The Washington ROAST

Five months after the Roaming Roaster sat at a messy kitchen table, talking about teaching over a cup of coffee, the pioneer trip has happened. We ventured into the nation's capitol to talk to a few Washington DC teachers. Here's the story...

After one of the driest three months in New England history, torrential, wind-whipped, downright biblical rain graced the Northeast just in time for our car trip. Squinting into the night, the windshield wipers played metronome for our interior thoughts. Was this a good idea? Would anyone want to talk to us? Would we learn anything? Shouldn’t I be lesson planning?

By the time we pulled into the parking lot of a particularly shabby looking Econo Lodge somewhere in New Jersey, I was too tired to think about my classroom or anyone else’s. Having visited four other hotel lobbies in search of a deal, this Econo Lodge was both our last hope and quite possibly the worst deal in the state of New Jersey. Yet, we were tired, and grumblingly accepted the abysmal state of disrepair, funky smell, and ornery concierge. Room 116, at nearly 3 in the morning, couldn’t be that bad.

At 7 am it became clear, through trial and error, that the shower in room 116 did not function. The second visit to the concierge was no more pleasant than the first. He slid the key card to room 218 across the desk without a word. Apparently the old E.L. has frequent shower problems. This seemed a perfect metaphor for public education. Everyone knows there are rooms with working showers and rooms with broken showers. And yet people are still sent to rooms with broken showers! They are only exonerated from such conditions when they leave their rooms at 7 am, march through the halls in their pajamas, and advocate for themselves.

The ROAST was to be held at a teacher’s house just outside the city. Which was fine because after dropping so much money at the Econo Lodge we couldn’t afford to be buying a bunch of people coffee. When we knocked on the door an exuberantly barking dog who, as many small dogs do, assumed its size to be much more threatening than it was. Our host teacher, Ashleigh, introduced herself while restraining the dog. This relaxed everyone considerably.

Ashleigh, a science teacher, had recruited two math/science teachers, from two different schools in the city. Given that this was our first ROAST, that it was Saturday, and that nobody had a clear understanding of our objective, three teachers was plenty satisfying. A product of a liberal arts undergraduate education and a master’s program in education, I am unaccustomed to dealing with math/science people and/or male teachers. Indeed, math and science teachers seem to be in desperately short supply across the country – just look at NYC’s recent monetary incentive program for math/science teachers. And anyone who's ever gone to a graduate school of education knows that the teaching population is overwhelmingly female. All this to say, Ashleigh's recruits represented a refreshing point of view.

Of the things I feel compelled to mention, I will start with the one I find particularly insane. There were plenty of issues I was prepared to hear about. I don’t want to say that I was hoping to hear about issues I hadn’t thought of, because that would be like wishing ill upon these schools, but I was hoping to broaden my perspective and challenge my comfortable understanding of schools that is informed by the district in which I work and very few others. I was also hoping to never write annoyingly long run on sentences, but, hey, life is weird. So anyway. I can remember one of the best differences between high school and middle school was the choice factor. In high school I finally enjoyed a modicum of empowerment in the annual decision between Bio and AP Bio or Pottery vs. Journalism or when to take all of the Math classes I needed or how to creatively avoid Mr. Hynek’s class or whatever. This decision making process played an invaluable role in my education. Not only did it increase my sense of investment in my own education, it prepared me to make similar decisions in college. It gave me a powerful sense of autonomy, and tied my adolescent search for identity to my education – the classes I took, at least in some capacity, helped define me. Education wasn’t marginal to my life; it was fundamental.

All this background to lead here: during the summer at this particular DC school, the principal creates class schedules for the entire school. The students are handed their classes in September. They have no choice, no registration period, and sometimes realize, far too late, that they do not have the right combination of courses to graduate. Why? Because there are two guidance counselors for 800 students and the guidance counselors are on 10 month contracts. So even if they could counsel 400 students each as to what classes they should choose, they wouldn’t be around during the summer to work out the logistics. These two providers of guidance being the counselors dubbed, by the principal of one DC school, “The worst in the city.” How can this go on, you ask?! Well, it’s all about priorities. It isn’t a district priority to fund new counselors, because eight DC schools just got new football fields last year – the new Superintendent was there to cut the ribbons. It isn’t a counselor priority, the counselor’s can’t do it over the summer because their 10 month contract is protected by the union. It isn’t the teachers’ priority, because the feeder school sends in a bunch of “behavior problems” and behavior management proves a more pressing topic of conversation. The students’ having a voice in their educational destinies at this school just isn’t something that warrants a huge change in the school’s policies and procedures. And no one is motivated to address it.

Moving on.

All three teachers were products of The New Teacher Project’s DC Teaching Fellows program. Like it or not, all teacher recruitment programs need to be measured against the colossal and seminal beast, Teach For America. What DC Teaching Fellows attempts to do, that TFA does not, is recruit mid-career professionals to the field, place them, and keep them in a specific underserved district. Thus, TNTP has Teacher Fellows programs in cities such as New York, New Orleans, and Oakland. Here’s a mnemonic for you who are unfamiliar with the programs: TFA = come in straight from college, stay just two years, gain a little knowledge, and promptly disappear. Teaching fellows = pick up and leave your career, you can teach and we can train you, you'll be certified after two years, and then your school better retain you. Got it?

The problem is, the mid-career folks weren’t biting, so DC Teaching Fellows ended up with the fresh out of college population as well. Still, from our limited sample, it seems like they are staying in teaching (if not in the cities where they trained) for longer than two years. What they aren’t doing very readily is staying within the district. In Ashleigh’s case, she may be leaving the district when her husband accepts a new job in a new state. While she would not be leaving teaching, she feels like this will amount to starting from scratch. She will leave the support network that DC Teaching Fellows provides, and will be totally isolated in a new district.

All three agreed that as new teachers in a district where they HAD the support of the Fellows was hard enough. Figuring prominently in their dialogue was the battle between new and old. The schools seem to have no middle ground in terms of veteran and new teachers. Half of the faculty is within its first three years, and the other half has been there for 15 years or more. The frustration seemed to stem from a variety of issues. First, turnover. The older teachers had seen crop after crop of new teachers start, quit, and get replaced. This cycle left them unwilling to invest the time in real mentoring, and the new teachers feel as if they are treated dismissively. Second, resources. The faculty is in competition for limited resources. If a teacher receives a box of Expo markers other teachers pounce with questions and accusations, assuming that the supplies were gleaned through some underhanded method or that favorites are being played. No one said it, but we all stopped to appreciate the complete dysfunction of a system in which teachers don’t collaborate well because they are clawing for largely unavailable classroom supplies. Third, philosophy. All three teachers could readily identify veteran teachers whose methods weren’t effective. Though I’m not a betting educator, I would put a large sum of money on the wager that the older teachers considered their methods time-tested and the methods that, over time, the new teachers would come to recognize as best practices. Regardless of which side’s methods are more effective, this divide throws a wrench into collaboration. The administration at one school actually mandated collaboration time, in the mornings, which all teachers agreed was futile. One teacher mentioned that most of his colleagues “Brought a laptop and did their own thing.”

The problem seems unbelievably complicated. And I haven’t even mentioned race yet. Everyone run and hide! Race! Yes, the divide between new and old teachers is compounded, in both schools, by a racial divide. The newer teachers are overwhelmingly white, the older teachers overwhelmingly African American. And the student population feels a divide as well, between African Americans and African immigrants. And the African immigrant students are treated differently than the African American students. And the life sciences teachers are black and the physics teachers are white. And the physics teachers are accused of getting more supplies than the life sciences teachers – but nobody wants to address potential racist undertones. It goes on and on. Not to mention, which no one did until I asked, the demographics of the student bodies in these schools. Each school had two or three white children. And we all just nodded, because segregation isn’t a word many people say anymore, but it seems to be a reality people continue to accept. The room, populated by five white people and a dog, is getting warm. Nobody likes talking about it.

I ask, “Do you have this conversation at school?”

That option was so ludicrous, so impossible, so otherworldly, that I felt silly for asking it. The divide between new and old was a taboo topic, never mind the divide between black and white, or black and African.

The solution, I propose, is not JUST a conversation - but a conversation would be a great place to start. Not a conversation in a safe room full of white liberal young people. Not a conversation full of African immigrants. Not a conversation between all veteran teachers, all black teachers, all science teachers, all ex-musician freckled accounting teachers named Sally, all anything! No one is going to get anywhere by staying comfortable. And if something is never said, its existence becomes questionable. Things that don’t exist (like, oh I don’t know, segregation) are pretty hard to fix.

While these teachers couldn’t imagine talking frankly in a staff meeting, they did suggest bringing in external mediators to act as neutral facilitators. They felt, justifiably, that an unconnected and unbiased outsider facilitating genuinely open and safe meetings (with, gasp, agendas and a stated purpose) could open up the lines of communication. So, vast and dedicated readership, get it started! Book a conference room at the Econo Lodge! Stop talking about the real and important stuff only in the safe places – if it’s something you’ve never tried, it might just be the solution.