First, please allow me to apologize for the lateness of this reply. I was not aware of Mr. Roy Exum’s response to my opinion letter of July 17, 2019 until a few days ago.
Mr.
Exum does make several valid points in his letter dated July 21, 2019, however, there are a few places where he uses quotation marks as a way to add emphasis to the point he’s making. To the casual reader, and especially to a reader unfamiliar with my July 17th letter, the proximity of these quotes could easily be mistaken for my words instead of Mr. Exum’s. Please let me be perfectly clear, I am not in any way accusing Mr. Exum of trying to misattribute statements to me. I am fairly certain, as I have already stated, that Mr. Exum was merely attempting to use the quotation marks as points of emphasis and nothing more.
The first place where this occurs is in paragraph two, where Mr. Exum states, “No, Kendra is writing to all of us, her experience wide in buying classroom supplies with her own money, taking home mounds of silly paperwork, and enduring even dumber visits from those “in the central office” who she knows are the furthest thing from “an expert” that you can imagine.”
Now, in the first half of that sentence, Mr. Exum hit the nail on the proverbial head so well I briefly wondered if we had met at some point, but by the second half of that same sentence, he had gone completely rogue. I don’t consider visits from those in central office as “silly.” In fact, I wish they could find more time to visit classrooms. I also absolutely do consider them experts. Any person in HCDE’s central office with reason to visit classrooms also has extensive classroom experience themselves. Why wouldn’t I want them to visit classrooms?
Mr. Exum then righted things when he started calculating what a 2.5 percent salary increase actually amounts to for most teachers (he used a gallon of gas in his example, but gas prices are down at the moment so I don’t think he’d mind me pointing out that it would still be considerably less than a gallon of milk, instead). He was spot-on correct when he said teachers’ lives don’t just stop because school isn’t in session. I might be a ten month employee but I have to pay my mortgage and everything else all 12 months of the year just like everyone else. His embarrassment over this is more than justified.
He also accurately points out that every adjacent county in both Tennessee and Georgia offers both better benefits and better pay. Competitive pay, good working conditions, and a supportive community go a long way toward attracting the best teachers. Why some seem to take issue with that is truly beyond me.
Since the time of both my original letter and Mr. Exum’s, the state lifted the embargo on test scores, and many in our area learned that most of our district’s teachers were indeed excelling. Now, most of us have been here for a while. So why the upswing in scores in the past few years? Was it that with the new leadership in our central office, things have streamlined? Was morale was up? Energy better focused? Appropriate supports being implemented where they’re most needed?
The answer is, “All of the above,” and more.
Unfortunately, this brings us to the point where Mr. Exum and I wave a friendly farewell and get on completely opposite trains. It is at this point in his writing that Mr. Exum explains his perspective on what he refers to as “poverty experiments.” It just so happens I have some real world experience as both a student living in poverty and a teacher of students of poverty. Obviously, I think I have some valuable insights to offer here.
My childhood was spent in poverty. And by poverty I don’t mean we made our own clothes and ate meatloaf a lot. We ate government cheese and stood in line for shoes. In fact, we were homeless, and more than once. If it hadn’t been for friends and family taking us in, I can only assume my mother would have been forced to turn to a homeless shelter or having us sleep in the car. We were on food stamps back when they came in the little coupon book. Our medical and dental care was obtained from the sliding scale clinic on Dodson Avenue. Props to Dr. Richardson for always being kind, courteous, and thorough, but I’m almost 45 and still have dental phobias that were born in those offices. Our near brushes with local homeless shelters would come to an end when we were granted public housing, but even then, this was only because our application was expedited due to our homeless status.
I was the little girl in school without clothes that fit, or that weren’t always washed. If they were ever ironed it would be news to me. My hair was often unbrushed. This was so severe that large, tangled knots would build in the back of my head until they had to eventually be cut out. I was on free and reduced lunches at a time when they called your name over the intercom to come and pick up your lunch ticket (that was a wildly different color than the rest) and to top things off, I attended one of the most affluent elementary schools in Hamilton County at the time.
See, we were zoned for a “city school” back then and my mother wasn’t having any of that. She used my grandparents address and sent me, disheveled as I was, to a county school. And just in case you’re wondering, yes, it was a nightmare. Kids were just as cruel back then as they are today.
From the outside looking in, I was a lost cause, but there were a few who thought otherwise…
Mrs. Janice Payne, who didn’t care how poor I was or how bad things were at home. She took my recess for not doing my homework just like she did everyone else, then came and sat under the tree with me and said, “Now, which part don’t you understand?”
Mrs. Inez O’neal, who made me go wash my face when I started experimenting (quite poorly) with makeup and then took me shopping at J.C. Penny for a winter coat. It was long and purple and I loved it. It was also the first time I’d ever been inside the mall.
Mrs. Susan Surratt, who recently passed away but taught me a love of grammar and the written word. Long live sentence diagrams!
Ms. Deborah Dunnigan, whose Algebra class I failed first semester and then had to go to summer school (during which I also got chicken pox and had to hide them) but I learned how to tackle advanced math because of her.
Mrs. Alice Hageman, who announced to the class that I had the “soul of a poet” which mortified me to the point of wanting to hide under the table. But inside I beamed with pride.
Mr. Morris, whose first name escapes me right now, who taught me to love Gulliver’s Travels and MacBeth all in the same year.
The list could go on, but all of these teachers had one thing in common. They simply believed I was worth it.
Since becoming a teacher myself, I’ve garnered about a decade of experience in inner city classrooms. Another year of experience as a behavior interventionist in Washington State on a Native American Reservation (an experience in generational poverty even greater than my own). And a couple of years in suburban classrooms much like the ones I was taught in, where I am now. One thing I’ve learned is that poverty is everywhere, even in affluent schools. It’s raw and it’s ugly and it’s painful, no matter your zip code.
But teaching in the high priority schools that Mr. Exum refers to is a lot like trying to stand in the surf as choppy waves are rolling in. You feel your feet sinking deeper into the sand, shifting and becoming unstable. But you don’t dare adjust and try to get them on firmer ground, because the waves are coming too fast and you’ll be knocked completely off balance. Eventually, you have no choice. You adjust. And in those two seconds a wave crashes into you, taking your breath and leaving you sputtering. The needs in high priority schools are like that. So all-consuming that in the single second you’ve solved one problem, another one has taken over.
You see, you don’t make advances in the surf in huge strides. It’s a half a step at a time. One shuffling movement after the other. One step forward, two steps back. But every shuffle forward is one kid who will escape poverty because of education.
Mr. Exum claims that “more millions isn’t the answer” and he might very well be right. Early in my teaching career I heard a school principal say, “We can’t say to this group of kids, ‘Your parents are involved and supportive so you get a good education.’ And then to this group of kids over here, ‘Your parents don’t support you in school, so you don’t get a good education.’” And I agreed with that principal’s statement back then just as much as I do today, but I’m no closer to figuring out how to make that a reality for every kid in poverty. For kids of poverty, the family unit is so stressed or so broken that everything else is secondary. How do teachers overcome that in a way that it’s seen by those outside education? On standardized tests? I honestly have no idea, and I’ve lived it. The only thing I know to do is exactly what I’ve been doing. One kid today, two tomorrow. Rinse, lather, and repeat.
The question now facing Hamilton County voters is, “Are they worth it?”
I can’t answer that for everyone, but I can answer for myself. And the answer is a resounding yes.
Statistics tell us that the number of people age 25 and older without a high school diploma, living in a home that participates in the medicaid program is almost twice as high as those with a high school diploma. The number of people age 25 and older without a high school diploma, living in a home that participates in the food stamp program is more than twice as high as those with a high school diploma. And the percentage of those 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree living in a home receiving food stamps? Just one percent. (Sources: U.S. Census Bureau and CollegeBoard)
You see, we’ve known the solution to poverty for a long time. It’s education. Unfortunately, education isn’t cheap. Not if you want to do it right.
I believe our kids, in every school, are worth the investment. And that’s exactly what education is - an investment in our future and in our children. I hope voters in Hamilton County will reach out to their elected officials, both now and in the future, and tell them they think our kids, and our teachers, are worth it, too.
Sincerely,
Kendra Young