The Price of Equity

Since my first year as an educator, I have taught the Teacher Cadet classes at my high school, classes which spurred me to become a teacher at this very high school when I was a teenager.  Although I celebrate the fact that fifteen of my former students in these courses are currently studying to become public school educators in North Carolina, a recent revelation on how I approach the class makes me believe that I can increase this number tremendously.  


Each semester, students in Teacher Cadet come in with a vague understanding of what teaching really entails or how what happens in their daily classes relates to a larger, global picture.  Many are stunned when I show graphics and quote statistics about how far behind our country is in terms of educating our citizens.  While it may appear that the only reason I would do this would be to deter their eager ambitions about becoming teachers so that they will drop the course and thus lower the number of students I am responsible for on a daily basis, this is absolutely not the case.  For the past three years, I have used this information as a springboard for motivation.  Coming from a family who wanted me to pursue something besides teaching because I was "too smart" for such a low-paying profession, I want my students to know that this challenging career demands creative, passionate, brilliant individuals to serve our nation's youth and work towards overcoming our obstacles.  However, I realize now that I have been completely selling our great nation and the teachers who tirelessly serve it short.


Insulting statistics about our nation's schools and teachers are every where, and have been for decades. Even twenty years ago, critics were so disgusted with our school systems that they tenaciously questioned the effectiveness of public education in America. A columnist for The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, one of the oldest and most respected journals of liberty in America, wrote, "We not only fail to hold individual students accountable for poor performance, we have also failed to hold the entire government-controlled school system accountable for its performance since at least WWII. Public education is itself a failure. Why shouldn't individual students follow its example," (Hood, 1993).

A year ago, a contributor to The Atlantic, in an article entitled, "The Failure of American Schools" wrote, "While America's students are stuck in a ditch, the rest of the world is moving ahead. The World Economic Forum ranks us 48th in math and science education" (Klein, 2011). In December, USA Today reported that, "Nearly half of America's public schools didn't meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Law took effect a decade ago," (Jones, 2011).

Who would want to pursue a career in education with such disheartening information on the table? What teenager or college student wakes up one morning and decides his or or dream is to work for a failing company or outdated industry? None that I know of. Maybe the number of students who wanted to become teachers in my classes would increase if I stopped painting such a dismal picture of the career.  

The mistake I have been making for the past three years as a novice teacher is that all of the studies and statistics which deem our nation's education system as falling behind completely leave out the fact, for the benefit of the general public, that we are the only country on earth who requires that all of our children will be educated to a certain point.  This includes our disabled, our poor, our homeless, our speakers of other languages, and perhaps most importantly, our unwilling.  


Many critics of American public schools constantly compare our "scores" with those of Finland, a country which boasts consistent teacher retention and high student achievement.  But, those critics fail to mention that Finland has one of the highest gross domestic products in the world, and a much lower rate of diversity (racial and socioeconomic) among its citizens than the United States.  We should applaud and research their strategies for achieving a 100% literacy rate among their people; however we should also recognize that the needs of our country's citizens are different than those of Finland's.  Just as teachers disservice their students by not differentiating instruction to suit their individual needs, critics disservice the American public school system by dryly comparing the United States of America to other countries and assuming our educational needs are the same.  

Is "falling behind" a fair price to pay for shooting for the moon?  For being determined to educate our entire nation, despite how impossible it may be?  To give each child an equal chance to achieve the American Dream?  To care enough about our children to make sure they don't end up begging on our streets?  Yes, it is, one million times over, and anyone who values "achievement" over equity need not be working in or criticizing public education as this value epitomizes the very beliefs on which our great nation was founded.  

Ironically, as I have an epiphany on how to develop pride within the eager, energetic hearts of my pre-service teachers, I find something equally disheartening; funding for the Teacher Cadet program was removed from our state's budget for the upcoming fiscal year.   While my  district's superintendent and school board members have personally assured me that if this program must be cut from our curriculum because of a lack of funding that it will be one of the "last things to go," I still fear that North Carolina's dream of  "growing our own," that is, current teachers developing the next generation of teachers, will die; I may not have many more chances to help change the misconceptions of education in the United States to the most important audience of our nation's future, our next generation of educators.  


For more information about the current state of the NC Teacher Cadet program, contact the program coordinator, Marca Hamm at marca@ncteachercadet.org.

References
[Teacher Cadet logo] n. d. Retrieved from http://hthspcs.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_3732911/Image/NCteach.jpg
[The U. S. is Falling Behind graphic] n. d. Retrieved from http://studentsfirst.org/page/-/images/Dec%202011%20Annual%20Report/usa-is-falling-behind.jpg
[American flag and statue of liberty] n. d. Retrieved from http://familyonbikes.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/american-flag.jpg
[One hundred dollar bill cut] n. d. Retrieved from http://coolhandeducation.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/0cut.jpg
[Finland's flag] n. d. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/flags/large/fi-lgflag.gif
Hood, J. (1993, February). Freeman online. Retrieved from http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/the-failure-of-american-public-education/
Jones, B. (2011, Dec 15). Usa today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-12-15/schools-federal-standards/51949126/1
Klein, J. (2011, June). The failure of american schools. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/06/the-failure-of-american-schools/8497/