Yer Out: Analyzing the Last-Hired, First-Fired Policy Debate

"Teaching huh? Why, that's a great choice! That's one of those recession-proof jobs..."

The above statement is one I heard time and time again when I first entered the teaching profession. For some reason or another my extended family seemed to offer me more advice than Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate. Whereas the clear choice for Benjamin was "plastics" the clear choice for me was public education. I came from a top-tier university and I was willing to teach in urban areas with those populations considered to be "at-risk" for the same amount of pay as my colleagues who opted to teach in more affluent areas. No matter how bad the economy got, society would always need people to teach its children. Right?

Fast forward four years. I personally have had three jobs in four years. The first job lasted two years and I removed myself from that situation due to professional disagreements over where the school was headed. I then long-term subbed for a year but that position was cut at the end of the academic year. I now am at a first-year charter school and I hope (knock on wood) that this position will finally give me some longevity that I have been desperately seeking. As rough as my initial introduction to public education has been, I am forced to remind myself how fortunate I have been. Because, due to current economic situations it could be much, much worse.

Currently, the state of California is faced with the largest deficit in the state's history. Previous economic policies have finally caught up with the state and not even The Governator himself could rescue the state from the impending financial crisis. Thanks to a current $20 billion deficit, all sectors are being forced to deal with layoffs and the education sector is no exception. Having been in San Diego for the previous two years I have seen a moratorium on new hiring last year and that moratorium will continue this year as well as having additional teacher layoffs. Here we are, in the nation's eighth largest school district where a third of the schools are already failing and instead of giving additional support to these schools we are taking away valuable teachers from them. Again, another prime example of this country's bass ackwards attitude toward public education.

The problem them becomes which teachers get the ax. Measuring teacher performance has been one of the hot-button issues in education circles as of late. The idea of merit pay has come into question with some districts proposing the idea that teachers should be paid more based on how well their students do on standardized tests. This has raised an outcry from those teachers who teach in lower socio-economic schools as they would be very capable teachers but their students would most likely not do as well as the affluent counterparts. Just because a teacher's students have high scores is not necessarily a reflection of good teaching just as low scores are not necessarily a reflection of poor teaching. There are too many extenuating factors to solely use the idea of student test scores in evaluating teachers. So, if we can't use test scores, how should we evaluate teachers?

The next train of thought is that of teacher evaluations. Surely, this is even across all playing fields, right? Principals have fairly generic evaluations forms and teachers get evaluated at least twice a year. These evaluation forms look at various things such as teacher preparedness, the content being taught, the interaction between the teacher and students, as well as the overall effectiveness of the learning environment. Administrators have certain principles and philosophies that they feel mesh well with their school and they expect all their teachers to adhere to these philosophies. Teachers should be able to do all of the above things while being in line with the school culture and if they can, this should be positively identified on a formal evaluation. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

The problem is that often times these evaluations are simply ineffective. The first issue is that at larger schools, it is difficult for administrators to find the time to evaluate all their teachers as least twice a year. I am at a small charter school and our administrators are so busy that they themselves have yet to formally evaluate us and there are only seven of us currently on campus. The second issue is that evaluations based on two lessons out of hundreds a year is not an accurate depiction of a teacher. I remember getting formally reviewed by a mentoring teacher the day after a school wide assembly. Classes were extended for the day so I had my students for twice as long as I normally had them so I essentially had to do two lessons into one. My mentoring teacher criticized the overall continuity of the lesson and gave me extremely low marks. This was one of the two evaluations for that school year that went into my permanent file and there were no second chances.

So we cannot use test scores and we cannot use evaluations, so what is left? Experience. Number of years in the field. That's right, the bulk of school districts today when faced with having to fire teachers have resorted to what's known as the last-hired, first-fired policy. Thanks to teacher's unions, public school teachers receive tenure after three years. After those three years, these teachers are guaranteed a job unless they somehow make it to the headline news by being caught in a sex scandal with a student. These teachers are essentially immune from being fired, so who's left? That's right, the young up and coming teacher who has been in a classroom for one or two years. The teacher full of idealism, who is leading after school clubs, who is staying up late on nights and weekends to make really good and fun lesson plans is tossed off quicker than a dress on prom night. After all, since all teachers are the same, we may as well get rid of the ones with the least experience, right?

The problem with this line of thinking is that it fails in so many ways. First and foremost, the legality of the last-hired, first-fired policy has already come under intense scrutiny in Los Angeles, where there is an impending lawsuit against the district for implementing this same policy last summer. Secondly, as mentioned, it destroys the drive and vigor of a generation of educators who are ready and willing to work under difficult circumstances. These teachers are fresh out of teacher preparation programs and have learned how to work with students with special needs, English language learners, high-achieving students, as well as how to incorporate technology and the most up-to-date pedagogical methods into their teaching. These are the ones who are really going to go above and beyond and truly, genuinely believe that they can make a difference in the education profession. To give them the ax would crush their dreams and spirits and we would lose out on a generation of talented, dedicated educators.

The third, and perhaps most troubling issue that I see is the fact that these layoffs are not uniform across all schools. The more affluent schools somehow, some way will lose a smaller percentage of their staff as opposed to those schools who deal with students of lower socio-economic status. So, here we are in San Diego with a third of our schools failing and we are going to actually take away teachers from those schools. Not only are we going to take away teachers from those schools but we are going to take away those young, idealistic teachers. You know, the ones who chose to teach in difficult situations because they really thought they could make a difference and reach the students. Instead of having those teachers stay, we are going to remove them, leaving these failing schools with even fewer resources than they had before. This same mentality also doesn't help the schools who are on the cusp of failing as well. Removing teachers and ruining any kind of continuity these schools might have had is a recipe for disaster and will more than likely push a whole new group of schools into the failing zone in the coming year.

So, what's our answer? Unlike some of my previous posts, where I say there is no simple answer, there is actually a viable solution to this problem: We need to shift our view on education in this country. We need to make education a priority. We need to have political candidates discuss education. We need CNN.com to remove it's entertainment section on its front page and replace it with education. The truth is that we as a society who prides itself on its education, should never find itself in this ridiculous catch-22 situation. The schools are failing but we need to cut jobs but if we cut jobs then the schools will fail... Complete and utter hogwash. Let's make education a top domestic priority and then go from there. Let's stop the cycle of stupidity by putting ourselves in these precarious situations. Some of my best friends are on the chopping block this year and it pains me so much because I know they are making a difference in young men and women's lives. Let's re-invest in our nation's future by first re-investing in our nation's teachers. Once we do that, we can then, and only then, begin to have a real discussion about where education is at today.

I.E.Please: Thoughts And Reflections On Special Education Today

"He ended with a 56. So I gave him a C."

I know what you all are thinking. Clearly, I'm terrible at math. How else then would you explain the fact that one of my students last semester ended with a grade that was 14 percentage points lower of what his grade needed to be to pass my class? First and foremost, just because my lowest grades in high school and college were in math doesn't mean I'm terrible at math. It just means that sometimes there are situations in the classroom where a final grade does not tell the entire story of a student. Here, the student in question wasn't as bad as his final grade indicated. However, he also hadn't done enough in my opinion to pass the class. I could see bumping up the grade to a 60, maybe a 62 or 63. However, the student ultimately got a C that he didn't deserve. Is this some kind of massive conspiracy? Hardly. It is simply a matter of working with a special education student in a 21st century classroom.

Thus is the dilemma that faces teachers in this day and age that work with special education students who have been mainstreamed. For those who aren't sure what I'm referring to, allow me to give a little bit of history. First and foremost, it should be noted that treating students with disabilities has improved by leaps and bounds in the past half century. Once upon a time, if you did not learn at the rate your peers did, you were automatically assumed to be "retarded" and ended up in special classes, a vocational career track already chosen for you. My own family has experienced this as my dear uncle had permanent hearing loss from birth. His only option for higher education in the mid-1970s was to attend the Oklahoma School for the Deaf. My uncle ultimately persevered and now works for Boeing, having withstood several layoffs in his department to become a stalwart in a very advanced field. As fortunate as he was, countless others during this time lost out on similar opportunities because they were placed in vocational training where it was assumed they couldn't possibly do anything other than rudimentary skills and simple professions.

Flash forward to today. Students today enter the classroom with a variety of learning disabilities. In fact, there is even a movement away from the term "disabilities" to refer to these students as ones with "learning differences." No manner how you define them, this is a group of students that is prevalent in public schools throughout the country. Some of them have physical impairments that make learning difficult. Others have undisclosed medical conditions that they come to school with. Others still have mental impairments that leave them with severe deficiencies as compared to their peers. These students might be as many as six or seven years behind their peers in areas like reading and math. The movement today has been to mainstream these students in a way that they are involved in the general school population as much as possible. It is a noble cause to help them live as normal a life as possible in a school setting. However, it places a great challenge on teachers who teach a wide spectrum of abilities within a single classroom.

These students in the classes are given what are called IEP's, or individualized education plans. These are confidential forms that each classroom teacher keeps in his or her desk. It describes certain expectations and accommodations for the student. These might include anything like preferential seating, modified assignments, additional time on tests or quizzes, use of calculators in math, or even modified grading. In short, these students are given a variety of resources to help ensure their success in the general school population. Thanks to No Child Left Behind, students with disabilities are a sub-group for all year end testing. That means that they are expected to be at the level of their peers by the end of each academic year. As I mentioned before, some of these students are years and years behind in reading and math. Despite all these accommodations, these students are the ones who generally score the lowest on any year end state tests. They are, without question, a target group that schools try to focus on. Recently, our own school added some new students and since our students with I.E.P.'s now make up 15% of our school population, we have taken on additional resource teachers to work with these students in an effort to help them acquire the skills they will need for the upcoming state-wide tests.

As noble as all this sounds, there is a sizable downsize to the world of special education as well. Unfortunately, one of the major pitfalls of special education is how it is funded. As a classroom teacher, I cannot recommend any of my students get tested for any learning disability, even if I have a strong suspicion that they might have one because "I am not a doctor." Even if a trained professional recommends that a student get tested for a learning disability, this test often costs a lot of money and many parents simply cannot afford the price. On the flip side, parents who can afford to have their child tested and qualify for special education services get a sizable tax break at the end of the year so they have an incentive to keep their child involved with these services even if they no longer need them. One of the brightest middle schoolers I taught had an I.E.P. This student was on my academic quiz bowl team and would read 400 page novels for fun. However, when our school special education teacher mentioned to his mother that he might no longer need services, she vehemently refused. That year end tax break was simply too valuable to pass up.

There is also the concern over students who might be taking advantage of their individualized education plans. For every student who genuinely needs a plan and utilizes it to the best of their ability, there seems to be another student who fully takes advantage of the situation. Many students feel that they will pass no matter what, so they do not put forth the effort they need to and are often disruptive in class. Did my student with the 56% work to the best of his ability this semester? In my opinion, no. However, if I had failed him then there would have inevitably been a protest of behalf of his parents. They would demand to see his I.E.P. implemented to the T. If they felt I hadn't done this, they would have the ability to take me and our school to the county board of education to claim that we weren't legally upholding our end of the individualized education plan. As much as I try to, I know there are components of I.E.P.'s that I'm not implementing as well as I should be. For me to keep track of every single accommodation for every single student on every single day is simply impossible. That is ultimately why, even after fighting the good fight, I realize I must submit and give my student a passing grade, even though they did not deserve it.

Ultimately, this begs an important question. Is special education beneficial to our children? Yes, they are getting opportunities that those like my uncle were denied thirty years ago. They are able to interact with their peers in a general education setting. They get to work with students who have superior abilities and get to see what it looks like when a student really pushes himself or herself to be great. However, I wonder if we are properly preparing our special education students for the real world. Sure they will get additional time here for assignments here in high school, but there are no I.E.P.'s in the real world. If our students can't type that report by the time it's due, it's sayonara to that secretary gig. If they can't install that new engine by 4 P.M. then it's adios from the repair shop. If they can't get the customer's order right and the chef rips them a new one then it's au revoir from the restaurant. A high school diploma will give our students amazing opportunities, but if they have acquired the skills they need to succeed with these opportunities is another question entirely. We as teachers will do everything we can with these students and, in the end, it still might not be enough.

Such is the nature of the beast.

Teamwork Makes The Dream Work: Thoughts And Reflections On Project-Based Learning

"Alright folks, if you would grab your things and head to the den for our project work please..."

Between 10:40 and 10:50 each morning you would hear me utter this exact phrase or something to that extent in my third period Spanish I classroom. The reason? It is at this time that the new material in my classroom has been covered and assessed and it is now on to time for students to work in small, collaborative groups where they must work together in order to complete a meaningful educational task. Long gone are the days when a "project" meant that students threw together a bunch of pictures on a large poster board and presented it as a way to show the culmination of their learning. This new model is known as project-based learning and it offers many exciting possibilities for fulfillment for both the teacher and student alike.

Before I get too in depth into the subject, I must offer a caveat. I am not an expert in project-based learning. In fact, this is my first real semester engaging in the learning model. I have read articles on the topic, but like most things in teaching, I have learned the most from seeing it in action. However, after using the learning model for only four months, I can already see many exciting applications for it. One of my earliest posts in this blog dealt with how discerning it was that we as educators do not have an agreed upon idea as to what the purpose of education is today in America. I still grapple with this question on a daily basis, but with project-based learning I have found a learning model that accurately gives students a glimpse as to what life beyond high school will look like. After all, isn't it our goal as educators to best prepare our students for life beyond the walls of our school?

In a nutshell, project-based learning is the idea that students need opportunities to collaborate together to create final products that can be showcased to someone outside of the school setting. It's one thing to hand in a report on genetics to your science teacher, it's another entirely to create a computerized model of DNA to show to local scientists and engage in discussions about the model with them. Students work in small groups (normally 2-4 people per group) and collaborate together on the brainstorming, design, and creation portions of the project. Students have a vision for an end product but have very little frame of reference as to how to get there. This helps spur investigations through both trial and error as well as internet-based research. Throughout this time, the teacher serves more as a consultant rather than an instructor. He or she is there to guide the students along, but does his or her best to give students the freedom and autonomy to both make their own errors as well as arrive at their own conclusions.

What I like about this model is that it is very indicative of the world that the students will enter after high school. No matter where students end up or what they will do, they will be engaged in several project-based learning type situations. In college, they will inevitably have to do some sort of group project with their peers. In the military, soldiers will have to collaborate on various training exercises. Heck, even at a fast food restaurant you are part of a team and you have your role which you must know and excel in or else the end product suffers. It seems that nearly every profession has some type of this learning model. If students sit in rows and take notes for eight hours a day how then will they be able to adapt to this model? The truth is, they won't. No matter where they end up, it will be essential that they be able to collaborate with others with an end goal in mind.

When project-based learning is going well, it almost feels like I am cheating as a teacher. Students will be doing their projects for half the period, and I will be around to check in with each and every student. Students tell me they're fine and that they "got this." Students work together and share what they have found and this sometimes is information that even I as a teacher did not realize. Decisions are made about who should be doing what instead of the teacher assigning roles. Another positive feature of project-based learning is that there is always more work than can be done. When we have a modified schedule (shortened periods) I dedicate each period to projects. When a teacher is out, the expectation is that students are working on their projects for that class. Being a charter school, we don't have the luxury of hiring substitute teachers, so this learning model works great for that situation. High school students need structure and the project-based learning model presents that to them on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

Unfortunately, this learning model does not always provide us with perfect rainbows, sunshine, and peppermints. First and foremost is the idea of collaboration. High school students are fickle. They either want to work with their friends or they want to work alone. Divvying up groups is always a challenge to a teacher and project-based learning is no exception. There is also the challenge of students who want to zip through everything quickly in a way that creates low quality work. These are my "Speedy Gonzalez" students as I have come to call them. It is always a challenge trying to instill a sense of internal motivation to these students. I struggle with them because I know I cannot do the work for them and I want them to be able to showcase a quality product to the community. However, that's not always the case and I will just have to hope that they have some (small) feeling of shame when their showcased work is clearly not up to par with their classmates or their capabilities. Lastly, there is the issue of my "mule" students. These are the ones who take a long time in doing their work. They are on task, but for a variety of reasons they just aren't meeting the project expectations or deadlines. These students are always difficult to judge because they often have IEP's or undiagnosed learning disabilities. With them, you just have to keep encouraging them and not rush them to get everything done. As is with everything in public education, it is much better to have quality over quantity.

Project-based learning is difficult. As our assistant principal told us during the early planning stages of our school, it often feels "sloppy." My project has changed dramatically from what I had initially envisioned. There have been hiccups along the way and constant tweaking of deadlines. New requirements have been added. Old requirements have been replaced. There have been many "A-ha!" moments. There have also been many students using Facebook rather than doing the project. Like a ceiling fan, I've been osculating back and forth from being encouraged to discouraged about the project. As of now, the final products are due in a week in a half. I have one student who is already done. I have two students who haven't even started yet. One group of partners has only been together for about half the days due to what seems to be rotating absences between them. As much as I get discouraged, the one thing I keep coming back to is this: Project-based learning is unpredictable.

Just like the real world.

You Shall Not Pass: The Role of Grade Retention in Secondary Schools

"Jazelle, focus please..."

The aforementioned phrase has become par for the course as of late in my fourth period Spanish II class. Working at a brand new charter school has offered me many opportunities and one of the best opportunities is the ability to have small, intimate classes. Jazelle is one of four students in my class and I have the ability to work closely with her on a daily basis. Well, I shouldn't say daily. Jazelle is frequently out due to unexcused absences, and because of this she often comes in only three days a week, if that. She has ability, but falls further and further behind because not only does she not make up work, but she also wastes valuable time when she is in class. Students like her bring to the forefront one of key educational issues of today: Grade retention.

Most of us have likely never been retained. Studies have shown that most students who are retained are minorities, English language learners, and tend to be male. We can all think back to someone in our past who was retained. Odds are that this person was the "cool guy" at the onset. This was the guy who could drive during his freshman year and the guy who bought the younger guys cigarettes as soon as he turned 18. We all initially worshiped this guy and many young ladies wanted to pursue a magical evening with him. However, once senior year came around and this guy was the super senior, well he wasn't as cool anymore. We could all drive ourselves and buy our own cigarettes and therefore this guy was no longer needed. As we wrote our college essays and began receiving college acceptance letters, we began to see this guy less and less. In fact, come to think about it, we really don't even know if this guy even made it to graduation.

Sound familiar? I know it does for me. It is inevitable that in a nation that strives to educate all its children that some children will not be properly educated. These students don't progress as society expects them to and yet we expected that somehow and some way they will magically do better the second time around, even though they proved they couldn't do it the first time. Think about it in terms of running a mile. You struggle, sweat, and gasp for air with your peers all the way to the end but fall just short of the finish and everyone else passes you and completes the distance. As you stand there, exhausted, your coach pats you on the back and says "Alrighty, didn't quite get there this time. Why don't you head back to the start and try it one more time the exact same way?" Sounds absurd, right? Yet this is exactly what we do when we retain students.

Having taught at an urban middle school, I have had seen many students be retained and I can tell you this: Retention did not work. The students who were retained were the worst behaved students I had. They knew their peers idolized them so they made it their business to entertain them, at the expense of the learning process. The problem was that many of these students had already thrown in the towel, even at the ripe old age of fourteen. They weren't good at school, didn't like school, and didn't care about any of it. Why did it even matter what grade they were in anyway? They were going to enjoy their last moments in public school by causing as much trouble as possible and hoping to get suspended so at least then they wouldn't be wasting their time in the school building. For these students, being retained did a lot more harm than good and it ended up hurting all parties involved.

So the solution is obviously social promotion right? Well, I wouldn't say that is necessarily the case either. The truth is I am a concerned citizen. I'm worried about the future of this country, hence the title of my blog. I don't want to churn out high school graduates who can't read or write and yet that is exactly what we are doing. Do I really want someone with a fifth grade reading level to have as much political sway with their one vote as I do? Of course not. Yet, this is exactly where our country is headed because we are creating test factories where students cannot think on their feet. I, for one, do not think we should automatically promote a student who doesn't deserve it in an effort to keep him from being retained. So now this begs the question: If we don't retain him or promote him, what exactly do we do?

First and foremost, I think we need to re-analyze the very foundation of public schooling: The grade levels. Being out in southern California, I have begun to see an increasing trend of combination classes. For example, elementary schools often have class combinations such as 2-3 or 3-4. This to me makes perfect sense. If you are an advanced third grader, who says you shouldn't be in a class with a lower-level fourth grader? Teachers have a hard enough time differentiating in the classroom where we have multiple ability levels for our students. Imagine being able to cater your instruction, based on ability. I can see teachers reading this blog and just licking their chops at this possibility. After all, in college we take classes with all grade levels with freshmen and seniors often in the same classes. Last time I checked, nobody was arguing that freshman should only take classes with freshmen, sophomores should only takes classes with sophomores, etc. If this model works at the collegiate level, shouldn't it be implemented in the early grades as well?

But again, this makes too much sense and so this is why I am a lowly high school teacher and not the secretary of education (yet). As for me, I am stuck in a situation with Jazelle which forces me to decide if I should limit her life opportunities by retaining her, or jeopardize her future by sending out into a real world she is obviously unprepared for. If I pass her and all her other teachers fail her, have I done a lick of good? If I fail her and have her in my class again next year and she decides she'd rather be the class disruptor than even try to learn, have I done a lick of good? Is it this girl's fault she isn't good at school even though society expects it of her?

I don't know what I will end up doing with Jazelle. She acted the exact same way last semester. I had hoped that by giving her a passing grade, it would have lit a fire under her and given her a paucity of motivation. However, general apathy has quashed any potential fire that lies dormant inside of her. Begging and pleading do not work. Parental contact does not work. Vince Lombardi motivational speeches do not work. The glaring F on her progress report does not work. This is a girl who has given up on school and could care less about where she ends up in life. She is there everyday to kick it with her friends and if she has done that, then it has been a good day for her. As her teacher at the end of the day, it is up to me to determine if she has earned the right to advance to a further course of study. As of this very moment, I am at an impasse.

So are the rest of her teachers.

A Plight of Passion: How Schools Kill the Excitement Factor in Learning

"Are you guys excited about this?"
"Not really."

This is the exact reaction I heard last week in my classes as I introduced the first major language project for the students in the 2010-2011 school year. Our school has adopted the project-based learning model, which allows students an opportunity to work in small groups in order to create a project that has real world applications. The idea behind the model is that the majority of professional work in the 21st century is done in small groups which a goal and a deadline in place. It is up to the group members to divvy up responsibilities and to create a product that is efficient and purposeful. At our school level we will have an exhibition night where students will showcase all of their project-based learnings to staff members, parents, as well as members of the community. We hope to instill upon our students the work ethnic and cooperation techniques they will need to succeed beyond their high school days.

This is one of the reasons why it is so disheartening to hear student responses like the one above. We as teachers try our best to come up with innovative and exciting project ideas. The beauty of working at a charter school is that we can do this without district personnel breathing down our necks and wondering why we aren't following the standard course of study to the T. For my language project, I am having my students create an educational video to post on YouTube about anything, I repeat, ANYTHING having to do with the Spanish language. Students can do it on a musician, actor, country, city, movie, song, grammar topic, whatever they fancy. They can do a song parody, a satire of a television show, a mock interview, or even a traditional teacher-centered lecture. The possibilities are endless. And yet, there my students were after being presented about the project, nearly all of them with the same unenthusiastic response to my query.

Normally, I wouldn't think twice about my students' response to the project. I mean, they are high schoolers after all, and apathy seems to be the norm, even in charter schools. However, last week put me in a situation that I had never been in before: A situation of teaching elementary school children. I was fortunate enough to come into contact with one of my professors who needed a Spanish teacher for an eight-week enrichment session from now until winter vacation. I offered my services since my tutoring gig had expired and the fact that I was looking for teaching opportunities outside of my regular day job. Last Tuesday, I taught nine elementary school children from first to fifth grade the Spanish alphabet. We sang songs, made flash cards, and ended up by playing hangman on the board. Here were students who were excited and animated and wanting to learn, even though it was past the end of the regular school day. It was a stark contrast to what I had experienced just hours before with my high school students.

So these two instances got me thinking: What causes excitable elementary school students to become apathetic high school students? For me, the first thing that comes to mind is the peer pressure and adolescent component. Nobody wants to be seen actually "enjoying" school when they get to high school. Even if you do enjoy it, you keep it to yourself and shrug it off if somebody asks you about it. The most important thing is to be accepted by your peers and the only way you can do it is to appear to be just like them. Granted, there are exceptions, but for the most part the idea of having and maintaining an image is most critical to high school students. This is why the prom king and queen are traditionally the star athlete and head cheerleader as opposed to the valedictorian. I don't think I was even more proud of my high school class than on the night of my junior prom where they selected my friend Matt as homecoming king. Matt was a quiet, but academically gifted individual who would go on to become student body president and eventually graduate first in our class before heading to Harvard. Unfortunately, feel good stories like this one seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

The second thing that causes apathy is a lack of choices in high school curricula. This is an ongoing problem especially in today's high-stakes testing environment where electives are often the first thing to go. Imagine how fun high school would be if you could venture out and choose a class you might not have traditionally taken. I remember my freshman year in high school where I had signed up to take a class in small engines technology. I was all set to become the resident mechanic in my household. Unfortunately, as is the case with most of these kind of electives today, the class got scrapped due to low enrollment numbers. Think how great it would be if schools offered classes in drama, art, music, and film. How much more well-rounded would our students be in they had the ability to take a variety of classes before setting foot on a college campus or joining the military or work force? Giving students choice in their classes would help alleviate some of the apathy that eventually rears its ugly head.

The last thing that kills student excitement is the sheer pressure we put on kids starting about halfway through their elementary school experience. Nowhere else in the modern world are students expected to perform well on high-stakes tests at such an early age. Should a third grader's promotion to the next grade really hinge upon how well he or she does on a single year end test? Of course not, yet this is the case time and time again in today's high-stakes testing environment. Whereas once upon a time every hand would shoot up when the teacher asked a question, now only a few of them shoot up as the rest begin to doubt themselves and their abilities for the very first time. Sure you thought you were good in math, but when you got that failing score on the state exam last spring, now you're not so sure. You think you know the answer to the question the teacher is asking but to be safe you just sit back and wait for one of the "smarter" kids to jump right in there. After all, it's a lot safer that way.

There is no doubt in my mind that all three factors are equally important reasons why student excitement levels wane as they get older. One thing I struggle with on a daily basis is trying to get my students to actually ENJOY their learning. Even if they are doing individual work, I encourage them to carry on a conversation with their neighbor. They look at me like I have three heads. The problem is they have all come from environments where the fun has been sucked out of learning. Where test preparation has replaced recess. Where student schedules are set for full years with no other options. Where those that are smart and can critically think are immediately ostracized. High schoolers quite simply have forgotten how to have fun when learning. It's not their fault. They are products of a system that sucks the life out of its students and leaves hollow shells of what the students were when they first started school. Students want to have fun in school. The problem is they have forgotten how. So it is up to us as teachers to reignite that long-lost fire.

Now, who wants to go and make a super fun video?

Money Talks: How Affluent Families Have the Advantage in Today's Public Education

"Your services are no longer necessary..."

The six words that no employee wants to hear. They're the words that sting the soul, words that indicate that despite our best efforts, for some reason or another, we failed. I've heard those words twice before: Once when I was sixteen and working at the local gym. The other time was this past year when my long-term substitute position terminated at the end of the year and there was no permanent position available to me. Each time I could see the logic behind the removal. At the gym, they couldn't afford to keep providing me with a free membership for my otherwise non-paid work. For my previous school, the truth was that staff with seniority were placed ahead of me and there was nothing for me beyond the school year. This past Monday, I heard those nonmagical words for the third time from a woman whose son I was tutoring. The reasons behind my dismal this time are not as clear cut as in previous situations.

Let's start with economics 101. As I often talk about in my blog, there is a tremendous discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots in education. The truth is that money can't buy you happiness, but in this day and age it can buy you opportunity. And nowhere is this opportunity more apparent than in the education field. Think about how many opportunities money can buy you in education. Transportation to and from school and extracurricular activities. Transportation on the weekend to sports events that might earn you a scholarship. Money for field trips, both local and long distance. Computer access at home. SAT prep books, classes, and tutors. College guide books. Money for multiple college applications. And the list goes on.

Despite dedicating my life to helping those students who have had their lives stacked against them by society, I also feel the need to work with those who are more affluent and who do have those opportunities I have mentioned. The reasons for this are twofold. First, it is important for a classroom teacher to be able to work with all students in his or her classroom. I know that working at a start-up charter school, I will be working with the whole spectrum of students, especially this first year. Secondly, I'll be honest: I enjoy making money. Working with the more affluent students outside of school in a tutoring situation gives me the chance to not only enhance by teaching bu also to make a few dollars on the side. Simple theory of supply and demand: There is a demand for language teachers in Southern California and I am part of the supply of teachers in that field. Who am I to argue with basic theories of economics?

So, with that logic in mind I decided to take a tutoring job with a local high school junior. This student was enrolled at a private school about 30 minutes north of his home. The family lived in a nice home in an area that overlooked San Diego Harbor. This student had struggled in Spanish the year before and his teacher recommended that he continue studying the language only if he got a tutor for the upcoming school year. Knowing that competitive University of California colleges and state universities expect three years of foreign language in high school, the student's parents asked around for assistance in Spanish. Fortunately for me, I went to Kenya with another graduate student who is friends of the family and she recommended me. The rest, as they say, is history.

I worked with this student for an hour a week for 4 weeks. There was no question he was bright. Despite "struggling" in Spanish as his mom told me, he still had a B-average. However, that wasn't cutting it and so I was brought in to help raise that B to an A. In working with the student, I noticed he lacked a lot of the foundation needed to be successful in a third year high school Spanish class. We spent a lot of time reviewing material from the previous school year. The structure of the class was one that required a lot of outside studying. I had to convince the student that vocabulary flash cards would help him learn the material in preparation for the weekly quizzes. We went to the classroom website and he learned how to use the links to practice with material that was presented in the notes for the previous day. After 4 weeks, the student still had a B, but his needs had been analyzed and we were ready to move into a positive direction for his upcoming assessments.

Then, I got the ax.

On Monday morning, the student's mother told me that his grade wasn't improving at the rate at which she would have liked. She thanked me for my efforts and told me that the student would take it upon himself to work with the teacher during lunch and after school to try and bring up his grade. This news hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew that we had turned a corner and that the student was on his way to steadily improve. I also found him to be an interesting case study, and in my working with him I was hoping to help lay the foundation for my action research project that I had to do next semester for my last graduate course. I also was disappointed to lose out on the added income that tutoring was bring me. It wasn't a tremendous amount, but in this economy each and every dollar matters and I enjoyed the fact that my gas would be paid for monthly thanks to my new tutoring endeavor.

So why did I get canned? Simple. I didn't live up to the ridiculously high expectations of this family. They assumed that I could somehow and some way make their child an A-student in Spanish class, a class that he had barely passed the year before. This same student also had tutors for both chemistry and algebra as well. Do I blame the family? No. Why not? Because they expect their child to do well. The parents both did well in school and graduated from college. During one of the tutoring sessions, the mother informed me that the tutoring session had to be done in exactly an hour because it was junior college night and they had to return to school for it. That meant two hour-long trips to and from school in the same day, a sacrifice that mom was willing to make. These parents fully expected their child to succeed and end up at a top tier university.

This family is not unique. Not in San Diego, not anywhere. I do not fault this family for trying to help their only child succeed. It's what we all want for our children. It's why my twenty-five year old self has a financial planner as a way to start saving money now so that my children will have all the opportunities I had as a child. And those opportunities were given to me thanks to a super hard-working father. Thanks to his efforts, I had many of the same opportunities that the student I tutored had. I went on the field trips throughout school. I traveled all over New England to play sports. I took an SAT Prep course that raised my score by 150 points. I applied to eleven colleges and universities, writing multiple college essays on the desktop computer in my room. It was never a question of if I was going to college, it was a question of where I would end up. The same can be said for the student I tutored.

I leave you with these thoughts: How can someone from a less affluent home be expected to compete against someone who has had all these advantages? How does a struggling student stay after school if he or she has no ride home? How does the high school athlete with no transportation compete year round against those who travel all over the region for tournaments? How does the elementary school student go to the art museum if his single parent hasn't yet gotten her paycheck for the month? How does the middle school student type up his social studies report if he doesn't have a computer at home? How does the high school student apply to multiple schools if she doesn't have that much money available and doesn't qualify or know about scholarships? How does she get into college with low SAT scores? Does she have any hope for her future?

You tell me.

Kryptonite Revealed: How One City Intends to Defeat "Superman"

This past Friday, the movie Waiting for Superman debuted in selected cities. The documentary follows five students that had negative experiences in public schools and thus turned their attention toward the world of charter schools. The movie is already being met by both praise and criticism, hardly a shock to anyone who has seen how divided our country has become in the past few years. Proponents of the film view it as a realistic showcase of public schooling and its failures. Opponents see the film as unfairly representing public schools and being overly generous toward charter schools. Regardless, there is no denying that there is a great battle taking place between public and private schools today. I know. I'm part of that battle.

I currently am employed at a first-year charter high school in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood of San Diego. We are the product of Dr. Coleman Furr, the founder of the local Coleman University. Dr. Furr wished to start a charter high school in San Diego that would echo what Coleman University stands for: that is, small class sizes, group interactions, and using the latest technology to prepare students for the outside world. The school's charter was approved in early June leaving the leadership team a mere three months to not only recruit students, but also to make sure we had a workable building that was up to code and ready to house up to 120 freshmen and sophomores. By mid-August the staff had been finalized and the team of ten administrators and teachers were brought together and began embarking on the establishment of a brand new charter high school. Despite well-designed marketing and local television appearances, the student enrollment was to only be roughly 35 students. However, these small class sizes combined with a laptop upon entry would give students a unique learning opportunity not available anywhere else in the county.

Then, the shit hit the fan.

The day before Labor Day we were called in for a late afternoon staff meeting. It was revealed that despite doing everything asked of us and going through the proper channels, the city planning office had suddenly deemed our building unfit to house students. This was despite the fact that we teachers had been in the building for over three weeks and had never once questioned the building's safety. Our administrators met with our board members and held an emergency parent meeting. It was decided to start school a week and a half later in hopes that we could get our building up to "code." This "code" required the installation of an interconnected fire alarm system as well as the removal of all classroom doors and hinges. Apparently doors that open inward are not a fire hazard in the business world but are a hazard in the education world. Who knew?

As all this was going on we made contingency plans. Our first day of school involved us being off-campus at a charter school roughly 45 minutes away because you have to open school in a building approved for education and education only. The next day we went on a field trip. On Friday, our computing teacher brought his wireless router on the bus and students collectively wrote a letter to San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders, making him aware of our situation. We then showed up unannounced to the mayor's office and presented the letter. One of the mayor's assistants met with our assistant principal and we were given assurances that the mayor's office had our support. Would Mayor Sanders stay true to his word? Only time would tell.

This past week, we still did not have the needed permit to enter our building and so our "mobile classroom" continued. Each day we scheduled an appointment with city planners but on more than one occasion they refused to see us. Yes, you read that correctly. City planners refused to see a school that needed its approval to let students into the doors. Apparently free, public education is not a priority of the San Diego city planners. We again adapted by going on field trips and providing students with meaningful work on the bus and at home. Friday was a teacher work day to see where we stood in terms of our building permit. As we came in, our assistant principal looked glum. We found out why. The city had thrown a new set of rules and regulations at us before we could open our building. This latest set of guidelines relates to a law that will be enacted in December of 2010. However, they feel that with lag time needed to process all the paperwork, our school should be up to these guidelines. I guess city planners think that they're Superman and can magically rotate the Earth forward to make it three months from now. Mayor Sanders is nowhere to be found.

Our last resort is to now have an independent study for our students for the next three weeks. We will use building space at Coleman University and will work with our students twice a week for individual instruction. We have already lost a few students. We have a building with four ActivBoards, a digital media lounge with a flat screen television, and multiple classrooms ready for use. We have seven teachers who have been working furiously for six weeks to prepare our ever-evolving curricula. We have an administrative team who has gone to bat for us multiple times including our Director of Student Services driving to and from Sacramento in a 24 hour span to demand that the Department of Justice allow her teachers to be fingerprinted so that we would be allowed to teach our students. We have nearly 30 students who have become disillusioned by traditional education and want a place to call their home. They have a home waiting for them on Aero Drive. One that the city of San Diego will not let them enter.

So why the resistance? Who has a vendetta against our school? Why are we being held to a standard that nobody associated with the school has seen in nearly forty years of public education? The answer relates back to the inherent battle of charter versus public school. Our school is a threat to traditional public schools and thus a battle of epic proportions is being waged against us. The fact is, if we are allowed to survive we open up the floodgates to other charter schools who want to convert office buildings to school buildings. San Diego public schools are hurting big time right now. The entire district is in year two improvement. If scores don't dramatically improve (and odds are they won't) then the possibility exists that as many as one-third of the failing schools will have to be converted to charter schools. The district would lose a third of its schools and thus a third of its income. Our little school has become a microcosm for the problems that are plaguing the country's eighth largest school district.

So this is how the Lex Luthor's of public education defeat the Superman charter schools: With kryptonite. The kryptonite in this case is the one unforeseen weakness that we never saw coming: fine print. Legality. Or in our case, non-existent legality. Made up rules. The city planners of San Diego are playing hardball with us. However, they are just pawns in this game. The forces that be are behind them and are those with powerful connections that would lose a lot if we are allowed to succeed. They are proponents of public schools who see the charter movement as a fringe movement. They are firmly entrenched into the ideals and values of their teacher's union. They represent the status quo, something that the very nature of the charter school movement threatens. These are the same people who will inevitably stand outside the theater when Waiting for Superman comes to San Diego. I, for one, will be in line with these people. I will talk to them. I will ask them one question: Is it worth ruining the education of 40 dedicated students and staff members to prove a point?

I can't wait to see how they respond.