Why I’m Marching
At the end of this month, I’ll be joining thousands of other teachers for the Save Our Schools March in Washington. People will march for lots of reasons, and you can read some great ones here, here, and here.
I am going to do something I don’t usually do with this piece, and make a rather conservative argument: I’m marching because I don’t have the answer.
I just finished up five and half years of teaching in the Bronx. I joined a school filled with some of the smartest and most thoughtful people I have encountered in the field of education. We were given a blank canvas on which to envision an ideal school. We did a lot of impressive sounding things, many of which worked, others of which failed miserably. Whether or not the school is a success or failure, of course, depends on one’s stance and perception. There were many teachers who felt like the early success of the school were ones only of appearances, where good press and high graduation rates hid a number of foundational problems. But for others (including myself for a long time, though less so recently) we were doing something wonderful in the service of
