Chimaobi’s blog

Our main local newspaper here in Trenton, the Trenton Times, published a piece on my little brother revolving around the fact that this year he was the only Trentonian to graduate from The Lawrenceville School located in a "nicer" part of our county. Defying stereotypes. Go get 'em, little bro. 

A couple days ago a man who works for the Mercer County government was stabbed multiple times in the parking lot across the street from the Mercer County Administrative Building. He'll survive. He's already out of the hospital, actually. The building, unlike most city, county, state, and federal government buildings, is not located in downtown Trenton. It's located around the corner from my house. I can actually see it from my doorway. Take a look: 

Mercer County Administrative Building as Seen From my Doorway

Anywho, immediately following the stabbing county officials and law enforcement agents stepped up security in the area (the parking lot is already under surveillance from a private security firm). When I drove by yesterday on my way to get some medicine for my throat I noticed a Mercer County Sheriff's SUV parked right in front of the parking lot across from the main entrance to the county administrative building. That may deter folk. May not. People have definitely been stabbed and shot to death in front of or across the street from police headquarters, precincts, city hall, etc. in the past few years.

This article from today's Trenton Times about a hastily assembled meeting organized by county officials for county workers was bothering for me as a lifelong Trentonian (don't count college and my time in the south) and neighborhood resident. A few quotes:

                             "One employee said he'd worked for the county for more than 20 years and 

                             never heard of any problems at the lot, making the attack all the more surprising.

                             County officials said they have searched their records and not found any record 

                             of violent crime at the site, though in the past two days a few employees have 

                             reported past incidents officials had not known about."

This neighborhood of South Trenton is def not the most violent part of Trenton, in my opinion. Most Trentonians would concur. Still there was a shooting last week just outside a nightclub down the street from the Mercer County Administrative Building. Also, as you go deeper into South Trenton coming towards my house the neighborhood generally gets progressively poorer and more dangerous. I continue:

                            "I know two people who work with me who have had something said to them (by 

                            strangers in the lot), as have I," one woman told Sheriff Kevin Larkin during the 

                            information session. "After 5 p.m., it's another world."

Another world? Really? Mind you, at 5 p.m. for much of the year it's not even dark yet. Even if it was I could never categorize it as "another world." Perhaps another world from the more idyllic suburbs many government workers who work in Trenton live in. Perhaps. Also, note the fact that both the county executive (essentially the mayor of this county which includes Trenton, Princeton [yes, where the University is], and office buildings or headquarters for various major firms ranging from Merrill Lynch to Bristol Myers-Squibb to Johnson & Johnson) and the county sheriff. The big dogs. One more:

                            "One employee asked whether the county offices could be relocated outside of 

                            Trenton. Larkin said he believed they could not because Trenton is the county seat."

Very disappointing that that proposal is even part of the conversation. Very. Places with comparatively high levels of concentrated poverty and low-quality educational systems where violence is more culturally accepted as inevitable usually are...more violent. Want to fix it? Fix Trenton Public Schools. Hire more Trentonians for jobs in our biggest employment sector: government work. Respond intelligently, creatively, and effectively to crime in Trenton. Take a look at what the county government's response to this lone incident included:

                     * Placing a Mercer County sheriff vehicle in front of the parking lot.

                     * Patching up holes in a fence of the parking lot making it harder to access.

                     * Clearing brush along the back of the lot making it harder for intruders to get in or "lie in wait."

                     * Placement of NEW, DIGITAL CAMEREAS in the lot to replace older cameras that produced "grainy 

                      images."

                     * Closure of a back entrance and pedestrian walkway to discourage pedestrians (note: mostly poor and     

                      working class Trentonians of color) from walking through the lot.

                     * Potentially monitoring the use of the back entrance so people who aren't supposed to be in the lot 

                      aren't in the lot.

                     * Issuance of pamphlets on personal safety to government employees.

                     * Issuance of HIGH-PITCHED MOBILE ALARM DEVICES to government employees.

                     * Reviewing conditions around the administrative building and addressing employee needs in an 

                     adjacent building. 

                     * Cleaning up the county-owned Millyard Park behind the administrative building (apparently, currently 

                     government employees are scared to eat lunch in the tiny park because it has benches and a 

                     fountain...some locals supposedly use the area as an "OUTDOOR SHOWER AND BATHROOM.")

                     * Assigning personnel from the sheriff's department and/or park rangers to monitor the park and having 

                     more concerts in the park to encourage its "proper use."

Whew...did you get all that? Wonder what the response to the shooting down the street was? Oh right. NOTHING AT ALL.

Next school year (2009-2010) I'll be teaching at the KIPP Delta College Preparatory School based in Helena, Arkansas. After two years of teaching at Humphreys County High School I decided that I needed a change. I fully think that KIPP will be a good fit for me since in Humphreys County I often felt like like the outcast OCD teacher working 12-hour days, actually analyzing test data (or even grading tests...I've been laughed at by colleagues for even grading tests or classwork on a number of occassions) and targeting special skills for improvement, and trying unconvential things in the classroom beyond the standard worksheet/comprehension questions classwork and homework model. At KIPP Delta, everybody's like that. At least seemingly.

I'll be teaching two sections of 7th grade social studies in addition to one section of high school journalism. I'll be based at KIPP's middle school under a school director (principal, essentially) who definitely seems like someone who has a potent mixture respect and reverence amongst teachers, staff, and students alike as well as a heartfelt connection to his job coupled with know-how of what everyone under his leadership should be doing to give students the best education posssible. I'll be sending off my signed offer letter today or tomorrow and one part of it that made me a little nervous reads:

                                     "...KIPP Delta may terminate your employment at any time, without
                                      notice, and...you may similarly terminate your employment with KIPP
                                      Delta at any time."

Not that I plan on getting fired from KIPP or that I plan to quit mid-year but since all KIPP schools operate as charter schools seeing the often talked about flexibility that charter school leaders enjoy in black-and-white on something I'm signing is a little scary. When I visited KIPP Delta last Thursday all of the teachers seemed to be enjoying their job, all of the students seemed to want to be there, and academic activities were going on in every classroom I entered. Mind you, it was the LAST DAY. I thought about the differences between the last day there and the last days of school at my alma mater, Trenton High, and how essentially the last three weeks of school attendance would drop below 25% and the last few days of school easily less than 100 students (out of nearly 3,000) would be in attendance. Even at Humphreys County High most students essentially had a free day the last day as most teachers shunned the school's exam schedule and had already given their exams earlier in the week or prior as oppose to on the last two days of school as directed. These were only a few of the differences I noticed.

Another differences I noticed on my visit included how respectful students seemed towards adults and each other. The KIPP motto of "work hard, be nice" seemed in effect all around. Additionally, every student was in uniform (including shirts tucked in and nothing on their body or head that shouldn't be). I can't tell you how much of a problems our uniform policy (more like "suggestions") are at Humphreys County High and how so many of our faculty meetings turn into griping sessions about something needing to be done about students coming to school out of uniform. It may seem minor but students coming to school out of uniform (very often purposely to dress similar to a friend, family member, or signficant other...or just to see what a teacher or administrator will do on THAT day) undermines the concept of having standards, whether behavioral or academic, at school. When this dies down we are on the road to destruction as students know what they can get away with an develop precedents to cite in the old "well, last week ____ didn't wear his or her uniform" that teachers and administrators rarely prevail against.

I'm sure that for now I'm in my honeymoon phase with KIPP and that in time I will develop a more holistic and, potentially (at least in part), critical perspective on the school but I'm happy where I'm at now. Further evidence that KIPP Delta is a real school was revealed when I called my school director yesterday to accept his offer of employment and he started listing things that I should do, documents that I should expect through postal mail, and other things that I should be mindful of immediately. He also told me that he'd need to have weekly, half-hour long phone meetings with me even though I was at home in New Jersey and the first one is today in about...nine minutes. Thus, I will have to cut this post off here and edit it/spice it up later. 'Til then, comrades!

Today, I attended my younger brother David's graduation from The Lawrenceville School. I haven't been to a high school graduation in quite some time. Both of my years at Humphreys County High School I have not attended the graduation ceremony due to my ardent belief that the majority of students who were to have diplomas conferred on them were undeserving. In part through fault of their own, though more egregiously through the fault of the adults around them charged with their educational nurturing and intellectual development. Myself included, at times. Regrettably.

The Lawrenceville School is quite the educational institution. An elite, northeastern U.S. boarding school where my little brother's schoolmates include the family members of royalty, comedic icons, corporate titans, and others. The campus is laid out over 800 acres of prime suburban real estate in beautiful Mercer County (my county!) and Lawrenceville is one of the top feeder schools for the venerable Princeton University just a 10 minute drive up Route 206 past the governor's mansion, Drumthwacket. Students at Lawrenceville enjoy the benefits of a first-rate education fed from an endowment of over $200 million. I can recall conversations with my little brother where I remarked with awe that he should appreciate going to a school such as Lawrenceville where students who are barely teenagers can choose from a wide swath of courses in departments ranging from the staples of History and Mathematics to the specialties of Visual Arts and Religion & Philosophy. It is to be enjoyed, definitely.

The Lawrenceville School

Whenever I visit a school such as Lawrenceville I get reminded of the benefits that accrue from exposure to such a cast of schoolmates, instructors, and administrators who are in touch with the very levers of power of our world. I get reminded that many of the students David went to school with these past years were very different than students I attended high school with less than 10 miles away in inner-city Trenton at Trenton Central High School. For instance, the first student who was honored had a good five minutes of verbal praise heaped on her academic performance, community leadership, and relentless selflessness by the school's headmaster before receiving the first graduation prize of the morning. Another young lady who was honored established an award for a faculty member on campus, led three Hurricane Katrina relief trips, and had over 600 hours of community service under her belt in addition to being in the running for the school's valedictorian. Finally, the valedictorian at The Lawrenceville School was a remarkable young man who amassed 24 A+'s while at Lawrenceville along with several A's and one, lone, embarrassing A-. Similar to what I was inculcated with after I escaped my desperation in Trenton to the luxuries of Harvard, students here are told from Day 1 that they will one day run the world. Surely, this is a scary prospect for students at 13 and 14 just as it was for me at 18. However, tis true.

In thinking of what students at The Lawrenceville School are being set up for I cannot escape looking at students on the other side of the meritocratic coin. Students who are not receiving first-rate educations that carry a price tag of over $120,000 over four years. Students who do not attend schools with students of diverse racial, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds. Students whose campus is full of cracking concrete, cramped classrooms, and misfunded (not underfunded, mind you) facilities in the middle of "nowhere." These students are those who I teach with the Mississippi Teacher Corps. At best, a chunk of the students I teach will get local service industry jobs at small restaurants, catfish plants, or the supermarket. A few will become the top dogs in Humphreys County as teachers or will conjure up the money and determination to leave Humphreys County as so many of them seem to want so badly. Most, however, will join the ranks of the baby mama's and deadbeat dads who drink alcohol more than water and party more than they read changing little of their educational level, socioeconomic status, or weekly habits from the time they're 15 until they're 50.

I am a firm believer that there has to be some way to reconcile these two dichotomies. I'm not sure if I've found the remedy exactly but there is an interesting prospect on deck. More on Tuesday....

On Wednesday afternoon I was running errands around Belzoni when I received a phone call from my high school principal. She asked me where I was and despite telling her that I had already left school she asked if I could return to campus. She needed to speak with me. In person. Now. I turned my car around and drove back to school knowing that such a prompt, unexpected request couldn't be the harbinger of good news.

When I got back to my school, I went to my principal's office only to see that she wasn't there. Our guidance counselor was also there waiting to speak with the principal who she said was in the bathroom at the moment (she has a private bathroom connected to her office). Soon my principal emerged and asked for me to step into her office and shut the door. Once inside she seemed hesitant about what she was going to say and did not make eye contact with me for a while. Eventually, she sat down and told me that the school district will not be offering me a contract for employment next year. As she began to explain how the school district came to this decision she initially stated that the decision was based on budget cuts. Soon this somewhat suspect premise gave way to the true reason for my contract not being renewed: too many students were failing my classes. She stated that she knew that I tried to help my students and that much of the blame for their academic predicament should be placed on them but still, the superintendent felt that this is what is best. She thanked me for my work, stated her belief that I will be a remarkable educator and man, and bid me good afternoon.

I knew this day would come. From my first semester of teaching in Humphreys County when I developed my infamous reputation for having a majority percentage of students fail my class I knew that the upper brass of the school and district did not like the situation. Failing students (sometimes) means angry parents. Angry parents means principals get screamed at in their own offices. It also means that (elected) superintendents lose votes. Not cute. It did not help that that school year, my first in Humphreys County, just happened to be the first year of Humphreys County's embarrassing trek to state takeover. Humphreys County was a priority school which meant that we did not meet achievement goals or show expected academic achievement (as determined by standardized tests). We were a Level 1 school "all of a sudden" after consistently being a Level 3 school. Thus, state auditors were in and out of our school building and school district throughout the year evaluating, interviewing, and observing everyone from the superintendent and school board to the janitorial and paraprofessional staff in an attempt to determine exactly what the heck happened. The grades of my students and the pending massive failure rate was a striking blight that the school and district could not afford. Thus, despite the myriad extra credit/make-up work, parent phone calls and conferences, staying at school for extra assistance until six or seven each night, etc. it was a "teacher problem" that prevented my students from academic excellence, in the words of my superintendent last year.

For me there are two ways to look at this situation. First, the bad. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, despite its plethora of vast "worst in the nation" educational/health/social/racial/economic/gender/etc. issues, I love the Delta. I love Humphreys County. I have strongly considered buying not only a house but land here. If things go as planned this will occur and Humphreys County and the Delta will be forever changed before I'm 40. The plans are in the works. I will truly miss my students that I've formed relationships with here over the past two years. I see myself (or various childhood friends and siblings of mine) in many of them. I've tried to guide them along a positive path both educationally and personally through almost daily outside-of-lesson-plan-but-you-need-to-know-this-or-know-about-this "teachable moments." I've talked about my life and upbringing along with those of my friends quite a bit with the hopes of my students learning from the mistakes that we have made. The easy way. As oppose to making the same mistakes themselves and learning the hard way. Over and above all I have tried to get my students to understand the power that each of them possesses as an individual as well as what they communally possess as a collective. Far too often things just HAPPEN to my students. My grandma took me in. That boy got me pregnant. That dude said something to me first. Mr. Amutah failed me. I strongly believe that the students I've worked with here have great, limitless potential though their work ethic, self-esteem, and access to channels of success are severely lacking. I fear that my aims have not been fully accomplished yet and thus leaving now is painfully disappointing in some sense.

Still, there's the good that comes from this. I feel that, if nothing else, I have made it known to my administrators that I would not bend to their personal and political whims. Playing with students' grades is playing with students' futures. It's the same thing that my former principal and other administrators in my hometown school district are being sued, fired, and blackballed over. Students (and parents) need to understand that they put in what they get out of life and that not everything will be handed to them without attention or effort as easily as EBT cards or "crazy checks." Secondly, I have proven to myself that I can teach. I can even teach in an environment with scarce resources at times (copy paper? dry erase marker? LIGHTS???). Thus, I know that my experiences in Belzoni have prepared for a long-term career in education that can only become easier and more acceptable with time. Finally, I hope that I have challenged my students intellectually and personally more than they have perhaps ever been challenged before. I've posed questions to them that they may have never thought about (i.e. do you support segregation? Why or why not?). I've given them access to people they may have never been able to meet (i.e. a Skype-brokered interview with my mother when talking about push and pull factors imapcting immigration). I have shown them that at 23--or 20 or 16 or 13--they, like me, can be both "mad smart" and "straight ghetto."

As for the next steps for me, I'll still be teaching next year in either Mississippi (preferably north Mississippi) or in the Arkansas Delta. I'll leave you with these words from the Harvard Black Men's Forum shirt I still wear often:

One of my top students turned this in as the beginning to her answer to a question on a take-home essay quiz:

Question #2:
How have African responded to their treatment by European nations?

Response:
Africans have responded to their treatment by European Nations. They came up with a system. The system was called apartheid. Apartheid was a system of legal racial segregation in South Africa. It restricted the lives of Blacks in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.

The system dealt with slavery. It was to stop the whites and blacks from being treated differently. They should be treated equally. The apartheid system was there to help.

Thus my subsequent facial expression.

OMG

OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH!!!!!

That hurts.

Mississippi's Department of Education is in the process of unveiling its new accountability system. It would eliminate the current system of assigning schools a level between one and five (one being assigned to the lowest-performing schools and five being assigned to exemplary schools, as measured by state standardized tests) and would move to give students a score of anything between 0 and 300 based on a school's percentage of students scoring minimal, basic, proficient, or advanced on those state tests. Schools would get one point per percentage of students who score at the basic level, two points per percentage of students who score at the proficient level, and three points per percentage of students who score at the advanced level. No points for the percentage of minimal-scoring students. Thus, the computation looks something like this:
                 

 School score (known as "QDI" or "Quality of Distribution Index" = % Basic + (2 x % Proficient) + (3 x % Advanced) 

For a quality school such as Madison's middle school their 7th grade language arts score would look something like this:

                                                                   231 = 10 + (2 x 40) + (3 x 47)

putting them somewhere in between "High-Performing" and "Star School" (when coupled with other variables that I'll neglect to mention here).

I heard about the system a few weeks ago and read about it in the Clarion-Ledger this weekend (article here) but today our whole faculty meeting/professional development session at the junior high in Humphreys County was about the new accountability system. Our scores look like the following:

                                                                         98 = 35 + (2 x 27) + (3 x 3)

putting us somewhere between "Failing" and "Ya'll are about to get taken over with the quickness per this little ditty" category. Our scores on each test--7th grade language arts, 8th grade language arts, 7th grade math, and 8th grade math--were each below 100. All "Failing."

Our principal asked the faculty about solutions to this crisis and, as always, most teachers essentially threw their hands in the air and complained about their students' inabilities, laziness, focus on sex, etc. Few tangible things we felt we could do. It's late February but we're all already tired as heck. More later....

I still don't paddle my kids AT ALL. Not only am I philosophically against it but anyone at a school where paddling is legal knows that, by and large, it's an effective negative behavior deterrent. The same kids get paddled repeatedly for the same behavioral infractions and some actually come to enjoy the feeling or attention derived from paddling. Weird.

Anyway, apparently Chicago Public Schools is being investigated for hundreds of allegations (many of which have been substantiated) about teacher/aide/coach/principal abuse of students. Here's a news segment about it: