Since I live in DC, the Baltimore protests, being less than an hour away, were a very real thing. First off, I know that whole situation has kind of blown over, but I’ve just come across a few articles that bring it up for me again in my mind. I found an article about David Simon, the creator of The Wire, the HBO show about crime in Baltimore. That show is most people’s first connections to Baltimore who live outside the city. Whenever somebody mentions Baltimore, I think of McNulty having his kids play front ‘n follow in the fish market and Omar whistling a tune while he walks the streets with a shotgun under his trench coat. Second, I’ve come across some articles criticizing Teach for America teachers for getting involved and leading protests in Ferguson, Baltimore, and other areas.
Let’s start with David Simon on Baltimore. (It’s a long article, but worth the read. Fascinating.) Simon used to be a cop and then ended up writing some of the best police shows on television, including The Wire. So he has his own experience and then he has the testimonies and experiences of other Baltimore police officers who felt very comfortable sharing when he was just a TV writer. The article mostly focuses on what Simon calls the death of “real policing.” Essentially, crime in Baltimore got bad, so the police were told to decrease crime and do it quick. It just so happens I just finished watching season 3 of The Wire where this actually happens. The police commissioner tells everyone to get rid of crime in their areas, and he doesn’t care how they do it. So Major Colvin, wanting to do real police work, which means actually investigating the big crimes instead of chasing down corner kids, decides to create Hamsterdam—a police-free zone. Dealers and addicts are welcome to do whatever they need to do in that zone and the police will look the other way, as long as the corners stay empty. After talking about how people get by the no drinking of alcohol on the street by putting bottles in a paper bag, Colvin persuades his officers to his cause by saying, “There’s never been a paper bag for drugs.” Hamsterdam is the paper bag he creates. And the number of violent crimes goes drastically down. And the police chief asks, “How did you do it?” But in the end, he really doesn’t care. He’s just interested in the results, not the process.
I couldn’t help but think of Hamsterdam while reading Simon’s thoughts on the current situation of Baltimore. He states, “actual investigation goes unrewarded and where rounding up bodies for street dealing, drug possession, loitering such – the easiest and most self-evident arrests a cop can make – is nonetheless the path to enlightenment and promotion and some additional pay.” In other words, the only way for cops to get recognition and congratulations from the higher-ups is to make the most arrests. The easiest way to make lots of arrests are to round up people for street dealing, drug possession, and loitering. In fact, Simon says that police would play with the data in order to figuratively create these drastic drops in violent crime: “How better than to later claim a 30 or 40 percent reduction in crime than by first juking up your inherited rate as high as she’ll go. It really was that cynical an exercise.”
So what I’ve learned about Baltimore is that its concerned with changing the numbers as soon as possible with whatever means necessary, but not actually figuring out why the numbers are there in the first place. Why are these people involved in the drug trade? Why are these kids choosing to sit on the corners instead of going to school? Let’s tackle those issue first before pulling kids off of corners and shoving them into vans for a rough ride.
And this makes me reflect on my teaching experience because the majority of higher-ups are concerned with getting the desirable numbers, too. At my school, they were recited on the announcements every morning: “Every day is 90-60-30. 90% of our children will be in attendance. At least 60% of our children will receive proficient on their end of course exams. And our students will receive at least a 30 on the ACT.” That is the goal, and it is ideal, but that’s just it. The numbers are ideal.
I wish I could wave a magic wand and poof! My kids would be able to live up to those numbers. Maybe even we give them this different standardized test, they’ll do better. Let’s do PARCC instead. This happens with Common Core. 48 states adopted Common Core standards, but then they had them for a year, saw that kids did worse and decided to take them away so their numbers would fair better. But really kids were like, “What are you making us do? We’ve never had to do it before!” The change wasn’t quick enough, so we need to do something more drastic. The nation’s graduation were reported to be in the high 80%, but those graduation rates don’t take into account the students who said they would enroll in homeschool but never did, or the ones who got deported.
And I get angry—angry that we keep trying to find the path of least resistance, and it doesn’t work. We have to stop manipulating the numbers and start looking at the root cause of the problem. And the problem is systematic.
Which brings me to my next topic about articles criticizing TFA teachers getting involved. Michelle Malkin describes TFA teachers in the New York Post as “militant” and “peace-loving instigators.” I’m only offended by the first term, but what offends me about her article is this statement: “Teach For America has transformed itself into a recruiting center for militants bent on occupying themselves with anything other than imparting knowledge and academic excellence to children in the classroom.”
My response?
You bet I do.
You bet we’re concerned with teaching our kids knowledge other than academic excellence. Yes, I’m no longer in the classroom, but you bet that I think about those kids every day. I don’t focus on how I could’ve taught Algebra better. I think about the ways I could have better equipped my kids to tackle the world around them—a world in which the majority of people still, even after everything, judges them by the color of their skin and not by the contents of their characters. You bet that when I reunited with some of my kids after a few months apart, I didn’t ask them “remember how to write that speech?” I asked them to tell me about progressive tax law, why they’re interested in it and why that’s important, whether there were any more shootings or robberies in the neighborhood. I wanted to know whether they were safe.
I’m going to amend Ms. Malkin’s statement to say that TFA has become a center for recruiting people that give a shit about the world. I’m the first to talk about the faults of TFA, but teaching its corps members to question the status quo and supporting them when they act for social justice is not one of them.
There’s Never Been a Paper Bag for Drugs
thelongwayaroundmylife 