Abysmal Conditions for our Kids: Not Front Page News

They say that teaching is the second most private act in America. As with all quotes in the "they" canon, the original speaker is unkown, at least to me. I heard it for the first time in a class on school reform. In this context, the quote was supposed to illustrate why changing schools is such a difficult process. Teachers are isolated in the classroom; they are attached to, and extremely protective of, the work that they do, and therefore resist change. They barricade themselves in a room and close their ears to external suggestions and offers of collaboration.

This is an impression from way outside any classroom. The reality is that teachers are often isolated in their classrooms not because they are hiding from reform, but because no one else bothers to look in them. Classrooms are not black boxes, they are just ignored. This country claims to care about its children, and makes sweeping mandates to try and quick fix a broken system, but rarely takes a genuine look into a school.

Fortunately, the New York Times bothered to report on what that mysterious six hours per day is like for 3,600 students in Queens. These students are attending a school whose capacity is 1,800. They attend classes in trailers surrounded by chain linked fences. The first lunch period starts at 8:49 a.m. The conditions are nothing short of cruel. As a 16-year veteran teacher put it:

"Who decides to treat people this way? You don’t build a school for 1,800 students and stick nearly 4,000 in it. Why? Who would want to do something like that to other human beings? On purpose.”

Indeed, the situation is baffling. As a person who works in a fairly crappy school, I still find these descriptions shocking. Yet, the injustices students suffer in this school are sitting quietly in the Education section of the Times. This is not front page news; it is accepted, commonplace, ignored. Where is the outrage?!

Perhaps people are not outraged because no one, other than those who are already aware of these conditions, reads the Education section. The first step in any reform effort is getting enough people to recognize that there is a problem. The daily atrocities of inner city schooling have to be common knowledge before they are changed. What this country accepts for its children in the way of an education should be on the front page, every day, until it's fixed. This is a job for all of us who see the insides of schools every day. Write letters to your representatives. Write articles. Take pictures. Make films. Take action! However you do it, make your voice heard!