Print
 |
| Salome Thomas-EL: "Let teachers teach." |
Author and Philadelphia elementary school principal Salome Thomas-EL closed out this year's QuEST conference July 10 with a spirited recognition of educators and their ability to challenge and reach their students, even those who come to them from environments where success in school is not a priority.
A former teacher and author of the best-selling book, I Choose to Stay—A Black Teacher Refuses to Desert the Inner City, which is soon to be a Disney movie, Thomas-EL gave a stirring account of how teachers supported and encouraged him--and how that inspired his personal commitment to kids and education. "Don't let anyone tell you that you are not making a difference," said Thomas-EL, citing his own experiences as a Philadelphia public school student. "You changed my life."
Thomas-EL said students and schools would be a lot better off if school districts and governments relied on the talent and experience of educators. "We talk about helping children learn, closing the achievement gap and leaving no child behind," he asserted. The first thing we need to do is "let teachers teach."
Good teachers often bring much-needed discipline and structure to their students' lives--both in and outside the classroom, he said. "[Teachers] who make it easy for [students] now are only going to make it harder for them later in life."
A former member of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Thomas-EL applauded the PFT for "never letting people forget how important teachers are in the lives of our children."
When the Philadelphia educator became a principal, his mother gave him simple advice: "Open yourself up and learn from those old ladies in your school. You can't go in there thinking you have all the answers."
Thomas-EL's criticism of the federal government's failure to fully fund No Child Left Behind brought many in the audience to their feet. "I can't think of why any Democrat or Republican would support implementing these programs and not provide the funding," he said.
 |
| Achievement gap is "nation's greatest social injustice." |
The "unconscionable gaps" in achievement between disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers is the "greatest social injustice" in this nation today, National Teacher of the Year Jason Kamras told QuEST participants at the July 10 closing luncheon. Kamras, who teaches at a middle school in a poor neighborhood in Washington, D.C., and is a member of the Washington Teachers Union, has been credited with reshaping the school's math program to dramatically raise student achievement.
Describing in vivid detail the challenges that face poor children, Kamras noted that these students are seven times less likely to get a college degree and more likely to live in poverty all their lives, lack access to healthcare and to be incarcerated.
"We simply cannot allow this to continue," he told the group. "We weaken our democracy and the future of our nation." Kamras, who holds a bachelor's degree from Princeton and a master's from Harvard, was particularly critical of a system and a society that writes off these children as "unprepared, unequal and undeserving," insisting that students "should only be constrained by their imagination, not their zip codes." This attitude of low expectations, he said, is a "cunning and persistent foe," but he declared his faith in the ability of dedicated, optimistic staff and the students themselves to defeat it.
Kamras noted, however, that it takes extraordinary effort to achieve this. In his own school, John Philip Sousa Middle School, where more than 90 percent of the students live in poverty, Kamras and his colleagues put in 14-hour days that included tutoring before and after school; and they held unflinchingly high expectations "for ourselves and our students." The teachers worked incredibly hard and took full responsibility for their students' achievement, he said. The work paid off: In 2002, the percentage of students at the school who scored "below basic" in math on the Stanford 9 test fell from 80 percent to 40 percent in just one year.
Describing some of his students and how they succeeded despite overwhelming hardships at home, Kamras made the point that as a teacher, he sees these students in personal, real terms, "not just as a few more data points" on a scale. Noting that his school played a historic role in the civil rights movement (Bolling v. Sharpe, the 1954 Supreme Court case that paved the way for the desegregation of all District of Columbia public schools, arose from a challenge to segregation at Sousa), Kamras said he felt his school had a special mission to be an "agent of social change." He unabashedly believes in an ideal, he said, "that my kids can achieve when others cynically do not."
Kamras outlined fundamental principles that he considers essential to tackling the problems of educational inequity. These include maintaining an "unwavering belief" that kids can and must achieve at the highest levels, embracing accountability for students and schools, supporting visionary school leadership, and working for decent healthcare and housing for every child and support for their families. Among the most important, he declared, is redoubling efforts to strengthen the teaching profession and ensure high-quality teachers for these students. "Great teachers," he said, "can wrestle through all the obstacles to reach their children."
 |
| The Parjaro Valley, Calif., team was one of more than a dozen school districts teams attending the conference. |
Ylda Nogueda, assistant superintendent of the Parjaro Valley Unified School District in Watsonville, Calif., wasn't sure what to expect at the QuEST conference, but the experience has proved to be important and valuable.
"I thought we had a strong partnership before, but attending the conference has served to solidify the relationship between the district and the union," says Nogueda. "There is a lot of potential for building a great partnership with the union."
Nogueda was part of an 18-member Parjaro Valley delegation to QuEST that included another district official, the president of the Parjaro Valley Federation of Teachers, and the principals and several teachers from two schools: Freedom Elementary School and E.A. Hall Middle School. The schools, which serve a large number of English language learners, have been designated as program improvement schools under the No Child Left Behind Act.
The Parjaro Valley team was one of more than a dozen groups of union representatives, administrators and policymakers from school districts around the country who this year participated in QuEST as a district team. The "district team" concept is an ongoing and successful component of the QuEST conference that enables the key stakeholders in the district to learn about and consider innovative ideas and programs for their schools back home.
Carolyn Savino, president of the Parjaro Valley Federation of Teachers, put together the QuEST team with the goal of focusing on student achievement. The team turned most of its attention to workshops in the redesigning schools track offered at the conference.
"We will use what we learn like a tool kit to take the schools to the next level," says Savino, noting that having the district as a partner has made the process more productive and less overwhelming. District administrators "are willing to invest the time to produce change and implement the program the best way we know how."
"It's going to be challenging, but working as a team on our common goals will be more helpful," reports E.A. Hall Middle School principal Artemisa Cortez, who plans to meet as soon as they return home with the core group of teachers on the team to set priority goals for their schools.
Don Brown, a science teacher and building rep at E.A. Hall, is more aware of the effect NCLB is having on all schools. "There are a lot of schools like us out there," said Brown. "We're all struggling with how to restructure to meet the needs of our students. It's good not to have to reinvent the wheel."
AFT Online coverage of the QuEST 2005 conference is prepared by the AFT editorial department. Photographs are by Michael Campbell.
