The Dayton Street shuffle

The superintendent of the Newark Public Schools system announced that the city state will close down seven schools; the fate of the students and staff has not yet been publicly announced. Ms. Anderson's attempt to go into specifics ended with her walking off the stage.

I've spent some time in one of the schools--Dayton Street. I was involved with "The Rainbow Room," a school-based health clinic named by the students.

Many of the kids come from a local housing project, where I once made house calls. It's a gritty neighborhood in a tough town adjacent to a beautiful park, and (shhhh...it's a secret) many people are poor enough to be more concerned with shelter and food than, say, solving a quadratic equation.

Most of the staff busted their asses, and many of the kids did, too. That's true in Newark, that's true in Princeton, that's true pretty much everywhere you got adults who care about kids working with them day in and day out.

I don't know enough about the specifics today to comment cogently, so I won't. We'd all be better off if others would abide the same advice.

I do know enough that some jackass is going to say I'm defending the status quo.Then I will be told that zip code is not destiny by some pale person who has never thought twice about the cost of a cup of coffee.

I don't defend the staus quo--that's why I made housecalls in the projects. That's why I've managed to annoy both my union president and Mr. Cerf, our state education commish, within the same month.

The status quo I won't defend is institutionalized poverty.

If a car won't start because it's missing the engine, you're wasting your time cussing at the key.

And yes, one of the schools is Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School--who says irony is dead?

Sugar and spice and everything Zeiss

I had a chance to go to the Newark Museum planetarium, and I jumped on it. I fell in love with the Zeiss projector the last time I was there. Hard.

I spend most of my time in Bloomfield, NJ. I love my town, but we cannot see the stars. The Zeiss ZKP 3/B projector gives me as close a rep as I can get. It's a fine machine because it mimics what I have already experienced.

It's still there, but today's show was driven by "a state-of-the-art full dome digital projection system"--glitzy, flashy, sexy, and just plain wrong.

The Zeiss orbs sat there fixed at 180 degrees, useless as an astrolabe on a NASA Space Shuttle (or teats on a bull). Our students do not know what they missed. They have never truly seen the stars.

***

Our models have fallen prey to modern disease. We have forgotten that they are models, shadows of a greater universe. They now are the universe, a human universe, a limited universe.

My human hand is imperfect. My scrawl on the board betrays my age, my frailness, my humanness. I trust my drawings because they reflect something bigger than me. They are the shadows on Plato's cave, a means to a truth larger than the human that hopes to share the truth with yonger humans.

The SMART Board that replaced my whiteboard reduces the universe to human forms. It can translate my handwriting into perfect fonts. It professionalizes my humanness. The universe is not about us. Not even close.

My imperfect whiteboard  was a tool, not an end.

I love tools. I do not love my SMART Board.

***

What are we trying to do in the classroom? What do we need to get there?

OK, this one may not last long--just frustrated by our upward and onward dive into a very limited human universe.

Picure of the Zeiss ZKP 3/B from the Newark Museum.

"Not even a real degree"

Cerf said that only 22 percent of incoming high school freshmen in Newark ever graduate with a diploma, and even then "it's not even a real degree."

Addendum (April 13): This was a misquote by the Asbury Park Press--the 22% refers to those students who graduate within 4 years and passed the HSPA, our state exam.

Central High School, 2008--Bill Cosby spoke

We have a problem.

Newark has a long, proud, and complicated history. Newark Bears, Ballantine Ale, patent leather, Sara Vaughn, Steven Crane, Melba Moore, Redman, Paul Simon.

And the riots.

I've worked many years in Newark, briefly in Port Newark, mostly in the projects and the hospitals and shelters and clinics. I've treated children destroyed by lead, by AIDS, by asthma, by violence. I've seen a lot of people (and I'm on the list) make a decent living treating people who had no hope of the same.

And through it all, I saw resilience. Children still smile, parents still bust their butts making the rent, and students still get themselves to Weequahic and Technology and East Side and Shabazz and West Side and Central and Science and University and Arts and  Barringer High Schools, many of whom have climbed over mountains to get there.

And now they hear our State Commissioner of Education Chris Cerf say their diploma "is not even a real degree."

I'd like to know the source for the 22% graduation rate--I hope Cerf was misquoted.

Photo by Aristide Economopolous, The Star-Ledger, June 27, 2008

Duncan does it again

Arne Duncan may well be tone deaf, but his handlers must know how he sounds. That they have made no effort to sweeten his swill suggests that the monied people already know how this will go down.

Our local paper's editorial board interviewed him, though "interviewed" may be too strong a word. Mr. Duncan's heart may be in the right place (though I'm not convinced), he may be charming, and Lord knows he's got power--but the Star-Ledger's board needs to remember that they are journalists, not flacks.

I worked in Newark for years--in shelters, in clinics, in hospitals, and in the schools. I now work in the town next door, but would welcome an opportunity to again help change the lives of devastated children. Mr. Duncan's approach, however, makes substantial change unlikely.

Here are pieces of the interview:

"I ran Chicago schools and had about half the money Newark has, literally."
 Where's the follow-up question pointing out that the Chicago miracle was a mirage?

"What’s been lacking is the courage to demand and expect excellence."
This is an insult, "literally," to every person who has dedicated their lives to helping others in dire conditions:
the teachers, the Sisters of Charity, the Children's Health Fund, the CAC of NJ ,the Newark Community Health Centers, Newark Emergency Services for Families, the Community Food Bank, CASA, La Casa de Don Pedro, Link Community School, the principals, Covenant House, Renaissance House, Greater Newark Conservancy, Ironbound Community Corporation, Gateway Northwest, AD House, and so many others, some recognized, most not.

To call us cowards, to insinuate that we ever expected less than excellence, defines you.

If you want to help make things happen, you're sincere, and in it for the long haul, and if you can be bothered to learn a bit of the history of Newark and its citizens, you will be welcomed. None of those are obvious.


"The data on charters is very clear."
Yes, it is. Is there anyone on the Star-Ledger staff looking at the data?

"Linking student performance and teacher evaluation is hugely important."
"Hugely" is an odd word there--push him on it. Does poverty matter? Lead burden? Untreated asthma? No decent teacher feels threatened by folks judging our classes--we do feel threatened by the use of improper data by disingenuous (or just plain slow) administrators and politicians. Duncan lives in a world of straw men--I expect journalists to challenge his myths. "How about a little fire, Scarecrow?"

"But this isn’t about outsiders controlling anything."
 This is either very dumb or just plain disingenuous. Really, Arne?

Bob Braun, contrary to his editorial board, has been doing a bang-up job following the money in the Newark school reform effort.

The quotes in bold are Duncan's.

Oprah, Cory, Mark, and Chris

My sister believed that so long as people are capable of change, and they are, we keep fighting.

I believe that within a decade or two, given the insatiable appetite of the economic elite, public education will be unrecognizable, if it even still exists.




So why do I teach?

• Because the world is a wonderful place.
• Because our essence requires that we dance, no matter what, no matter how we're judged.
• I believe redemption is possible.
• And most important, I believe we need to pursue excellence, truth, and love no matter who's banging at the gate. A lot of civilizations more honorable than ours have been extinguished. I pray a lot of civilizations more honorable than ours will rise again.

If you do not know why you teach (beyond the paycheck), please get out.

***

Somewhere in Newark my signature lies on several death certificates of children who should still be alive.

Somewhere in Newark my signature lies on orders written in vain (and ridiculous) efforts to save children the city, the state, the country, and the universe refuse to acknowledge.

I failed.

I wish for the sake of the children that Governor Christie and Mayor Booker and Oprah and Mr. Zuckerberg succeed. Maybe we need a knowingly ignorant Quattuorvirate to come in to save this town.

But I doubt it. I really do.

And in the meantime the children continue to suffer.