Poverty and education reform — and those caught in the middle
Glendalys Delgado and her sons, Carlos, 12, and Juan, 7. (Photo by Sarah Garland)
On an unseasonably warm evening last November, Glendalys Delgado lowered herself into a child-sized chair in the classroom of her youngest son, Juan, a second-grader at Thomas Dudley Elementary School in Camden, New Jersey. Juan’s teacher, Shakira Wyche, sat next to her looking serious.
“You’re going to be a little upset,” Wyche told Delgado as she held up Juan’s report card. A line of Fs trailed down the page. Juan is “very intelligent,” perhaps the smartest in the class, the teacher said, but he refuses to