithic elementary school of 1,200 black and Latino in the heart of New York's 16th congressional district, the poorest-ranking in all fifty states in median household income, and I considered three battles in my mind:

#1: Manolo lost his mother to AIDS two years earlier and his schoolwork has since gone down the drain. He never smiles. However, with my support, he is beginning to write creative stories, particularly historical fiction in which he inserts himself into a famous event. His stories show imagination and interest, but his spelling and mechanics are poor, and his standardized test score labels him a failure. I believe that if Manolo, who is prone to depression and violence, fails another year of school, he would give up on himself and become easy prey for the nefarious, drug-infested forces of the neighborhood. How can I help this kid to succeed?

#2: Eddie is going through his fourth year in fourth grade because of rampant absences and standardized test failures. I need to get him engaged in school, somehow invested in his own achievement. He loves to draw and has a remarkable, natural talent for perspective sketching. I want to take down some of the mandated bulletin board material in order to put up an exhibit for his art. If he is recognized for his talent, maybe he'll be more inclined to participate in his education. But the last time I tried to finesse the bulletin board mandates, I got reamed by my compliance-obsessed assistant principal. How can I help Eddie?

#3: Destiny comes to school with bruises. She asks me everyday for extra help with math during lunch. The first times she asked, I enthusiastically accepted her reaching out for additional help and wolfed my daily turkey sandwich while explaining fractions to her. Soon I realized that she wasn't paying attention to my math tutoring--she just craved some one-on-one time to talk. After a few weeks of giving up my lunch period to chat with Destiny, I decided that I desperately needed a few minutes of the stress-addled day to myself to regroup, and discontinued our lunch talks. What can I do to help Destiny?

P.S. 85, like most public schools in poor neighborhoods, is desperately short on quality teachers and classes beyond the bare bones; art and music are nonexistent for most classes and a rare period of physical education runs like a farce. Eddie needs art, and Manolo and Destiny need intensive, small-group tutoring. And these issues just scratch the surface of the needs of three out of my twenty-five charges. In attempting to scrape out special support for any or all of these three kids, I run risks of frustrating my supervisors, alienating my colleagues, and spending precious time and emotional energy in every already-overpacked day in trying to draw blood from the stone of an under-resourced school. Reality presented me with cruel battles and then forced me to pick among them.

Just planning and delivering lessons in math, writing, reading, and social studies is enough to exhaust someone, but that part thrilled me. I loved working with kids, opening their minds to new and mature ways of understanding themselves and the world. In the crush of the violent, suffering, neglected inner-city, though, lessons are just one element of the myriad challenges that teachers face in helping their students.

The stakes are high in inner-city schools, not for administrators and bureaucrats, but for the students. Children perpetually teeter on a precarious ledge--will they succeed in school and build self-worth, or become disenfranchised and drop out? Tragically, despite all the best efforts to help children by most teachers, the federal government, via the No Child Left Behind legislation, is taking a buzzsaw to the education and empowerment of voiceless, unwitting children.

Indeed, President Bush also picks his battles, and through his embattled eyes, the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) this summer is his last best hope for a political victory.

Since his inauguration, the American president has continually hemorrhaged credibility and political capital to catastrophic degrees. Bush's domestic agenda, declared so broadly and gallantly at his Republican National Convention acceptance speeches, has been swallowed by the bloody quagmire in Iraq. A brief foray into social security reform was such an unequivocal flop that talk of improving the quality of life of Americans has been entirely swept under the rug. Bush's biggest legislative victory in the past several years may be the bankruptcy reform bill written by credit card companies. In November 2006, American voters recognized his ineptitude and revoked his party's majorities in both house of Congress.

However, the president does carry one coveted legislative ace in his pocket. The No Child Left Behind Act of January 8, 2002, passed with bipartisan support in the bleary wake of 9/11, is Bush's go-to for claiming to be on the side of angels. NCLB, a revamping of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, espouses noble aims ("helps schools improve by focusing on accountability for results, freedom for states and communities, proven education methods, and choices for parents."), but in content is shockingly stifling and counterproductive. NCLB, with its fixation on measuring success solely via high-stakes standardized testing, has created a poisonous culture of intimidation and compliance that hurts, not helps, needy students.

The more one digs into the details and implementation of No Child Left Behind, the worse it gets. In the coming weeks, I will be writing about the multifaceted fallout of this federal policy in America's public schools, and the out of sight, out of mind children that can propel us to act, or at least to care. I will illustrate, through real examples and stories, the crucial importance of America's need to open its eyes, ears, hearts, and minds to this issue--one in which all we require to help our imperiled children is the will.