This final project, and this semester, has been an eye-opening experience. I was born and raised in New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina. To this day, I have memories of the days and weeks leading up to the storm, and the days and the months that followed. I went to the neighborhood elementary school, Ray Abrams. I remember the songs and raps we sung and chanted for preparation for standardized tests. On the same coin, I remember the teacher who was so pressured to ensure student performance was high, that the teacher gave students, including me, the answers on the LEAP test. Looking back, I was one out of tens of thousands of students that entered that classroom, and that would be taught by that teacher. But, unlike the other students in that classroom, I would have a different future.
It’s through this class that I realized the value of students who sit in urban classrooms. They are not just students who can’t seem to understand math, and science, and reading; they are products rendered by governmental policies that funnel students into a school-to-prison pipeline, or ensure that the only job they will ever have will be a minimum-wage one. The state has been consistently ranked either 49th or 50th in reading and math. To see the issues that cause these problems has been awakening.
Aspiring to be a future politician one day, it was interesting to see the role that local and state government plays in urban education in New Orleans. The problems that are faced by urban education are so complex. For a southern city like New Orleans, they have historical racial roots that still manifest today. Before this class, and a few years earlier, I would have said that race in this country doesn’t exist. I would have argued that it is up to each student to determine whether or not he or she wants to succeed; I would have said that I believe that there is nothing in this world that can stop anyone from achieving the American Dream. But oh, was I wrong. There is one thing that blocks anyone from achieving the American Dream: education. And because of this class, and this project, I have seen how people in power have tried to systematically undermine the public education system.
With white flight and residential segregation, cities are left underfunded and underdeveloped. These policies coupled with low tax revenue by cities keep education funding in the cities at a minimum. When Jim Crow and legal racism was over, and when African Americans emerged in positions of power, it was thought that a restoration would come to the black community, with increased resources and opportunity. But instead, we have seen the very opposite. We’ve seen more poverty, and more restricted opportunity. But it would take a dummy to immediately blame black politicians, and ultimately the black community. What’s going on in African American communities around the nation is what I call racial isolationism. It’s the idea that legally, there’s no forced segregation, but a layer of oppression still exists because the windows of opportunity are narrow.
It was interesting to see how Democrats and Republicans both praised the idea of charter schools, touting the success of New Orleans as a model for the nation. It’s a sad day to see people actively exploit low-income people who often don’t have the agency to move forward.
I learned that urban education is messy; there is no one-size fits solution, because let’s face it, urban education deals with the most diverse component of society: people. There are so many needs that exist within urban schools. It’s more than white students or black students or Asian students, it’s immigrants from West Africa who have strict religious convictions, it’s students with special needs who need one-on-one teacher attention and encourage, it’s students who need teachers who will actively care for them and do everything in their to see their success. Instead of focusing on the history of racism in this country, and how government has manufactured the fall of urban education, we should now look to solving these problems.
One of the most encouraging things that I learned through this project is that someone actually gives a flip about the lives of students in New Orleans. There are people who expect more from their government, and expect more from their schools, because they want to see their students succeed. There are community organizers, parents, advocates that are engaged in sending a message to education policymakers.
Along with these parents, organizers, and advocates are teachers who carry expertise and the knowledge about how to teach in urban schools. This project, and this class, showed me we couldn’t blame teachers for the poor performance of urban schools. Teachers who taught in schools in New Orleans can be compared to a pastor preaching a message without the Bible. Contrary to the belief that’s thrown around in political discourse, teachers care about students, and are not after sitting and collecting a paycheck. And that’s inspiring to see; when teachers are committed, and when parents, and community organizers are involved, we can see true change come about for urban education.
Most importantly, this project taught me to never give up. Seeing the amount of community organizing and seeing stories of kids and teachers in some of the best schools shows me that change is incremental. Unlike the Recovery School District, students, and parents don’t need a phenomenon like Hurricane Katrina to bring about change; they foster change by actively protesting and recommitting their lives to the students. Urban education is perhaps one of the most pressing issues of our time, and certainly this website, or this reflection, addresses the many issues that face urban education. Continue to research, and continue to listen to stories people have about their schools and their school districts. And most importantly, like I’ve learned through this project, continue to care about something that looks irreparable but is constantly making incremental process every single day.
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[Photo]. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from: http://apps.npr.org/the-end-of-neighborhood-schools/